Guile held the demonling's, the Rakshasa Spawn's, corpse up by its digitigrade legs, tapping on the pasty white coating on the overlong maggot-like toes with a dull tock sound. “Not scale, not horn, doesn’t feel like a nail.” He tapped it again, causing Adelbert to shudder at the odd hollow noise, and even more as the dead flesh flexed and wiggled beneath the soft blows like nothing that made that noise should.

  Which of course caused Guile to tap them back and forth a few more times, just to watch the boy squirm.

  Ethan sighed and didn’t bother to hide it. Giving Guile the look.

  “Fine, Fine, My Lord.” He emphasized the title with a fake forlorn tone.

  Ethan sighed again. He knew better. Nothing Guile liked better than a reaction.

  Guile grinned but moved on at last. He pulled the Z-shaped leg to full extension, holding it for a moment to catch Ethan's eyes with a grin. Like an evil little brat with a new toy. Then he let go, and the leg snapped back to a flexed position.

  Huh.

  “Real jumpers they are.” The red headed giant spoke casually as he pulled and released the legs a few more times with a smile that half turned Ethan's rather cast-iron stomach.

  “Really Guile? A corpse?”

  “Demon corpse.” He corrected and for a brief moment, Ethan saw something else behind all that humor. And it wasn’t what he’d consider civilized. Nor safe. Ethan held his eyes as the humor slid back into place like the mask it only half was.

  “Still a corpse. Move it along, Sir Guile?” Ethan returned the earlier favor in as mild mannered and bored a voice as he could manage.

  Guile flinched. “Yes Milord. They bounce even when walking. It restricts them a bit. Easy to move forward, hard side to side. Rigid for embodied chaos.”

  Leo was grinning behind him. Ethan didn’t have to look to know it.

  “Saw one jump twenty-five feet I did. And fast! But predictable. They do a little settling motion, then snap! Like a snapped towel. They’re off straight ahead.”

  He considered it again, twisting to pull up a clawed, reversed hand with its unpleasantly pallid palm. “A bit of a contradiction that is.” He mused, twisting the hand for an awkward looking clawing motion.

  Ethan waited a moment. Then prompted. “What contradiction, Sir Guile?”

  “Ah! Sorry Milord. But couldn’t tell you if it's this blasted light, or some foul witchery about them. But the attacks don’t land where and when they should. Seen them telegraph an overhand blow, then felt the claws glance off my breast plate. Reached for me nuts, then slashed my bracers.”

  “Skill, magic or environment? Couldn’t say. But I’d not want to fence with one.”

  “Didn’t seem to slow you down out there.” Ethan pointed out, gesturing with his chin to the pile of corpses only half handled by the crowd of harvesters.

  “Crushing and killing isn’t fencing. Kill them before they can kill you back and keep it simple. Works like a treat. The few that get through, well, that’s what armor is for. It’s the arms that go funky. Not the rest of them. They’re tricky, but without the strength or sharp enough claws to be a real threat.”

  “For you perhaps, Sir Guile.” Adelbert objected. “For the men? Short makes it easier to reach under the pturgis, and as you well know, many the braies-“ the light armored under garments, the trouser variant to the arming doublet, “-to keep cool.”

  Ethan winced slightly, and he wasn’t alone in it. There was quite a lot of delicate bits down there. And not just the dangly bits. A man could bleed out from a scratch to the inner thighs. Less quickly and even survivable if you acted quickly at higher tiers, but still a worry.

  “So first order, braies for everyone.” Ethan agreed. Not that it would be a popular order. It was too blasted hot for that. But then, a quick demonstration of where, and what for, the demons would reach would put that to bed.

  Heat was still an issue but he’d requested additional water skins and amphora from Conner in the missive, which would help. Still something he’d have to keep an eye on.

  “Wear your armor, don’t get fancy with fencing, use your shield as intended, and kill them before they can get tricky.” He repeated, marking the suggestion off on his fingers. “It’s a good start. Anything else?”

  “Not too bright?” Guile offered. Ethan looked at him with a smile and a raised eyebrow. He just snorted. “Over-focused. They pick a target and fixate. Baited it out a few times. Jump or just a head down rush. Makes them predictable if you’re good, and damn vulnerable to side threats.”

