The vines continued. The spears continued. The two forces — Helena's ground-level crushing and Mira's sky-level piercing — worked in tandem. The barbarians were caught between them. The ones the vines didn't crush, the spears pierced. The ones the spears didn't pierce, the vines crushed.
The camp became a slaughterhouse. Not a battlefield — a 'slaughterhouse.' There was no battle. No resistance. No fighting back. The demonified barbarians — the men who had been ready to conquer a kingdom — were reduced to screaming, bleeding, dying meat.
Gharuk — the Bull, the tribe leader, the seven-foot demonified brute — stood in the center of the camp. His black skin was pierced. A dozen spears had punched through his body — through his arms, his legs, his torso. The holes leaked red-black blood. His red eyes — the berserk eyes — were wide. Not with rage. With 'understanding.'
The understanding that he was going to die.
