Monster bosses

Just as the emperor had warned, the next phase of the battle was even tougher than what had come before. Hours of fighting had reduced the sheer mass of the goblins down to a manageable amount, but in their place was a number of much stronger monsters.

Hideous ogres scarfed down warriors like they were holiday leftovers. Massive trolls stomped and pounded people into paste. Powerful lamia, half snake and half woman monsters, used their long tails to bind fighters before killing them with curved swords. Snow white werewolves ripped and tore both humans and dwarves in a frenzy of fangs and blood. Repulsive arachne bound people in their webs, before slicing and dicing them with their steel-like exoskeletons. And finally, bull-like minotaurs charged through the lines of defenders with their horns to attack the rear support magic users and archers with giant axes.

There were no towers, ladders, or grappling hooks in use by the attackers. But there was no need for them. They just piled the dead goblins into gently sloping ramps that reached the top of the twenty foot walls and charged up, not even bothering with a simple battering ram. And in the spots where there weren't enough dead goblins, giant earth wyrms, that looked like mix between a dragon and a worm, would tunnel through the solid stone walls to created breaches.

"You fight well, Bekhi Mubrimssdottir." The emperor said admiringly as he cut down a charging minotaur. "Your ancestors must be proud of you."

"Thanks, your majesty." Bekhi replied, her feral grin almost glowing in the darkness. Her body was covered in small wounds, but she was fighting in an almost berserker state and didn't even notice them. "You're not doing too bad yourself. When this is over, we should have a two on one match against my dad. Maybe I'd have a chance of beating him then."

"Your father sounds like a worthy opponent. Perhaps a one on one fight would be fun, should we both survive."

"He'll survive." Bekhi said with confidence. "My dad taught me everything I know about fighting, and he's even better than me."

"Interesting, I look forward to rewarding him after the battle. It's thanks to his efforts, and the weapons he brought, that my right flank has remained firm. Of course, I'll be sure to reward the Yankee party with whatever they want too."

"Cookies!" Gerde yelled as she dodged a troll's lumbering fist, before running up the monster's arm and beheading it. "And sweet rolls!"

I was amazed that she had enough energy to pull off such a stunt after fighting all day, she followed it up by killing a charging minotaur by jumping off the falling troll and stabbing the beast in the skull. Then using it as a landing pad to reach the ground safely.

Gerde was still unwounded, but when the battle moved us closer together, I could see beads of sweat dripping through her black hair. And her breathing was getting heavy and exhausted.

"Stop making us hungry, Gerde." Miyata complained. "You're starting to make me crave some anpan with the chunky filling."

Miyata's fingers were nearly bleeding from how many arrows she had fired, and she had run out of runed arrows hours ago, but she was still firing away with her bow. If I had to guess, I'd say she was doing her best to focus on the monsters to avoid collapsing.

"You know what I could go for?" Tatsuki commented as he choked out a nine foot tall minotaur with his bare hands. "A nice cream puff. Light and fluffy enough that it melts in your mouth."

Tatsuki was huffing and puffing, but he was still going strong. His armor had kept him from being hurt, and he had saved each of us multiple times over by blocking or redirecting various monsters.

"Forget all the sweets." Delimira said as her flaming sword took out two orcs at once. "When this is over, I'm gonna eat a juicy hamburger. With all the toppings!"

Delimira was solely running off whatever the elven version of adrenaline was. Her long arms were nicked in several places from when she had been a hair too slow to dodge fangs or blades, and she had an open wound above her right eyebrow from werewolf's claw. Also, her flaming sword was now just a dim ember, indicating that her magic reserves were practically nil. A dangerous state for any being (besides a dwarf), but especially life threatening for an elf, whose bodies were more reliant on magic for autonomous functions.

"With some ice cream for dessert." Jenise chimed in. Panting for breath as she drank yet another magic rejuvenation potion. In human terms, this was the same as drinking ten cans of an energy drink while running a marathon. If this battle didn't end soon, then she might even die.

"I'm not sure what all those foods are, but get ready. We have company." The emperor raised his sword in a defensive posture while I raised my shield in readiness for whatever might come out of the darkness.

