Beren blinked dust out of his vision, gripping his axe hard as the leviathan came back into view. Jocasta's tricks had harmed it, but unless they moved quickly while it was down, it was still immensely dangerous, and now enraged. It brushed aside debris and shoved away stones larger than Beren with its colossal sinews, raising its grotesque head high to bellow. Beren and the dwarves clamped their hands over their ears to keep their ear drums from shattering. Even shielded, Beren heard something deep in its throat burr, giving the monk the image of a shoddy tank engine sputtering to retain life. Unfortunately, that seemed to be a unique aspect of its mutated anatomy rather than any sign of ill-health.
Beren picked his axe back up again, taking a deep breath before he played his part. Just as he was about to step out into the open, a strong hand clamped on his forearm. It was Otar, eyes closed and his beard shifting as he whispered, laying a blessing on the tanned younger warrior. Beren felt a thrum of something indescribable pass between the two of them, and the pendant under his shirt lit up like a flaring torch.
"May Runar go with you," He remarked solemnly.
"Fucking run, long legs!" Radsvir hooted. Beren gave the two dwarves a thumbs-up, a small sign of assurance or agreement the dwarves had developed millennia ago. Then he turned and sprung out of the archway, skidding into the street right before the thrashing behemoth. The spined fins framing its ugly head fluttered, sensing movement, and it turned to gaze its two remaining eyes at Beren. They looked lifeless, like a fish's, and yet he could somehow see a malign web of cruel thought behind the uncaring orbs.
Beren glanced at Jocasta's hiding spot, knowing she likely saw him. He gave a wink, before turning tail and running up the central street. It took less than the time to blink before a reverberating growl erupted behind him, followed by the sound of crashing stones as the gargantuan serpent gave chase, it's immense shape moving side to side like molasses to the untrained eye, and yet even damaged, it was gaining on Beren in a straight run. The nimble warrior made it to the turn, spinning into a leap and planting his foot against the opposite wall, redirecting his momentum and landing in full sprint, now heading down the left street. Moments later, the immense beast crashed into the building Beren had used to spring board his run, breaking its foundations, causing it to fall into itself, crumbling and sending up further waves of dust. The beast was not deterred, its scales blocking most of the debris as it continued its pursuit.
Feet pumping, Beren leaped over ancient rubble from a previously felled structure, and then slid beneath a long, three foot thick arch of stone set above the street, a picture of the daily life of the ancient dwarves, sculpted along its length in a mosiac, likely built by ancient dwarf artisans to give the street more grandeur. Beren looked back over his shoulder, watching the leviathan slam into the arch he had just passed under like a flood, shattering the stone. It bellowed again, this time in rage, but rather than continue his forward pace, Beren saw a light ahead, and skidded to a halt, leaping to the right down a small space between two massive structures and landing on his side. He had leaped, and just before he had thrown himself out of the street, he had seen a terrific flash.
There was a crack and a resounding boom that rivaled the beast's horrific screams, and blacksmoke rose out of the din as Beren collected himself. For a moment there was a deafening silence, and the warrior monk, now on his feet, crept to the edge of the alley, peering down. To his right, Gurin with his broken arm, and fat Buri, stood atop a broad flight of steps at the edge of the street, just under the grand pillars of one of the outer citadels. Before them, a huge cannon engraved with imperial dwarven regalia in brass smoked from a fresh shot. Beren looked left, and he saw the beast down, the vast bulk of its serpentine center opened by a huge gash. It looked small, but Beren felt it was equivalent to being shot with a blunderbuss in his abdomen.
"Wishful thinking," he breathed as he watched in growing alarm.
