Crusaders Part 19

Present

The arena is a crude circle drawn on the flooring, and the squire is now standing in the circle with his upper clothing removed. The lifeless carcasses are still standing at the walls but they are all eyeing the arena while their Lord sits on his throne smiling with delight. He has send off messengers to bring forth the champion of his realm. The ground trembled and the wall shook as the champion announced it arrival; even the lifeless carcasses runs for cover. From the tunnel, a dark shadow was soon emerging to show the form of the challenger. Its an Anaconda of immense girth which filled the entire tunnel way and a deadly set of jaws with the long fangs.

"Mother of God, how many serpents does this hellish demons keep in their pens?" Helmut is muttering his prayer at this monstrous reptile which has just slitter into the cavern. The reptile made its presence known by grabbing at one of the slow moving carcass into its jaw and swallow the whole carcass in one mouth take.

The squire is either mad or deranged as he transformed into his beast self. Upon his full transformation, he grabbed the pike held by Helmut and lunged onto the reptile. He pierced the pike into the lower jaw of the snake and pushed the tip end to inside the top of the reptile's mouth. With its mouth now trapped open, the beast lashed out with its claw on the soft tissue underneath the jaw of the reptile. It tore out one of the long fang from the reptile jaws and used it as a weapon to stabbed at the inner upper jaw with great force. The reptile rolled and slammed its body against the caverns walls as it felt the mauling inside it jaws. Then from the right eye of the reptile, a long fang of the reptile was seen jutting out and the reptile sank to the flooring. The reptile lay there heaving in deep hisses as dark blood seeped out of its jaws and soon it stopped moving. The beast crawled out of the jaw and pulling hard to remove the bloodied pike from the clenched jaw. He has transformed into his human self and is smiling. He also holds the fang he used to kill the reptile. He returned the pike to Helmut but the Baron declined it as its coated with blood. He placed it at the feet of the Baron and rejoined me.

"Thank you. But you do not take such risks again." He smiled at me and walked away to retrieve his tunic."So Baron Osu, the champion has been terminated. Please show us the way."

The demonic baron walked up to his pet and caress the dead reptile. He glared at us and said; "She is a pet of Belit. Now you be careful as Belit would exert her fury on you for the death of her pet." My patience grew tired and I approached the demon and grabbed hold of his collar. My servant would take you part of the way. From there you make your own and be gone from my realm."

"How are we to travel on a river when we have no boat?" We have reached a river after traversing the tunnels and reached here. Its a wide river and the water does not flow at all. It was Micheal who made the comment and before I could reply, a boat was seen floating towards us. Its unmanned by any person or demon but it floated to the bank where we stood.

"Belit send her boat for you. She is expecting you at the her place." The demon who guided us here now took to his hoofs leaving us with the boat.

"Shall we, gentlemen? A lady must not be kept waiting for us," All four of us boarded the boat and it floated on away from the bank to the middle of the stream. There the stream soon part itself in the middle and we find ourselves heading downwards into the river depth but we seem to be sailing in that manner for some time before the boat slowed down. All the time we been sailing downwards, it was as if we been swallowed by the river. Now we are leveled again and find ourselves in another cavern. There the boat docked and we all disembarked from it.

"Gentlemen, please step forth and lay your eyes on the Labyrinth of Belit." Helmut points to us the sight that is before sloping down to the plain below. On the plain itself is the elaborate labyrinth design that we are to handle in our next task.

"Well, Belit awaits us there and we shall not disappoint her." I took lead on the group and marched down. All of them came down but one; Micheal. He seems to be staring at it; fearing it or studying it. But he soon chased up to us.