Steadily marching up the ramp of monster corpses was no mere horde, or lowly pack. This appeared to be the leaders of the monsters. Striding up to our group on top of a hefty mammoth, with corrupted malice clear in their faces.

Wait, how the heck is there a mammoth down here? We're miles beneath the surface. And what does it eat? Mushrooms? I'd have to see if I could get the answers to my questions later, and if possible, a plus sized mammoth meatball.

"So dis is da big human boss." A giant, hideous, mutated goblin that I could only assume to be the Goblin Lord said in crude Imperial as it hopped down off the overburdened animal. "You ain't lookin so tough. You been given my boys some trouble though. So I'm gonna snuff you out myself, or my name ain't Knark Beardeata."

"I think you will find that killing me is much easier said than done." The emperor calmly said. "You have given me your name, monster. Now I will give you mine. I am Emperor Wilhelm Kant, and by my authority as the emperor of the Throndian Empire. I will slay you for the glory of the empire!"

"Ooh. I'm shakin' in my boots." Knark said in blatant sarcasm. "C'mon then. I'm gonna add your human skull to my crown while I snack on yer beard!"

With a primal shout, the Goblin Lord charged at the emperor. Knocking him off the wall with his club, and then jumping off after him. The emperor eagerly began a fierce fight in the open area behind the gate, barely fazed by the twenty foot fall to the ground. The two of them then began exchanging mighty blows that shook the stone beneath our feet.

I fully expected the Imperial Guard to rush after the emperor. But upon looking around, I realized that they were all either dead, or sent to reinforce other portions of the wall, leaving only the Yankee party to back him up.

"C'mon, Kvalinn. Let's go kill a Goblin Lord!" Bekhi was about to leap after him with a grin, when a sudden presence made itself known behind us, or rather several presences. When you've been in as many fights as we have, you learn to detect danger no matter what direction it comes from.

"Jussssst where do you think you're going?" An excessively large and majestic looking lamia hissed at us. Her long snake-like tongue flickered out from between her lips, as she looked at us with hungry eyes. "I was promised dwarf meat, and you two are looking ssssscrumptious."

"Kvalinn, is snake meat edible?" Delimira asked with a hungry grin. "Even if it's not, you're making me a snake burger later!" She then charged at the lamia with renewed vigor, and began fighting desperately. Dodging snake blows and curved sword swings while thrusting and swinging her own straight blade.

"Guess I get to eat the dwarves then." An oversized minotaur said in a deep bass voice that sounded like a cow and a tuba had a kid. "Now which one of ya are tastier? The female's probably weaker and juicier."

"Weaker!?" Bekhi growled out furiously.

"He's all yours, Bekhi." I handed her my last experimental weapon. A dagger with the Rune of Slaughter. She looked mad enough to not notice that it was experimental.

Bekhi grabbed the weapon and went after the minotaur. Her short stature allowing her to duck underneath the clumsy, but overpowered, swings of the gargantuan ax blade wielded by the beast.

Sniff. Sniff. "I smell a child." A grotesque looking ogre said in a surprisingly high pitched voice. "A tasty, sweet, yummy, innocent child. Much better tasting than leathery dwarf children."

"You eat children?" Gerde asked in horror. Taking a step back in fright.

"Yes, delicious children. And I'll be eating you too little one!" The ogre charged towards Gerde with its intention of eating her clear in its eyes.

"Gerde!" I attempted to rush to my daughter's defense, but I was stopped by a ginormous werewolf bowling me over. Unfortunately, Gerde was left to defend herself from the cannibalistic ogre.

"Kvalinn!" The werewolf howled. It's never a good sign when a monster knows your name. "I'm going to kill you for what you've done!"

"Now's not a good time, Fido." I grumbled as I stood back up. "I'll play fetch with you another time. Go sniff your own butt, I have to save my daughter."

I attempted to quickly kill the snarling beast to rescue Gerde, who was valiantly fighting off the ogres pawing attempts to grab her, but the werewolf snapped at me with his jaws and barely missed biting off my arm.

"You will not be rescuing anyone, Kvalinn." The werewolf growled. "I have tracked your scent. You made those cursed weapons that killed my pack. And I will have revenge for my packmates that died in agony." The werewolf gave a mighty howl before rushing to attack me.

"Tatsuki!" I yelled while weaving in and out like a boxer. "Protect Gerde!"

