Chapter 10
"So tell me," it purred, cupping Eodmund's face with its sharp claws, "What is your name?"
"Eodmund Blackadder, O' great, evil, terrible, and beautiful one." Eodmund replied, pointing proudly at the nametag on his robes. "And your name, my lady?" He grasped her clawed hand and swiftly placed a kiss on the back of her hand.
It laughed long and hard. "Bold, very bold. Know that my true name, mortal, can only be pronounced by six simultaneously screaming mouths in an alternate dimension where there are fourteen dimensions, ten additional primary colors, and the sound frequencies are distorted so badly that they can rip asunder the very fabric of space-time itself! But, in the interest of expediency, you may call me Tam."
"Very well, O' Tam." Eodmund replied, bowing. "Now, as to the situation at hand, a few guardsmen have infiltrated this temple. We believe that they are being contained-"
An earthshaking explosion punctuated his sentence, causing him to reword the predicate.
"Or perhaps not. Anyways, the Imperials got wind of our little cult, so we'd be most grateful if you would do something to stop them from doing that to us."
"Excellent, excellent, the more the merrier, isn't that right?" It cooed, stretching it's limbs. "Just point me in the right direction, love, and the deed will be done."
"Up the tunnel, take the second right, then the first left." Eodmund directed. "The rest of us should probably stay down here and let you mop up the tunnels so we can get to the armory safely, eh?"
"You Tzneechians," it sighed at him. "Never the hands-on type."
With a feral leap, it ran through the door and out of the room, leaving Blackadder and Baldric in a room with the few cultists who were not absorbed during the ritual.
"Alright men, it's time to ready ourselves for great evil! Evilly shall we decimate the evil imperials and stuff it up their evil corpse god's evil arse!"
"Sir!" One of the cultists interrupted. "I admire your enthusiasm, but don't you think you're overdoing it? I'm pretty sure the thesaurus lists plenty of synonyms for evil and stuff, like malevolent, nefarious, wicked, and sinister."
"Alright then, less talk and more action." Blackadder nodded, drawing out his power sword and running it through the heretic. "BALDRIC, FIRE!!!"
*
"Sisters, we have breeched the wall. We are ready to begin the assault. How are you holding up?"
Able's voice came in patchy over the vox channel – perhaps it had something to do with the Sisters having moved down into the tunnel complex to clear out any remaining cultists.
"Very good, soldier. Only one casualty so far. You men take the defenses, we'll mop up the rest of this Emperor-forsaken place." Sister Elizabeth replied.
In front of her, Sisters Mable and Nursie had were covering a door, with the rest of the unit lined up against the wall, ready to sweep into the room after the breeching charge went off.
The charge went off on time, but to their surprise, the door exploded outwards – along with a massive purple demon, snarling as it filled up the hallway.
"Time to join your corpse-god!" It taunted, pouncing onto Mable and sinking it's teeth deep into her neck. Blood spurted all over Nursie, who fell back firing her flamer widely as she did so.
"Don't just stand there, kill it!" Sister Elizabeth shouted, sending bolt round after bolt round into the creature's carapace. The other sisters joined in, but no matter how much firepower they poured into the thing, they could not cause a lasting wound; the demon healed far too quickly for their weapons to be effective.
It leapt up off of Sister Mable's body and grinned wickedly at Sister Elizabeth. Knowing what would come next, Elizabeth quickly ducked the demon's pounce and rolled away from it, firing her bolter up into the demon's exposed underside. It hissed and reached a clawed hand towards her throat, nearly reaching its target before being knocked off target by a Baldric shaped projectile.
"Bold, eh Tam?" Blackadder taunted, as "Tam" snarled in frustration. It whipped it's tail around to meet him, knocking Blackadder into the wall. Baldric noticed the situation he was in and proceeded to release a defensive cloud of odor to cover his escape.
Tam swung her other paw down to trap Sister Elizabeth only to capture dirt; she had left along with Baldric and had picked up Blackadder across her back.
"Pull out!" She yelled, retreating through a doorway. "To the surface!"
Tam turned around to see the other Sisters swiftly disappearing into the tunnels too small for her to follow.
"Run, little ones, run - but you can't hide from me!" Tam yelled in frustration, blood boiling through its wounds.