The monstrous mutant began to writhe, and gave a hiss that was louder than a steam train's whistle. Fangs as large as Beren's legs glinted in the sallow light, and for a moment he was frozen, wondering if the thing was simply in its death throes. The dwarves held no such fascination or curiosity, however. Out of the buildings they came, axes and mattocks in their brawny hands. Radsvir and Varin came from the opposite street, huge picks with armor piercing heads made for wartime held aloft as they charged. Muragrim came out of the building next to Beren like a vengeful ghost, double-headed axe reared back as the black bearded mercenary went straight for the thing's head. Electrocuted, crushed by rocks, and shot dead center by a large cannon, and it was still ready to fight. Beren had to admit the monster was tenacious, and though he was usually loathe to kill beasts, he had looked into its eyes and had seen wickedness. Grimly, he strapped his axe onto his back, turned to the intricate designs carved on the wall on the massive apartment next to him, using them as handholds to climb.
Varin and Radsvir, the latter who must have followed immediately and made it to position with his long legs, found what could pass for the thing's 'neck' and impaled it with their mattocks, piercing scale and sinking into the softer flesh beneath. Muragrim reached its bat-like face, rolling under a sudden snap of its jaws and planting his axe into the fish-like vestige on the side of its great head. It shrieked and wriggled with unyielding strength, knocking Radsvir back while Varin clung to his weapon desperately. The beast flung its head, ripping Muragrim's axe out of his hand. The burly dwarf tore out a thick knife from his boot and followed, leaping as the head swung back and, grabbing onto the spines along its head, stabbing into any weak spot he could find. Beyond them all, a voice rang in the air. An sonorous voice, brimming with wisdom and speaking in the ancient tongue of their forefathers. The voice found itself in every door, ever corner, and could be heard across the city as it intoned a dirge. Suddenly, the weapons of the dwarves burst into flame, their steel heads turning dark from the immense heat. Even Muragrim's axe, embedded in the thing's skull, began to sear the skin around it.
Radsvir, having hit the wall and fallen on his rump, managed to dust himself off and take out his short sword. The blade symmetrical with hard edges like most dwarven weapons, wrought in the mountains of Gradlock in the far off east. The steel bled with flame, and he smiled wickedly as he ran forward back into the fray. He leaped over flung rubble, and on the downswing, took off one of the small vestigial fins on the side of the massive mutant's body. He landed, and his first act now he was on his two feet was to shove the blade into the huge body up to its hilt. Thanks to Otar's incantation, the blade slid in easier than the mattocks. At this point, the entirety of the colossal thing's body frozen up and bristled, before slowly but surely, it began to roll. The beast had changed tactics. Radsvir yelped and leaped to the left, scrambling free of the path of its bulk. Muragrim was flung from the head, hitting the ground in a roll. Of Varin there was no sign, having last been seen hanging on to the mattock. Inexorably, the roll brought the vast serpent's form to slam into the buildings opposite. Pottery and loose stones fell from above, crashing and clattering into the stone of the street. At that, finally free of the dwarves and their wicked weapons, it used what strength it had left to rear its head high, maw open to cry out in defiance.
"Woegrim's arse!" Gurin cried when he saw what happened next, pointing in the air. Buri gasped.
A muscled, lean form almost seemed to glide from the rooftops of the left apartments. In its hands was a large handaxe, flame waving madly in the rushing air as it was lifted above its head. Beren let out a warcry that echoed across the street, and with the arc of his axe carried by the momentum of his leap and his powerful arms, the enchanted head sliced through bone and muscle into the beast's brain, ending its life without the monstrous behemoth even realizing it. Its maw gave a strangled, almost pitiful gasp as its still form held for a breif moment, a great pillar of muscle and bone, before it slowly started to sway. Beren held onto his axe, shaking from the adrenaline. He grabbed whatever he could, his free right hand gripping one of its massive fangs. Everyone watching saw the monumental head inexorably topple, falling like one might see a huge tree be felled, or a large keep hit by a warwolf trebuchet. Both Beren and the head fell headlong, and the next moment, crashed into a stone building, disappearing behind a veritable explosion of debris as tons of stone crumbling upon the both of them.
The silence that followed sounded much like that of the grave.
