Jay slammed into the side of an unsuspecting twisted wretch with all the force of a runaway freight train. Leading with her massive hammer, she pummeled the demon-warped horse abomination with one swing, launching the thousand-pound creature through the air like a child’s ragdoll. The wretch spun helplessly as it careened over the heads of its demonic brethren before slamming abruptly into a clump of bone thieves with enough momentum to send bony limbs scattering like shrapnel.

Continuing the arc of her swing, Jay’s hammer took out several more lesser demons before she reset her stance and stomped her booted foot down onto a bramble fiend, squashing it into paste.

“Move to my fucking right!” Jay roared at Stavros and the struggling smugglers, causing many of them to flinch at her bellowed command.

Stavros, for his part, did not flinch. Like a practiced soldier, he shifted and spun in his strange combat style, maneuvering so that Jay was on his left. His mercenaries soon followed suit, falling back so that they were to Jay’s right. The change in position put a large cluster of thick-trunked trees on their right, turning the Reavers into a line.

In the same moments that Stavros and his crew moved, so too did the rest of Jadis. Dys joined Jay on the left of the line, stretching it so that her flank was protected by the twenty-foot drop of the ridgeline. Syd, however, did not stick with her other selves, but instead rushed up behind the line of smugglers to use the extra reach of her lance to skewer demons that were attacking the Reavers at their weak spots.

“You’ve got to be shitting me with this codswallop,” Jockel cursed as his spiked chain tore through a demon wretch’s malformed neck. “You’re fucking protecting us?”

“Shut up,” Syd snapped as her lance pierced a bone thief’s core before the demon could use its sharp claws to slash open the fat man’s belly. “Just thank D that I hate Samleos and his demons more than I hate you.”

“Who in the abyss is—”

Jockel’s words were cut off as a bramble fiend launched itself at his head, narrowly missing as he dodged out of the way. The bastard didn’t try to resume his question, no doubt finding his energy better spent on keeping himself alive rather than questioning the providence of Jadis’ mercy.

As Dys hacked her way through another wretch, kicking the bisected corpse away, she spotted her backup making their entrance. Considering the second half of their party had been moving into position to ambush Stavros and his men, it didn’t take them long to adapt to the new situation and step into the fray. Sweeping in from the northeast, her more combat-oriented companions and the soldiers with them fell upon the demons.

The cluster of trees on the Reavers’ right served as a kind of pivot point as a line of soldiers led by Willa and Thea formed up to the right of the trees. Some of the demons had already started to go around the natural barrier only to be quickly cut down and pushed back by the professional soldiers. Shifting in a coordinated maneuver, the soldiers wheeled so that their far right end closed like a door onto the mob of demons, flanking the horde.

The rocky ridgeline was quickly turned into a killing field as scores of demons were hacked and chopped into foul-smelling bits by the experienced professional fighters. Just as every encounter in the past had proven, the demons had no sense of self-preservation, nor did they have any morale to break. However, even if there was no psychological effect against the demons by flanking them, there was the practical effect of cutting into them at two different angles.

A loud boom echoed through the trees, accompanied by the sight of several large bone thieves and wretches being blown to bits. Aila’s exploding spell wasn’t instantly lethal to all that many of the demons it hit, but with so many packed close together in their rush to attack Jadis and the Reavers, dozens were injured by the explosion, thus weakening them and making them easier for the melee fighters to deal with. It was a good thing, too, that so many demons were being struck by each spell that Aila threw at them, since Stavros’ men were in dire straits. All of them were injured, including Stavros from what Jadis could see, and there was still a steady stream of demons flowing towards them from the woods to the west. Not enough to be called a true horde, but more than enough to overwhelm the lines if their numbers weren’t being thinned by Jadis and Aila.

For a brief moment, Jadis considered activating her Mirror Shine spell. It would draw more demonic attention to her and give some relief to the wounded smugglers. The demons were also turning more and more against the soldiers and her teammates on the flank. Drawing the demons away from them was definitely something Jadis would prefer to do.

Jadis nixed the idea a moment later. The last thing she wanted was to have all the demons focus their attacks onto her, thus giving Stavros and his criminal gang of cutthroats the opportunity to slip away while she dealt with the mob. She had made the split-second decision to save the Roiling Reavers because she would be damned if she were to become as heartless and cruel as Stavros seemed to think she was. Plus, there was the saying that the enemy of an enemy was a friend. The demons were the bigger threat overall, so working together to face a common foe made some sense.

She still didn’t trust the nasty little shits.

