Steeds of Hell

A scar-Chapter five

The thin sound of wood being chopped poured from the trees at a distance, and the beast only ran toward King Bryce’s army. “We have to meet it, the beast. We have to meet it!” Bryce had a sudden urge to shout out. Isaac sighed, he didn’t want to fight the beast after he had seen what it was capable of. “Isaac, I will leave you here with the knights.” before he could say more Bryce hurried to the front lines of the his army and soon the yells and shouts of the men sounded off, “What is he doing?” Isaac thought. The men began to move forward and soon they were running, by the ten thousands, almost the whole army. “What is he doing” Isaac then said, confused, angry and already tired. The men met the beast and a slaughter began, Isaac could only watch, there he stood ignorant, hail beating down on his helmet, wet sand jumping up as the hail stoned it. The knights of Hyll stood silent, watching the soldiers fall by the thousands and listening to their thin screams sounding off as their lives left them. Isaac listened as well, but he heard other things, not just the screams and fire that blazed and blasted through the heavy hail. The noise began to turn into a loud cracking sound no sooner than a long large tree fell straight on Bryce’s sortie. Crushing at least a hundred men, it just missed the beast. Isaac got an idea, “We can trap the beast under a tree.” Excited. He then knew that was Bryce’s idea. Not long after, the hail stopped suddenly and the sight they watched began to vanish in the grey smoke. They waited for a long time, Isaac stood inpatient, watching, waiting. “What the hell is going on” Isaac wondered. He was so tempted to check on his brother and the rest of the army but “I best hold my position.” He also thought. It’ll take much to get him to even get close to that beast if he wasn’t sure if it was hostile or not, and curiosity wasn’t much to him. Isaac looked closely, very closely, “Damn! I can’t see anything,” he roughly whispered. He only knew the battle was no longer active. “The beast must be trapped” Isaac said, he also hoped. “We will see” after standing for a long time he was fed up, the young prince commanded the knights to march. The men walked ankle deep in the wet sand as they marched down the beach to Bryce’s men. Most of them lay dead in the sand soaked in blood. Grey smoke hovered above the dead army. The smell was no less horrid than the sight. Some men still lay with their lives; they lay maimed, crying as their skin fell off when they reached at the passing knights for help. The range of sight stayed short because of the thick smoke. Hungry fires still cracked and burned at the dead bodies. “Your grace!” Isaac called out.  He got a loud scream from the beast in return. A boom of the knights readying for a battle sounded among them. Isaac hid behind his useless shield with his long sword peaking over the edge.  They watched closely, their feet dug deep into the blood puddles as they trembled out of fear. “My lord” a soldier approached the cluster of black knight, “come, follow me,” he said just before coughing to the smoke.

The soldier led the knights to the beast. It lay trapped under a large branch; squiggling trying to break free, while all of the knights watched “kill him already!” Isaac brought his head up to look at his brother, “Brother?” the king stood with burns covering his cheek and neck, and his own men’s blood covering his face as well as his smoke stained armor. Behind him were Sir Alister Seville and the party the king ordered off into the woods. They looked untouched, the black armor, which dressed them, shined like it was brand new, but they stood tired and beaten. “You may have the honor, little brother,” he calmly said. Bryce had a foot posted up on the log that lay long across the beast, His arm across his knee and resting on it. Isaac heard a faint whisper of a crunch from Bryce biting an apple he held in his bloody hand. Bryce watched closely as his brother put the cold steel on the beast’s red neck, the ice melted and dripped off the blade. It fell on the beast and evaporated into the air as steam, while the beast hissed louder. He dug the sword deep within the beast’s neck. When the blade was no more, deep with in the beast’s neck. Isaac rested his hand on the swords hand guard while still grasping the handle, it burned his hand. His reaction was to pull the sword out, and he did so. He didn’t return a swords blade, just air and molten steel, which dripped and sizzled when it hit the wet ground.

“Where’s my sword?”

“I don’t know” Bryce said, the crunch from biting the apple whispered again.

“Where in hell did you get an apple from?” Isaac said. Bryce pointed to an apple tree; it was rich with both red and green apples. A small beam of the suns light kissed it. The bright of the day started to begin.

“Water hurts the beast, we can dump buckets on ‘em and see what that’ll do.” Isaac said.

“No, we chain it and use it as a weapon,”

“Have you gone mad? We just lost ten thousand men in a few hours to this one animal. What if it gets out of hand, it’ll perhaps kill the rest,” Isaac protested

“It killed ten thousand men, you think we march to the kings city with five thousand men? He’ll have us all faced in dirt before the archers are done. We’ll chain it.” Bryce stayed calm but the young prince only became angrier.

“I am your king you little fuck, anything I say it is your job to obey.” Bryce made clear and Isaac said no more.

“We call the banners, the allies of our father. And we drag the damn horse along with us.” Bryce threw the apple and turned his back towards Isaac. “Empty the ships and bury the dead! I want to start this long march tomorrow morning.” He said just before walking away. By then the smoke had cleared just enough to see though. It unveiled the fallen soldiers and the few thousand who still stood. Isaac sighed and watched his brother walk away.