Palace of the Amazon Queen

It avoided her spearhead, but caught another arrow as the price. This one struck its eye, only to be defeated by the demon's clear eyelid that snapped up to deflect the arrow. Bromm danced around the creature, slashing at its calves with his blade. The monster's motions were becoming increasingly frantic. It snatched at Kannitara's spearhead, narrowly missing the weapon with its claws. Then it whirled on Bromm just in time for an arrow to strike and deflect off its bony skull. Bromm tried to back out of its reach, but that horrible tongue came for him again.

He took it full in the chest, the breath being blasted from him by the impact. The sticky appendage wrapped itself around his chest, but Bromm fought his arms out of its grasp. As the tongue began to retract, its progress was halted by Kannitara driving her spear into the back of the monster's wounded knee. It roared in pain and Bromm slipped from its grip. The monster whirled on Kannitara as it had whirled on Bromm and its tongue leaped out again. The queen, backing away from its grasping claws, was caught firmly. Her arms pinned to her side, she was helpless in its grasp.

Sticky toad spittle clung to his naked body and the stench still threatened to choke him standing, but Bromm was once again free. An arrow streaked into the monster again, finding its eyes once again. this arrow stuck in the monster's thick, clear eyelid, distracting it even further. Bromm wasted little time. He darted between the monster's legs, avoiding the swinging of its grotesque cock, and brought a two-handed sword blow against the monster's tongue.

The foul appendage was cut halfway through, more black blood oozing onto the floor, but the queen was still held fast. Pythira loosed another arrow into the monster's open jaws, and hit a vulnerable, fleshy part. It screeched in pain and lumbered forward, nearly bowling Bromm over. He struck the tongue with another blow and was rewarded as it tore completely through. The severed end still bound the queen, but she could no longer be hauled into its mouth and devoured. Black blood now gushed from the wound, coating the floor and fouling the wood beneath them.

The toad demon was now blind with agonized rage. It rampaged forward, crushing a low table underfoot and battering aside a pedestal and vase. They fell to the floor and shattered utterly. Pythira continued loosing arrows into its mouth, but Bromm was torn between helping the queen escape the binding of the severed tongue or attacking the monster.

He chose the latter and struck at the knee that Phrahat had sliced open once again. He felt the blade hit bone and wondered if he had cut a sinew as the monster staggered to one knee. Three more arrows sprouted from its mouth, and it sagged forward on its hands and knees. Bromm approached cautiously, wary of the injured beast, but Pythira had no such compunction from her safe distance. She loosed two more arrows in the demon's eyes and they both struck the orbs beneath.

Bromm drew up alongside it and looked into its eyes. They stared malice and fury at him, but burned with a sense of recognition. This creature was here to kill him, he knew. With that in mind, he drove the swordpoint into the monster's neck with both hands and the full weight of its body.

The toad demon did not fight it, merely letting out a dying gurgle through its toothy maw, which opened wide to fill the room with more of its hellish stench. Then it closed its eyes, one with arrows still protruding from it, and slumped to the floor.

"By Torthun," Pythira breathed, her arms slumping beside her, "the damnable thing is finally dead."

Bromm could only nod in agreement. The demon's spittle clung to his chest and was beginning to burn. He brushed it away as best he could, but remembered the queen and turned to her. Kannitara had fought her way out of the tongue's grotesque coils, but was still coated with the demonic spittle all over her naked body. Bromm and Pythira hurried to pry it off and scrape away the spittle before it began to burn.

"By the gods, what has happened here?" The three of them turned to the door to see ten Amazon warriors standing there, spears at the ready. At their head stood an older woman, perhaps fifty, with a disgusted look on her face.

"Ah, Lahana," the queen said in the Amazon tongue, "you are unusually timely."

"It would be hard to be late with all this racket," the older woman replied, nudging the broken body of a guardswoman with her sandaled toe. "A demon? In the palace? The work of a foreign sorcerer, no doubt."

"Aye," Pythira agreed. "And who in the palace has been fucking one such sorcerer for the past three months."

Lahana's eyes went wide. "Stupid, suspicious lackey, I refer to one of the queen's whores. Probably the one that's still alive." Her eyes narrowed as she locked them on Bromm and pointed an accusatory finger his way.

"This thing was here to kill me," declared Bromm. "I looked into its eyes and saw hate, for me. Many of us wounded it, but it took special hatred for the queen's concubines, even the one who ran screaming without even touching a weapon."

"Indeed," Kannitara replied. "This thing was not their work."

"Well, it wasn't my sorcerer's work," Lahana snapped back.

"We'll see about that. Guards, bring him here. Dead or alive. And disarm the Mistress of Spears before you go. I don't want her getting ideas about succeeding where her pet demon failed."

Lahana started to speak, but found two swords at her throat. On the other side of the bedchamber, Pythira knocked an arrow to her bow, though Bromm wondered if she had the strength left to draw it. Lahana stood staring hatred at the queen as she was relieved of her sword and spear by the guards. Five of them then left the room in search of her sorcerer. In short order, the queen's servants appeared and began scraping the demon spittle from her body. They were hardly halfway done when the guards returned.

"He's gone, your Grace," the leader guardswoman answered.

"He'll be in port looking to take a ship out of here," the queen growled.

"Not my ship, I can assure you," Bromm declared.

"No matter," Kannitara replied with a wave. "Take the Mistress of Spears to the dungeons and send guards to watch the docks. Pythira, you have done well, and I need a bath. Bromm, would you care to join me?"

"Gladly, your Grace."

"Wonderful. Have the servants prepare a room for him. I would have you stay here a while, for I may have some further use for you, Bromm."