Re: Mini-Grand 5102 [Round 2: Shuck Hollow]
09-07-2011, 05:18 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by XX.
The wind screamed and Rome screamed with it, a dull red smear of sound.
Hooves and heart pounding in sync, the Beast flew over the plain like a hawk, barely seeming to touch the ground as it galloped over the bodies of the fallen and crushed metal and flesh alike under its feet. The clanging of iron rings boomed in its ears and drove it further into its senseless fury until it was frothing at the mouth for blood and justice and gold, louder and louder until it could hear nothing else above the sound of its own thundering heart. The blood running down its flanks could have been fire for all it burned; the gashes the bladebeast had left it the knives of hunters flaying it alive as it ran. Rome was pain and Rome was hunger, and it wanted nothing more than to trample the cause of its agony to a bloody mess beneath its hooves.
Lumped shapes appeared on the horizon, the colors of night and poison and lies Invidia Superbia Gula Ira Avaritia and Rome hated them for being there, hated them for existing when its back burned from the blade beast’s torments and no one was coming to save it. With a piercing shriek it caught their attention: cows and bulls that watched the approaching Beast with apathy in their liquid eyes and soft mouths. Fit for the slaughter fit for the table fit for a man and fit for a Beast, mountains of meat and bone. Rome leapt, landed; a bull bellowed in terror as a claw slashed across its broad shoulders. It crashed into its neighbor with aimless anger, goring its fellow beast in the neck and stumbling over the dying creature as it wailed its life away in thick green torrents. Rome roared its victory and the animals answered it with cries of fear as their bodies formed a seething mesh of panicked flesh.
All it took was a single hoof breaking through a fence to start the stampede. A lowing cow smashed through the gap, trampling the wooden slats into splinters; in the space of seconds the others were following her in a mad rush to escape the whirl of iron and dust that was shredding the backs of the herd to dusty ribbons. They poured out like water from a burst dam, flooding the plain with a swell of terrified flesh and shaking the ground with the war drums of their hooves as Rome rode the tide. The clang of iron bells followed it as it leapt from back to back, never losing grip in the living flesh beneath it despite the sway of the cattles’ spines and the toss of their horns like swords beneath its dancing feet. Rome screamed and the herd screamed back, and the sound was a banner of war hanging in the dusky sky.
But the Beast was ancient and Rome never forgets; its quarrel was not with these animals. Another held that honor and another would die this day under the red dust’s vengeance. It lifted its muzzle to the sky and breathed in the scent of blood and iron and rage, and under it all it caught the current of its enemy’s lifeblood from where the Beast had left it, still sharp with hate and fury. Rome howled its wrath over the calls of beast and man alike, and then with a scraping of hooves and a shattering of iron it was leaping over the heads of the herd and landing roughly on the hard-packed ground.
It ran with a maddened speed, so swift it could not tell what passed beneath it in its haste to follow its tormentor’s scent. Rocks and flesh and bones and steel and wires were nothing but a smooth brown blur and the Beast saw nothing but its hate, burning under its skin like a plague that whipped its blood into liquid fire. As it ran, it consoled itself with the promise of revenge and the thought of what the swordmonster’s flesh would taste like between its teeth and under its hooves as it ground the life from the wretched thing inch by painful inch.
A house arouse on the horizon, half-destroyed, and with there loomed a towering colossus of corpses held together by no earthly force. Rome snorted at the sight, remembering, remembering always remembering, and as it spied the speck of the swordsmonster atop the monstrous thing it roared its arrival like a call to arms.
The wind screamed and Rome screamed with it, a dull red smear of sound.
Hooves and heart pounding in sync, the Beast flew over the plain like a hawk, barely seeming to touch the ground as it galloped over the bodies of the fallen and crushed metal and flesh alike under its feet. The clanging of iron rings boomed in its ears and drove it further into its senseless fury until it was frothing at the mouth for blood and justice and gold, louder and louder until it could hear nothing else above the sound of its own thundering heart. The blood running down its flanks could have been fire for all it burned; the gashes the bladebeast had left it the knives of hunters flaying it alive as it ran. Rome was pain and Rome was hunger, and it wanted nothing more than to trample the cause of its agony to a bloody mess beneath its hooves.
Lumped shapes appeared on the horizon, the colors of night and poison and lies Invidia Superbia Gula Ira Avaritia and Rome hated them for being there, hated them for existing when its back burned from the blade beast’s torments and no one was coming to save it. With a piercing shriek it caught their attention: cows and bulls that watched the approaching Beast with apathy in their liquid eyes and soft mouths. Fit for the slaughter fit for the table fit for a man and fit for a Beast, mountains of meat and bone. Rome leapt, landed; a bull bellowed in terror as a claw slashed across its broad shoulders. It crashed into its neighbor with aimless anger, goring its fellow beast in the neck and stumbling over the dying creature as it wailed its life away in thick green torrents. Rome roared its victory and the animals answered it with cries of fear as their bodies formed a seething mesh of panicked flesh.
All it took was a single hoof breaking through a fence to start the stampede. A lowing cow smashed through the gap, trampling the wooden slats into splinters; in the space of seconds the others were following her in a mad rush to escape the whirl of iron and dust that was shredding the backs of the herd to dusty ribbons. They poured out like water from a burst dam, flooding the plain with a swell of terrified flesh and shaking the ground with the war drums of their hooves as Rome rode the tide. The clang of iron bells followed it as it leapt from back to back, never losing grip in the living flesh beneath it despite the sway of the cattles’ spines and the toss of their horns like swords beneath its dancing feet. Rome screamed and the herd screamed back, and the sound was a banner of war hanging in the dusky sky.
But the Beast was ancient and Rome never forgets; its quarrel was not with these animals. Another held that honor and another would die this day under the red dust’s vengeance. It lifted its muzzle to the sky and breathed in the scent of blood and iron and rage, and under it all it caught the current of its enemy’s lifeblood from where the Beast had left it, still sharp with hate and fury. Rome howled its wrath over the calls of beast and man alike, and then with a scraping of hooves and a shattering of iron it was leaping over the heads of the herd and landing roughly on the hard-packed ground.
It ran with a maddened speed, so swift it could not tell what passed beneath it in its haste to follow its tormentor’s scent. Rocks and flesh and bones and steel and wires were nothing but a smooth brown blur and the Beast saw nothing but its hate, burning under its skin like a plague that whipped its blood into liquid fire. As it ran, it consoled itself with the promise of revenge and the thought of what the swordmonster’s flesh would taste like between its teeth and under its hooves as it ground the life from the wretched thing inch by painful inch.
A house arouse on the horizon, half-destroyed, and with there loomed a towering colossus of corpses held together by no earthly force. Rome snorted at the sight, remembering, remembering always remembering, and as it spied the speck of the swordsmonster atop the monstrous thing it roared its arrival like a call to arms.