Jadis’ caution was proven correct perhaps a minute or two further into the battle. As another one of Aila’s exploding force bolts blew away a cluster of demons near the right side of the smuggler’s line, one of the men on that side stumbled back. Rather than push back into the gap to hold the line, the man cursed and turned tail. He ran, trying to flee the battle to save his own hide. The key word, of course, was try.

Syd’s lance swept the man’s legs out from under him and he collapsed into a heap. Before he could recover, she grabbed him under one arm and hefted him high into the air like a fish she had plucked from a lake.

“Aila!” Syd shouted, “Chains!”

Jadis barely needed to look before dropping the floundering man back onto the ground. As soon as his feet hit, ghostly chains erupted from the magical trap that Aila had cast on command, binding the cowardly idiot in a rune circle that he had no hope of escaping.

Stavros saw what Syd had done. Jadis knew he had, seeing his head briefly turn to glance at the commotion. Good. It was important that he knew where they stood. She certainly had no illusions that he wouldn’t try something as soon as he could. That just meant she had to make sure to beat him to the punch.

As time wore on, fewer and fewer demons came charging out of the woods to the west. No greater demon came to join the battle, nor any larger abominations like nithetre or grundwyrm, and certainly no matriarchs. There were a few more possessed frost drakes that Jadis saw in the mix, yet those dangerous beasts were rapidly dealt with at range by well-aimed oversized arrows that pierced them from a high angle, coming from somewhere high in the trees. It was as the crush of demons had been cut down to a nearly manageable number that the next smuggler made their move.

Jay struck a blow against another wretch, swinging her hammer in a controlled arc, when the blood bitch wielding her magic scythe abruptly turned and swept her blade at the back of Jay’s neck. It was a sneak attack, a magically constructed blade of demon blood aimed at hitting a weak point in Jay’s armor. Jadis had no doubt the blow would have cut through to her flesh if it had hit, especially considering how clean the woman’s cuts were against other hard targets.

The treacherous blade, however, did not strike Jay. Without looking back, Jay ducked out of the way, letting the spinning blood blade pass by. Being able to see from three different perspectives made it very difficult for attacks against her person to sneak by undetected. Too bad for the bitch that she didn’t know that about Jadis.

The butt of Jay’s hammer shaft slammed into the woman’s stomach, knocking all the air out of her. In the same moment, Syd grabbed her neck from behind and hauled her up. This time, however, rather than calling for one of Aila’s arcane snaring traps, Syd tossed the bloody asshole forward, into the dwindling crowd of demons.

“That probably won’t kill her,” Syd growled as the woman landed in between a couple of hulking bone thieves twice her size. “Who’s next? Or are you fuckwits going to have some sense and surrender?”

It wasn’t as though any of the Reavers were in a position to just turn and promise to be good, but with that display of ruthless strength, Jadis saw that the majority of the smugglers were looking less defiant and more cowed. Jockel looked pissed, his face red as he issued a constant stream of curses under his breath. Stavros was unreadable, what little she could see of his face under his helm completely expressionless. But the others? The others looked like the fight was out of them.

“Not yet!”

Jadis’ attention was attracted by the almost manic shout of one of Stavros’ men. It took her a second, but she recognized him as the trap maker, the crazed-looking blond man with orange eyes. He clearly wasn’t much of a fighter, not compared to the others, but he had been on the line with the rest, swinging a pair of daggers with wild desperation the whole time. Abruptly, he looked up at Syd, completely ignoring the wolf-like wretch behind him as he turned his back on the dangerous demon. Syd was forced to abort the attack on her intended target and strike the wretch before it could rip the maniac’s head off.

“I haven’t set my trap off yet! It has to go off!”

“What the fuck are you talking about!?” Syd shouted down at the trap maker, just barely keeping the wretch’s claws away from him.

“I have to set off my trap!” he shouted up at her. “It’s not complete until it goes off!”

With those mad words, he turned back to the swarm of demons and rushed forward before Syd could stop him.

Jadis watched with growing amazement and incredulity as the maniac slipped through the demons, though not without taking damage. Claws and bones cut and slashed as he rushed by, but he ignored every wound in his crazed dash towards a large, towering pine maybe twenty meters away. Even as a bone thief’s spear-like arm punctured his shoulder, the man let out a triumphant cry as his dagger sliced through a thick rope around the base of the tree that Jadis hadn’t noticed.

With a loud creak and a sudden crash, several of the large branches overhead broke as hundreds of pounds of stone fell from above. Of course, where they fell was completely useless to the situation, since the heavy rocks were all set to fall on top of the road. Not a single demon was crushed by the falling stones. However, in the next second, more creaks and popping of broken wood could be heard over the sounds of battle. To Jadis’ shock, the whole damn giant tree suddenly tilted, a hidden cut in the trunk appearing as the massive pine fell over.