  Ethan nodded easily. No wonder the basic drill worked so well. It heavily focused on attacking to either side, not just at the demon opposite you. Then he tossed an observation of his own in. “Not all that quick when they aren’t jumping too. And I never saw them do the large jumps twice in a row. A single long one followed by five to ten seconds of that bouncy running, then another. Combined speeds faster than the heavy infantry. But I’d say a man could run them down unarmored.”

  Adelbert gave him a confused glance. “But we are armored. And I’d not change them just to catch them.”

  Ethan waved that away. “We are, and we won’t. But some of us-“ He gave Guile a familiar taunting grin. “Some of us are armored and mounted. And they might catch a cavalryman with a jump as he gets close,” For all the good it would do them. Lancers wore heavy, high-quality armor. Man and horse. “but they can’t outrun us over any kind of distance.”

  Adelbert smiled and gave an understanding nod. He leaned forward and poked the demonling, still dangling from Guile’s overlarge hand. “How is their armor? I had no trouble putting a blade into them, but…” But he had a masterwork blade, elite training and a lifetime of good nutrition and high-end classes from the very start.

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  “Weekish.” Guile agreed. Not that it meant much from him either. He carefully plucked a scale from the body, discarding it afterwards neatly back onto the pile for the harvesters, then gripped the scale from either end with both hands.

  Slowly, he began to bend it. It held for a moment as he ramped up the force, then snaped with a discordant rasp that had them all wincing. Damn things!

  “Huh. Not bad. Other than the noise.” He hurriedly added under three glares. “It’s thin and lightweight. And still took a good bit to break. Put a few layers together and it wouldn’t be half bad.”

  Adelbert leaned over the pile and did his own poking. “Not much overlap here.”

  “On that one.” Leo pointed out. From right beside Ethan… of course. Then he nodded to the pile, with creatures ranging from mostly furred to fully scaled, from two feet to three and a half. From exaggerated z shaped legs to nearly upright.

  “Point.” Ethan agreed. You always had to worry about the one-offs with demons. Or maybe demons he reflected with a sour look at Leo. He cleared his Kukri with an easy shrug and dropped it heavily, if with just his arm muscles, into one of the more scale-covered beasts. The heavy forward bent blade sank a handspan into the creature with a discordant rasp of protest. Ethan gave it a look, then shrugged. Not much of a worry. “Check a few more if you want, but I think we’re about done here.” He raised an eyebrow and glanced around. All three men shook their heads.

  “Good enough then. Spread it to the decurions.”

  Ethan turned away and walked a half dozen steps over to a two man long crack coated in ungodly tar-like body liquids. He pondered it for a moment, wishing, and not for the first time, that his nose would stop working.

  “My Lord?” Leo prompted, appearing at his elbow again.

  “Ah? Nothing much Sir Leo. Just wondering how far that crack goes. And if it links up with that one or that one somewhere beneath us while it's at it.”

  “Tunnelers?”

  Ethan shrugged. It could be.

  “Counter-sappers?” he offered doubtfully. And for good reason!

  “Gods no!” Ethan spat. “Send a five or six foot man into a tunnel meant for them? In the dark, and through rocks that seem a might flammable? You want to volunteer for that?”

  “If you need it done.” He reminded Ethan, if in a soft voice.

  Ethan clasped his shoulder easily in appreciation, but still shook his head. “Not worth it. Not by half.”

  It could be a problem. But then again… fixation.

  “No.” He repeated. “We’ll go with bait first.”

  His head snapped over as the red and yellow mist off the portal started changing in tone, the reds growing deeper and more vibrant. The other side was now occupied.

  He grinned. “About time to.”

  ___

  “Steady.” Ethan offered softly, as he watched the unfolding fight. 60 men in a tight square were moving out at a slow but steady pace. Pausing every 20 steps to slam the hafts of their spears or base of their shields against the ground.

  The loud percussive booms of that many simultaneous blows could be felt through his feet, not merely his ears.

  And it wasn’t just performative noise. Demonlings from every crack and hole streamed out and in, hundreds of trickles becoming rivers, and finally a sea. A sea held back by a solid wall of shields and spears. And more importantly, the iron discipline that held them.

  Mostly held back. He winced as yet another man was pulled from the line and replaced. And yet…

  “Steady.” He repeated. Not yet. It wasn’t time. The tide was still coming in.