"I'm a little busy right now!" He replied. Tatsuki was in the midst of a battle with an excessively creepy arachne. Fending off her sharp, steel like, exoskeleton covered appendages with his gauntlets and trying to land a straight punch on her.

Before I could even think to ask Miyata, I withdrew the request when I saw that she was on the backfoot against a large troll that was deftly catching all her arrows with his hand. Not to say that he was catching the arrows like a baseball player would catch a baseball, he was just letting the arrows pincushion his left hand, while his right was swinging a club at her.

Jenise was supporting everyone with the last remnants of her magic, so there was little to no direct help coming from her. Looks like I'd need to deal with the werewolf fast so that I could save Gerde.

"Out of the way, mutt." I growled in fatherly rage as I gripped my hammer. "If your bloody maw is anything to go by, your pack got what was coming to them. Once you're dead, our grudges will be struck out completely."

"Grrr!" The werewolf gave a growl that somehow managed to combine ultimate hostility and pained grief. "The lives of a few petty humans and grudgebound dwarves are not even close to being the same as my pack! I cannot avenge their deaths upon their killers without getting killed, so I'm going to kill the one who made their deaths possible."

He then started swinging wildly with his paws and two inch long claws that gouged out chunks of my shield. Occasionally he would take nipping bites at me, not the fun playful type of bites that huskies do with their owners, but vicious tearing bites that were meant to rip the flesh from bone.

Duck under the left paw. Block the right paw with my shield. Ok, now I can take a swing with my hammer. Crap! Forgot about the jaws!

"OOOWWW!" My arm was caught in the iron fangs of the werewolf. If I didn't have the Rune of Protection on my back, then it might have been bitten clean off.

After using my arm as a chew toy for a few seconds, long enough that I had the chance to bash him over the head a few times with my shield, the werewolf released my arm and jumped back. "Blegh! You're tougher than you look. And you taste worse than old orc boots!"

"And you smell worse than old boots." I parried as I flexed my arm to make sure there was no permanent damage. "But you don't see me complaining about your smell stinking up my shield."

"Grrr!" Another savage growl came from the werewolf, but this time it was tinged with a victorious grin. "Laugh while you can, Kvalinn. Your kind can't become part of the pack, but the calling of the moon will rip through your veins until it tears you apart from the inside. Even if you kill me now, I will have avenged my pack."

If I guessed correctly, the mutt was saying that dwarves couldn't become werewolves, but the lycanthropy disease was still deadly to us. But that only worked if the teeth pierced me, and thanks to the Rune of Protection, his fangs didn't break the skin. I made a mental note to research a Rune of Antibiotics later though, just in case.

"Sorry, Fido." I grinned as I raised my arm to show that my armor, even though it was dented it was not pierced. "You aren't avenging anything. I'm going to put you down like the mutt you are."

"Awooo!" The werewolf howled in rage, and charged for another bite. This time he was aiming straight for my jugular vein. Evidently he wasn't going to leave my death up to disease.

Perfect. I stepped to the side of the werewolf's mad rush, dodging the outstretched claws by the skin of my teeth, and brought my hammer down on the beast's skull.

"Yelp!" The werewolf gave a pained half bark half whimper as he crashed to the ground. My human instincts from my last life almost made me feel bad for hitting a pup hard enough to make it cry out like that, but the sight of the still bared fangs and sharp claws forced those foolish thoughts from my head. "Grrr. I… must… avenge… my pack."

Blood was streaming down the side of the werewolves face, staining his white fur red as he struggled to get up. His words were barely coherent, and he spat up blood once he was on his feet.

"You won't be avenging anything today, Fido." I said coldly. "Instead, I'll be striking out the grudges of the dwarves you killed today."

"Graah!"

Both of us shouted in unison as we charged at each other. Claw and fang against dwarven hammer and shield. Feral wilderness against civilized steel. Pack revenge against grudges.

After an intense exchange of blows. I stood over the bloody corpse of the werewolf in victory.

"Another grudge stricken from the Book of Grudges." I crushed the monster's paw with my foot to make sure he wasn't playing dead, he definitely wasn't. Nodding to myself, I returned to my original objective. "Now to go rescue Gerde!"