The tree landed right where the rocks had fallen, it’s huge bulk crushing multiple smaller trees and causing part of the ridge under it to collapse from its sheer weight, almost like a miniature landslide. This second part of the trap did catch quite a few demons in it, the destruction wreaking havoc indiscriminately.

“Yes, yes!” the maniac shouted, barely audible over the noise. “Haha! Yes!”

“Your company is fucking insane,” Jay shouted as she smashed another demon to paste while pushing forward towards the wreckage.

“I know,” Stavros growled next to her in his deep baritone. “I fucking know.”

After that, the battle turned into a cleanup. There weren’t many demons left, and those that were had either been injured by Aila’s bombardment or the madman’s giant-slayer trap. None of the other smugglers tried anything else, either. Not with Syd hovering behind them, lance at the ready, as well as Aila further back and able to cast devastating spells. As the last of the demons were slain, Dys handling the major push into the remainders of the pack, the blood bitch she’d tossed into the middle was found.

Not dead. A completely bloody mess, her body battered to a bruised pulp and one arm dangling at a wrong angle, but not dead. She glared venomously at Dys, leaning heavily on her scythe. Not even breathing hard, Dys held up her giant axe, the head wider across than the woman’s torso, and waggled it in front of the woman’s face.

“So? Still want to try some shit?”

The woman spat a mouthful of blood onto the axe head.

“Fuck you.”

“Okay then,” Dys shrugged, then snapped forward and wrapped her free hand around the woman’s neck like a vise.

Without looking, she tossed the bitch several yards into the clearing behind her, where she landed in another one of Aila’s quickly cast snare traps.

Jadis hadn’t actually known if Aila would cast the trap in time to catch the woman. In fact, she’d kind of hoped she wouldn’t as it would have given her a good excuse to pick her up and toss her again. Well, the day was still young.

As she dealt with the blood bitch, Jadis noticed Thea and Bridget dragging the broken and bedraggled form of the mad trapmaker out from under a couple of dead demons. It looked like he was still alive, somehow, but by the amount of blood leaking out of his wounds she doubted he would be for long. The two were carrying him over to where Aila, Sabina, and Eir were, though, so if he was able to be saved, Eir would do so. Otherwise, at least he’d gone out happy.

The rest of the Reavers stood in a loose group next to their leader. Stavros was breathing heavily, several large gouges in his armor showing bleeding wounds across his arms, chest, and sides. He still held his scimitar and buckler at the ready, the fight still, shining in his dark eyes. His men stood ready, too, though not nearly so confident as Stavros. A handful looked like they were ready to throw down their arms then and there, but more of them stood defiantly next to their leader, ready to follow his next command.

Jay loomed over Stavros, casting a shadow over the man and his remaining followers. She held her giant hammer over one shoulder, its immense weight more than enough to smash Stavros into pudding, and her arm certainly fast enough to do it. Jadis had seen the man fight twice now, and while he hadn’t changed, she had. It had only been days, but her attributes had increased drastically. Even if he was more skilled than her, the sheer numbers were more than making up for the disparity in experience between them. She was more than fast enough to catch him now, spinning dervish or not. What’s more, she knew he knew it, too.

“What now?” Stavros asked, his voice soft but clear despite the still howling wind.

“You can surrender,” Jay answered directly. “Or you can fight and lose. Your choice.”

Stavros let out a brief, barking laugh. In the next moment, his shoulders sagged as his weapons lowered. The men behind him soon followed suit.

“Nephilim, huh?” he rumbled. “I really wish I had known about the three of you earlier.”

“Why?” Jay asked, her tense stance relaxing slightly as she saw the Reavers drop their weapons. “Would knowing about us have stopped you from being smugglers?”

“No,” Stavros shook his head. “Would have tried to recruit you. Would have made a lot of coin with a trio like you in my group.”

Thinking about the timeline of when she had reincarnated on Oros, when she had left the abandoned village, and when the Roiling Reavers had supposedly started their smuggling operation, Jadis supposed that it was possible that the first people she ran into could have been Stavros and his men, rather than Aila’s two uncles. If she had delayed longer, or he had moved quicker, it was certainly possible.

“Well, that makes one of us,” Jay snarked back as she thanked D for her good fortune to have not been found by Stavros and his Reavers before finding Bernd’s Blades and Aila. “Now put your hands behind your heads and head over next to those snared morons. We’ve got a lot of shit to do here, starting with securing all of you.”