Indra looked about warily; she did not look happy to be here. She was silent for a long time before she spoke.
"It is fabled to be one of the seven realms of hell," she said, staring out at the gloomy landscape. "Legend has it that when hell had no more room, the Devils were given six more realms. It was forged during the early days of the Empire. Before Andronicus—before even his ancestors. It is a place where even Empire troops will not go.
“This river that cuts through it connects two different Empire lands. It is a shortcut of sorts. Yet no one is foolish enough to actually use it. People will take the long way, however long it takes.”
They fell back into silence as they all paddled on the twisting, narrow river, as the sky fell into a deeper twilight. It was like paddling into somebody’s nightmare.
There came a sudden splashing, and Thor looked over and saw a set of glowing eyes surface from the water—then disappear.
"Did you see that?" O'Connor asked.
They all examined the water, as all around them it became filled with small splashing noises, and sets of glowing yellow eyes popped up everywhere.
As Thor leaned down to get a better look, suddenly a reptile jumped up from the water, the size of a large fish, with huge glowing eyes, and long, crocodile like jaws. The jaws must have been two feet long, and it snapped right at Thor.
Thor leaned back, at the last second, just before the jaws cut him in half.
Krohn snarled at the creature, but then pulled back himself as another one of these creatures leapt out of the air and snapped at him. Thor lifted his paddle and smashed the reptiles as they leapt out of the water all around them. The others did the same, beating them back, as they circled the boat.
One of them leapt into the air and managed to sink its teeth into Conval’s arm.
"Get it off!” he shrieked, clawing at it.
Conven hurried over, grabbed its jaws and managed to pry them off his twin brother’s arm, then threw the thing back into the water. Luckily he got it off quickly enough to leave his brother with only a minor wound.
"There's thousands of these things!" O'Connor yelled out, as he dodged one which leapt through the air right past him. "We can’t hold them back forever!”
Thor realized he was right; they were overwhelmed by these creatures and it was only a matter of time until they did some serious damage; there was no way they could fend them all off. It was as if they had navigated into a den of piranhas.
But then all of the creatures suddenly turned and took off, submerging underwater and darting away at full speed.
"What are they doing?” Elden asked.
"It looks like they're running from us,” O'Connor said.
"Or from something else," Indra said ominously.
Thor realized, with a pit in his stomach, that she was right. All of those creatures wouldn't dart away like that unless they were scared, unless they were running from something. Something much bigger than they.
Suddenly, there came a huge rush of water, and as Thor looked down, he saw the waters foaming, bubbling.
He knew something was about to attack them. Something big.
“Brace yourself!” he screamed.
Before them came an explosion of water, and bursting up from beneath the surface came a massive sea monster. It was unlike anything Thor had ever lain eyes upon. It was a huge, whale-like creature, its jaws twenty feet long, filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth. Its red eyes protruded from the side of its head, several feet wide, and its nose curved upward, several feet, with razors on the end of it.
Its open jaws came down for the boat, and Thor's reflexes kicked in. Without thinking, he placed a stone in his sling, leaned back, and hurled it with all he had, aiming for the monster’s nose. Thor remembered hearing that the nose was the most sensitive place to wound a beast, and he prayed with all he had that it was true. If not, within seconds, they would all be inside the beast’s stomach.
It was a perfect strike, at full force, and as the rock hit, the beast suddenly stopped, halfway down, and leaned back and roared.
It was an earth-shattering roar, loud enough to shake the waters and rock their boat; Thor barely kept his footing as he reached up to grab his ears.
The monster surfaced even higher, raising up another thirty feet, revealing rows of claws extending along the side of its body, tapering to a point, looking like a whale crossed with a sea snake.
All the Legion broke into action, inspired by Thor, hurling spears at the beast, all lodging into its body; Elden threw an axe, lodging into its head, and O’Connor managed to fire off three arrows, all landing with precision in one eye.
But, to Thor’s shock, the beast remained unfazed. It simply pulled them all out as if they were toothpicks using its various claws, then threw them into the water.
The beast, even angrier, threw back its head, opened its jaws twice as wide, and brought them down again, preparing to slice them all in half.
This time, there was nothing left to stop them.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
As Gwendolyn watched the Empire break down the gates below and pour into Silesia, she stood there frozen. She could hardly believe it had come to this so quickly. All of their carefully-laid plans for defense, washed away in a matter of hours.
“My lady, we must move!” Steffen yelled beside her, frantic, tugging on her arm.
She snapped out of it, her instincts kicking in. She saw Srog, Brom, Kolk, Kendrick, Godfrey and the others all retreating with the soldiers down the back steps of the parapets, and she remembered their contingency plan. She had gone over the plan endlessly with her generals, and now it was surreal to see it put into motion.
As the first Empire soldiers rushed through the gates, Srog turned to his men and screamed:
“NOW!”
Several soldiers pulled huge levers from up above, and as they did, a trap door opened up in the ground below, right past the gate, making all the soldiers fall, dozens of Empire men, screaming, into a deep and dark pit. The massive hole prevented the soldiers from getting any farther past the gates, into Silesia. It bought Gwen and the others precious time—but Gwen knew it wouldn’t hold them back for long, and they all continued with their controlled retreat.
The Empire men were beginning to catch on, and they stopped racing into the city, stopping at the gates, right before the pit. Yet they were log jammed, with nowhere to go; unable to back up, their own men stampeded them, rushing to enter the city, and pushed more and more men, screaming, into the pit.