“Attack!” Tesel shouted.
All the soldiers behind him, Lia, and Fil rushed at the monster, yelling in a mad frenzy with their swords held high. Especially wild in their racing at Kappitta were those men who’d contemplated deserting, so eager were they to redeem themselves and to be purged of their former selfish thoughts and shame.
…and all of these were the first to be sucked, by a powerful inhalation, into the giant worm’s mouth.
As they were sucked in screaming, the others were able to get past the mouth and stand on either side of Kappitta’s long, snaky body. They immediately began stabbing their swords into its sides, spraying its blood all over themselves and making it wail deafeningly in pain.
The men sucked inside weren’t dead just yet: they were frantically jabbing their swords into the beast’s insides, trying to make as many internal stab wounds as possible in, they hoped, its vital organs before its enzymes fried and melted their bodies. The fighters outside were heartened at the sight of those internal sword pokes bulging out, inspiring their own external sword lunges to be all the more furious. They tried their best not to let their lowered spirits affect that vigorous thrusting when they no longer saw those internal sword bulges.
Many of these fighters, however, had their spirits far more than lowered when Kappitta swung its serpentine length to crush them against the tunnel walls.
“Lia! Fil!” Tesel shouted. “Let’s try climbing up on top of its head! We can try stabbing at its eyes and its brain! Come, let’s hurry up there!”
The surviving soldiers stabbed more aggressively into the sides of the giant worm to distract it from Tesel, Lia, and Fil climbing up its head. Once on top, the three of them started stabbing–Lia and Fil reaching for each of its eyes, and Tesel searching for Kappitta’s brain with his sword.
The monster tried bucking the three of them, but with little success: they just bounced on top without falling off, causing mere brief interruptions of their stabbing. Kappitta tried crushing the three against the ceiling of the tunnel, too, but it was too high; no raising of its head could get high enough.
One of the fighters on the sides saw the height of the ceiling and what the three were doing. She got an idea.
“Hey!” she shouted out to those near her. “Let’s do what our leaders did! Let’s climb on top. Kappitta can’t raise its body high enough to crush us against the tunnel’s ceiling! Let’s go! The others should follow!”
She and those who heard her immediately started their climb. The worm swung its body and crushed several fighters against the tunnel wall, but it was the wall opposite that of the side where the other climbers were, so most of them got to the top.
One of them, however, fell off, and when lying on the floor Kappitta rolled on top of her and crushed her. The other climbers were on top of the worm by that time, and they began stabbing it. Its blood was spraying everywhere, and its wails hurt its enemies’ ears.
Again, Kappitta tried to buck those on top of it. Tesel, Lia, and Fil managed to stay on top by keeping their stabbed swords deep inside of its body and hanging on tight to the hilts; most of the others who’d just climbed on stayed where they were, too, but two of them fell off. The worm twisted its body, rolled on the pair, and killed them.
Those fighters still on the ground and stabbing Kappitta in its sides were growing tired, but tried to ignore their waning energy and kept stabbing and slicing…though slower. The worm swung the middle of its body at some of them, crushing them against the tunnel wall. It was losing strength, too, and moving slower.
When that swing of its body came, one of the men closer to its head dodged out of the way, but came up to its mouth. It gave a strong inhalation and sucked him in screaming. He’d dropped his sword, so he couldn’t even stab inside as his body went struggling inside, punching and kicking…until the bulges in its body from his punches and kicks were no more.
Kappitta felt a new surge of energy, thanks to this latest snack, and it bucked those on top again, causing one of those on its back to fall off. It rolled its body and crushed him on the floor, while also smashing some of the men on the side against the wall and killing them, too.
A few men on the sides saw those on the top, and decided to climb up, too; though as they started their climb, the worm swung its body again, crushing them against the wall.
Lia and Fil were still reaching for the eyes, but they were too far out of reach, especially after the bucking and swinging had knocked them further back down the head.
Lia, however, finally managed to crawl forward far enough. She gave a forceful lunge and stabbed Kappitta’s right eye. The monster let out an ear-splitting wail, then bucked hard. She fell off, and landed right in front of that huge mouth.
She jumped to the side just before it inhaled, but she got pulled in by her feet, just enough for it to close its lips around her lower legs. She screamed, then hacked at its lips to free herself. They hugged her legs tightly, hurting them.
Fil stabbed his sword into its other eye, blinding it completely. It wailed again, letting Lia go. She scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could, in spite of her legs’ soreness, and tried to run away from the mouth, but it inhaled again, this time sucking her whole body inside.
…and at just that point, Tesel stabbed his sword all the way into its head, piercing its grapefruit-sized brain and making the animal slump on the floor, lifeless.
They could hear Lia screaming just behind the lips. The stabs of her sword from inside were poking holes through the lips.
The survivors from the sides rushed over to help her. Tesel and Fil got down from the head.
“Hurry up and cut her out!” Tesel shouted. “Before any enzymes flow out and kill her!”
All the men hacked with their swords at the lips, as she continued to do from inside, until she could get out.
…and she came out, trembling all over, soaked in slimy worm saliva.
Some fighters came over with cloths and rags to wipe her dry. As soon as they touched her, though, she started screaming and flailing her sword wildly. A woman fighter then approached her with her arms out, ready to hug her, and she calmed down a bit.
“It’s OK, it’s OK,” she said to Lia as she put her arms around her. “Kappitta is dead. You’re safe. It’s all over.” Lia sobbed a bit.
Tesel and Fil looked back at all of the remaining fighters, then at all those crushed on the tunnel walls and floor.
“How many do you think we lost?” Fil asked Tesel.
“At least half of those we had before this fight,” Tesel said, frowning. “Aisa’s army will be directionless in their fighting when we confront them, but they’ll surely have well over twice as many warriors as we have.”
“We’ll have to hope that the wild swinging of their swords will result in them cutting down a large number of their own,” Fil said.
“Perhaps, but that wild, directionless swinging of swords will also cut into much of Gaya’s body, whether intended or not,” Tesel said. “For that reason, we must hurry down there.”
The soldiers marched double time again, passing along the seemingly endless length of Kappitta’s corpse, then through the stomach chamber…so dismayingly empty of food…and into the filthy, reeking tunnels of the intestines, where they could faintly hear the wild clanging of swords, surely those of Aisa’s men.
“Oh, by the gods,” Fil said as he held his nose. “I don’t know which to dread more–Aisa’s men, or this smell!”
As they were approaching the rectal area with even more reluctance (and this reluctance says nothing of the upcoming fight!), they heard voices from the gods above again:
Lila,didyouhearwhathappenedtoAsa?
No,Phil.Whathappened?
Cecilgotintoanastyfightwithhim,andevenstabbedhim!Asa’sdead.
Oh,myGod!HasCecilbeencharged?
No,itwasself-defence.Asahadtheknifefirst.He’soutofthepicture,though,forgood.
Really,Phil?
Yeah,Cecil’stakingoverproductionofourfilms,andweknowhe’lltreatusallmuchbetter.
That’sgoodnews.IfonlywecouldgetsomegoodnewsforGaya.
These words, in a way inexplicable to the troops, who still couldn’t make out the unclear language, gave them some courage…which they were going to need, right at that time.
For in the rectum, Aisa’s chaotically flailing, massive army was right there, ready to fight.
Infinite Ocean 