Hounded

of them coming out of the hell pit, because it was nearly a contractual obligation by now that some of them appear in that form. But most of them were nightmares out of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, or maybe Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Some of them flew on leathery wings into the desert night air, with fingerlike talons outstretched to rip into something soft; some of them bubbled across the ground in uneven gaits, owing to the uneven number of legs they had and differing lengths of their limbs; a few of them galloped on those infamous cloven hooves; but all of them, without exception, had lots of sharp, pointy parts, and they stank like ass.
    Aenghus Óg didn’t waste time with introductions or even a respectable archvillain laugh. He didn’t taunt me or inform me I was about to die; he just pointed at me and uttered the Irish equivalent of » Sic ’im, boys! «
    Almost all of them did, but a couple of the bigger ones didn’t—I distinctly saw one of the cloven-hoofed lads take off for the hills, and the largest thing on wings disappeared into the sky somewhere.
    Aenghus had the gall to be surprised at their defection—he actually shouted at them to come back, and I supposed he must have been counting on them to finish me off after the smaller ones roughed me up a bit. I saw the Pack move to protect Hal and Oberon, who were chained up and unable to defend themselves from rogues or run away, and that gave me a brief moment’s relief.
    » What did you expect, Aenghus? « I mocked him as I beheaded the vanguard. » They’re bloody demons. « And then there was no time for me to talk, because they were upon me and all I could do was concentrate on what to kill next and on keeping down the contents of my stomach.
    After about three seconds it occurred to me that I would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers or violent illness. An awful lot of the buggers had come out of that pit, and they were still coming. Luckily they were still in front of me—they hadn’t had time to try flanking me—so I drew a little of the remaining precious power from the earth, pointed at them with my index finger off the hilt, and shouted, » Dóigh! « as Brighid had instructed, hoping that would take care of a few of them and bracing for the wave of weakness she warned me about.
    It turns out you can’t brace for that kind of weakness. There was a thing with stork legs propelling a huge mouth full of teeth coming at my throat from my left, what looked like the Iron Maiden mascot coming at me from the center, and a horrific cross between a California girl and a Komodo dragon on my right. Every single one of them overshot me and even tripped over me as I abruptly dropped to the ground like a baby giraffe, my muscles utterly unable to function.
    Aenghus Óg crowed in victory and yelled to Radomila, » I’m closing the portal now! He’s dropped the sword! Do it! «
    Oh yes. The sword. The one my fingers were incapable of holding now. The one that was keeping me from becoming demon food. I needed power, and I tried to draw some, but when I reached for it, it went dead beneath me. Aenghus Óg had drained it all to bring hell on earth. There was no telling how far I would have to go to draw enough strength to stand again; as it was, I could not move an inch. My night vision faded, and all I had to see by was the orange light of the fire pit. The skinless Iron Maiden demon scrambled back quickly and took the opportunity to snack on my ear, and the pain was unspeakable, worse than reading the collected works of Edith Wharton, but I couldn’t muster the strength to pull away or even say ouch. Likewise for the armored mosquito the size of a schnauzer that landed on my chest and stuck its proboscis into my shoulder: I wanted to swat him, but I couldn’t. Something with blue scales and a steroid habit hauled me up by my leg high into the air, and I saw a giant mouth of gleaming teeth and assumed I would be heading in there momentarily. The bloodsucking schnauzer–mosquito assumed that as well, because it pulled out with a wet pop and flew away. But then I was dropped unceremoniously to the ground, breaking my left wrist in the fall. I had fallen facing the hell pit, so I had a view of the horde and of Aenghus Óg berating Death.
    » Well, he’s obviously dead by now, so what are you waiting for? «
    Not dead yet, Aenghus. Dead in short order, perhaps, like the wasted land beneath me, but perhaps not. The horde of demons wailed and gnashed