  So he waited, even if every new injury or death tasted like ground glass. As strategos, it was a familiar feeling, and one of the hardest lessons learned at his father's knee. It wasn’t his job to keep his men free of harm. That was impossible. On this plane or any other he suspected.

  It was his job to make sure he didn’t spend their blood and lives cheaply. If you couldn’t accept that truth, you had no business picking up a weapon.

  Not that that would save you either.

  “Prepare to volley!” He called at last. He’d prefer to gather a few more, but the bait force was getting hammered. And soon they’d go from trickling casualties to hemorrhaging them.

  “Volley!”

  And 400 bows, most of his new Hunters drawn up and standing in steady if irregular blocks, spoke with authority. As loud as the percussive beats from earlier, if at a much higher humming pitch. Across the conflict in front of him, they rose up like prayers to the gods, half occluding the twisting nether of the sky above, or at least a quarter occluding. The shafts rose rapidly, then coming to a near halt, mere black dots in his sight, before falling back to the earth like a demented rain.

  A steal rain.

  Like a God’s flail the massed volley hammered flat an entire 50 foot by 50 foot block of spawn.

  Then they did it again.

  And again.

  Four slow, massed volleys fell and rage and hate turned to confusion and fear. Perfect.

  “One more Squire, then cease fire.”

  He squeezed Celer’s sides and drew her into a fast walk, then a canter, and at last a full charge. Eating up the ground before him in a steady, inexorably increasing pace. Screaming war cries broke out of the 20 mouths behind him, blood lust and the promise of death. As much a weapon in its own right as the spatha tied to his saddle. A morale damage.

  Then they struck the already fragile sea with lowered lances and heavy hoofs. Crushing through with barely a pause, lining bodies up on the lowered lances like shish kebabs. Then the lances fell free, to heavy, broken or just no longer useful, and the backup longer horse swords swung free, carving away as the cavalry maintained their speed.

  Rushing back and forth through the sea. Artfully adjusting angles such that they broke free before the momentum was fully expended, then looping back long enough to return to full speed. Careful never to get bogged down.

  It was heavy, brutal work for a time. Butchery as much as anything as the beasts were half broken by the archers before he struck. And if that offended the warrior inside of him, it buoyed the strategos. Fair fights were for suckers.

  Then they broke entirely, streaming from the field, away from the hooves of the far outnumbered cavalry, not that they could see it that way.

  Away from the careful paths of the cavalry, and right into and through the massed spears and shields of the blocking force. Not to mention the point-blank fire of the massed archers.

  Not lines of each, but blocks. And well spread blocks with open pathways between them.

  Leaving opponents no place to retreat worked occasionally. More often, they fought like they had nothing left to lose. And took good men with them to Kairon’s scales. No. Better to give them hope. Or better yet, the illusion of it.

  Ethan nodded his head, feeling his stomach tighten slightly at the many prone forms at the heart of the bait formation. Thirty or forty to one. Their dead to his mostly injured. Hectate’s blessing on the Band and Blake that there would be few permanents.

  But there would be some.

  Always.

  He nodded and moved forward, beginning to shout orders for stretcher bearers and reorganizing the various blocks to account for casualties. Deploying the harvesters and seeing how many of the not inexpensive arrows could be recovered.

  Not a bad start, but how many more such conflicts were there going to be? The demonlings, no, the Rakshasa Spawns, were fairly standard examples of swarmers. Quantity over quality, but that quantity did have a quality all of its own. If used well

  If.

  He glanced outward, at where the chaotic thread-lined sky seemed to twist and spin into something like a whirlpool in the far distance. If you squinted and held your mouth just so at least… Perhaps the only recognizable feature he, or his scouts, had been able to make out.

  Sooner or later, there would be a boss to fight. And he’d see then if Leo was right or wrong.

  Because if there was one thing that held true with demons, the fodder was a chaotic mess of breeds and species.

  But the rulers above it were always the same. Greater Demons. Their size increased with tier, but the base species didn’t. He wasn’t really sure if he was looking forward to finding such or dreading it.

  Guile wasn’t alone in one thing, and Ethan wasn’t hypocrite enough to claim otherwise.

  He had a powerful hate in him. And he’d not mind exercising it, vigorously, on one of those wretched fiends!

  ___