The Heavenly Host

He managed a solid hit on the neck before the Knight’s head and neck twisted enough that Ruiden was forced out of the crack. Still in the air, Talarius tossed Ruiden upward and pulled his Rod of Smiting from its secure hidden location, activating it to expand the head and increase the length and weight, Talarius grasped it in both hands and brought it crashing down upon the Knight’s head with a loud CRUNCH!

Talarius swapped the Rod of Smiting to his right hand, allowing it to shrink to a single-handed mace as Ruiden came back down, twisting in midair to land hilt-first in his left hand. He would parry the Knight of Chaos with his left hand and smite it with his right, at least for a bit. It was important to shake things up and keep one’s opponent off guard. This was most likely going to be a very long fight!

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CRUNCH! came the sound of one of the now even more gigantic and suddenly stone sphinxes as it stomped a Knight of Chaos under its forepaw. Tom shook his head as he swung the Rod of Tommus at the head of his Knight. Those sphinxes were something else!

As the sphinxes had charged into battle, they had begun to expand in size. At the start, their human heads on top of their lion’s bodies had been eye level with himself and Sekhmekt; by the time they reached the Knights of Chaos they had almost tripled in size, and they kept on growing.

As if that hadn’t been interesting enough, when they struck against a Knight of Chaos, they could either rake it with their huge claws — talons, really — or they could turn themselves or various body parts to stone. When they turned themselves to stone, their huge paws and legs would act like giant columns of marble coming down to crush whatever was underneath them; specifically, in this case, a Knight of Chaos.

Amazingly enough, the Knights being squashed by the now fifty-foot-tall sphinxes were managing to get back up, albeit in a very dazed and wobbly manner. Tom shook his head. If he had thought Talarius was tough to battle, he had been mistaken. The armor on the Knights of Chaos was nearly impenetrable; his claws raked uselessly along it and the joints were much more tightly sealed than Talarius’s had been. He was not actually sure how the Knights were moving with such tight joints, yet they were. To be fair to Talarius, however, the Knights were neither as dexterous nor as agile as Talarius. Not by a long shot. They were, of course, far faster and more fluid than any human in such armor could be, but not as fluid as Talarius.

“Shit!” Tom yelled as the knight’s blade sliced completely through his left arm. He flashed it back together again. The knight had stepped back a bit after slicing his arm, presumably to avoid being smashed by the Rod of Tommus. Tom used this to his advantage, leaping forward and planting the sharp spike of the Rod into the ground and using it as a pivot point for a flying dropkick with both hooves into the Knight of Chaos’s chest. He winced as the sharp edge of the knight’s shield sliced into his shins. That hurt!

Tom exhaled; these things were tough! By his count, there were twenty-three of them. He had one of them, Talarius had another; Sekhmekt was fighting two at once somehow and seemed to be winning. That woman was truly impressive; he was damn glad she was on his side.

Morok had been a bit of surprise; the D’Orc commander had waded in with only a short rod in one hand. Tom had been worried until he’d heard a somehow-familiar sshhZZZZDDDTT sound and a reddish black beam of light about five feet long had appeared from the end of the D’Orc’s short rod. The D’Orc commander was using a light saber!

Tom had shaken his head. That thing was seriously impressive. It was the one sword they had that was capable of damaging the armor worn by the Knights of Chaos. It could not slice through it in one blow, at least not so far, but it was melting tracks in the armor. Tom had to chuckle. Morok Deathstealer was one of the odd-looking bald, pale D’Orcs from Visteroth; if the D’Orc had worn robes and not had wings, he would have looked very much like a Sith Lord. He certainly fought like one.

Each of the six sphinxes was tackling two knights apiece. The knights did not seem to be having any more luck damaging the sphinxes than he and Talarius were having damaging the Knights of Chaos. The remaining six Knights were being kept busy by the D’Orcs.