By RS Taylor
We rejoin our hero for part two of the serialised Chronicles of Cael MacMorna!
Previous instalments may be found here: https://thehouseofink.co/news
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Looking about warily, unable to shake the sensation that the hunter had become the hunted, he moved cautiously up the trail in a guarded crouch.
An overwhelming stench of fresh blood warned him moments before the path opened into a clearing and he froze, aghast at the horror glistening in the storm-domed sunset.
The clearing was daubed scarlet with carnage and rent entrails, torn carcasses, shapeless and humped bodies laying in gory piles higher than his knees.
A single rough standing stone in the centre of the clearing remained unbloodied save only by the glittering sunset on its quartz facets.
Although he was no stranger to war-wounding, it was difficult to hold his gorge down at the brutal spectacle, and yet even as he struggled to make sense of this senseless slaughter he was reading the book of ruin.
A deeper, older part of his soul — forged in the fires of harsh discipline and honed by the passage of grim years — sifted through the memories of countless battles, comparing the twisted charnel wreckage to what he knew all too well from long experience.
Each ragged slash and shattered bone added another piece to the puzzle.
This carcass had been torn in two, each part thrown across the clearing in different directions at the same time, although individually they would have challenged even a strong man to lift.
The sprays of gore, gouges as deep as the length of a man's arm through ribcages — no sword had done this and no axe could have done that —
The only victims of this wild and reckless butchery had been cattle, unless their guardians had been dragged away into the forest. The beasts had been given no chance to flee, not even a little way up the trail.
His eyes were drawn uneasily and unwillingly to the untouched standing stone in the middle of the clearing, and anew the strange feeling of being watched sidelong by some great, glutted, devouring creature loomed upon him.
The razor's edge of his sword whipped around to rest on the delicate, pale throat of a young woman who was approaching him from behind.
She froze, gulped and raised an eyebrow, her red hair loose about her shoulders, spilling over a fur cloak clad and belted tunic. Her short iron-shod blackthorn staff was held low.
"I have no need of a trim, oh cat of the forest," she gulped "for only a cat could have heard my tread!"
He grunted and nodded at a cowering boy with a tear-streaked face who gaped behind her outstretched arms, smachtín stick and bull ring still clutched in his hands.
"I did not, but the lad's sniffling was a different matter."
"Who would not weep?" she asked, blanching as she stepped away from the tip of his blade and took in the carnage behind him, "what monstrous deed is this?"
"What..." she whispered and locked eyes with him.
"What have you done?"
Stung by the accusation, his lip curled in scorn and he lowered his sword, but before he could speak a twig snapped behind him, and the world exploded into stars.
Bellowing in fury, reeling and clutching the back of his head, he whirled to see a surprised-looking mountain of a man hefting a heavy club.
Before he could utter another word, a second blow unseen plunged him into darkness.
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All characters in publications on this website are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright ©
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, audio, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
All characters in publications on this website are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.