THE REALM

Chapter Twenty One

  I rode northward out of Orpital and into the Kingdomer Nation of Thyana. Thyana was a grassland country. Long drifting moors capped off with the bronzed heads of mature grasses.

  Here and there the bright colors of late blooming wildflowers were intermixed with the dry grass. It was a beautiful country. Wide open with more room to grow.

  As beautiful as it was it did not call out to me to make it my home, but rather like a pretty picture it was something to be enjoyed in the moment before moving on. My home, if I ever had one, would be somewhere in the higher elevations where all four seasons of the year were arrayed to their most extreme glory.

  Another thing that came to me, as I looked at the endless miles of grass before me, was the lack of trees. I liked trees.

  Something else that began to stand out to me was the towering column of black smoke rising up from the prairie in the distance. I was reasonably sure that it wasn't a grass fire, as it seemed too localized. Although as dry as the grass was it might turn into one.

  That possibility suggested I go around the smoke in order to avoid being caught and taken down by a fast-moving prairie fire. Despite that sound logic, I found myself still headed for the columns of black smoke on the horizon before me.

  A sense of danger and a thirst for adventure spurred me on. I couldn't help but think that I was a fool though. Fool or not, I wanted to see the cause of the smoke and meet my future head on.

  An hour later I spurred the old mare up another rise in the terrain close to where the smoke originated. I was getting close now and I could tell that the smoke was coming from several fires and not just one.

  I rode on and as I cleared the last rise that barred my view I came to an abrupt halt. The source of the fires were wagons. The kind of wagons that farmers used to convey their goods to market.

  There were 10 or more of about 30 wagons set ablaze upon the prairie and it was as I had feared. Small prairie fires were starting up around the blazing wagons.

  The instinct to leave was strong, but the bodies lying about on the plain called out to me. I pulled my sword free of its saddle scabbard and held it down along the side of my mount as I slowly eased the mare towards the scene of carnage openly spilled out onto the grass of the prairie.

  The wagon train looked to have been caught in an ambush of some kind. That was mildly surprising, as how did one ambush in such an open country as this?

  I drew closer until I was alongside one of the burning wagons. The smoke burned my eyes and shortened my breath, but I ignored both as I was too taken in by the horror of what lay around me.

  Men, women, and children of all ages lay strewn about in the grass. They all bore the marks of having been viciously mauled. What beast could be responsible for such a scene of chaos as this?

  Many of the dead lay with eyes still open, staring at the sky with such a look of horror on their faces that it must surely have been the imprint of the fear they had been made to feel in their last moments of life. What animal possessed the ability of invoking such horror as this?

  My stomach churned at the sight of a child almost mauled in half. My grip tightened repeatedly on my sword as I slowly made my way down the long line of wagons stretched out on the plain.

  These people hadn't stood a chance against whatever had set upon them. It didn't look like they had even made an attempt at self-defense. What could so overwhelm people as to not even fight?

  The hair lifted on the back of my neck as my mind ran wild with possibilities. I had slain monsters for over a year, but those bulky counterparts didn't match this scene of horror. Saber Cats were something to be defended against by even the weakest of individuals and yet these people had fled in abject terror.

  The carnage about me had the imprint of evil all over it. I drew the mare to a halt as she began to balk. She had no love for the sights and burning smoke of the scene from the pits of Sheol and I didn't blame her.

  I heard a moan and my head whipped in the direction of the cries. I wanted to know the story of this place and at least bring myself some closure as to the horror that I had seen. I dismounted and hurried over, sword in hand, towards a small hummock of raised grass nearby.

  There, on the sheltering side of the small rise, lay a man who was near death. He was awash with blood and I could barely fathom what willpower the man had managed to exert to even survive to this point.

  I knelt down beside him and his eyes flared wide in alarm. Sucking in a deep and painful sounding breath he grabbed hold of me and rasped out in a whisper, as if in fear of being overheard, "Run you fool!"

  "What happened here?" I asked in return.

  "Happened? All Sheol broke loose is what happened! They're not still here are they? You need to get away now before they get you!" he finished with renewed urgency.

  "Who is they? Who gets me?" I asked, but just then there was a husky, somewhat off key, roar that I identified as belonging to a lion.

  The man's face twisted into a caricature of extreme fear as he whispered out brokenly, "You're too late! They're back, the Lion Men of Itarga!"

  "Lion Men?" I whispered back hoarsely in alarm, but the man was dead, his face frozen over with a mask of fear.

  Trembling slightly, I lifted my head up over the small rise to take in the long stretched out line of idle wagons. I saw nothing but the buzzards that had started to congregate overhead in large numbers.

  Then I saw it! My heart froze over within me at the sight of a creature that could only have been designed by the fallen Malachim of Sheol.

  What was before me was the body structure of a large powerfully built man. He was moving about between the bodies, stopping occasionally to tear into one before moving on. The resemblance to that of a man stopped at the upper chest area where humanity blended into the head of a lion. I had heard rumors of these creatures as a child, but it was said that they were all dead a long time ago. However, the opposite reality was right here before me.

  How was a hybrid being of this sort even possible?

  My eyes took in more motion further on down the line of wagons and I saw more of the Lion Men headed this way. Fear mobilized me and I backed away from the knoll top and circled back around for my horse.

  The way it looked, these Lion Men were working their way back down the line of their savagery, looking for victims that they had missed the first time. I would be discovered instantly as these creatures no doubt possessed some of the instinctual abilities of the big cats that had been bred into them.

  My foot was on the stirrup of my horse's saddle, when a scream belonging to a woman rang out in a tone that expressed extreme terror. Unable to stop myself from looking I turned and saw the body of the shrieking woman thrown from a wagon to the ground by one of the Lion Men, who burst out in a language that I couldn't comprehend, but which sounded too dark and animalistic for the surrounding air to bear.

  The sounds of words, understood or not, coming from the mouth of a lion set upon the proportions of a man was beyond unsettling. Unsettling or not, the fate of the woman cried out to me.

  The other Lion Man on the ground was even now tearing at the clothing of the woman as she twisted about on the ground in a desperate attempt to be free. Her terror was so great that I couldn't leave. I just couldn't.

  I forsook my attempt at a stealthy retreat and ran towards the unnatural aberration of a man now bent on corrupting the defenseless woman with an unholy seed of demonic manifestation. I was beyond scared, but I was who Kuri had taught me to be. To have left the woman would have been cowardice, and yet to attempt to save her surely must be suicidal on my part.

  I rammed my sword blade clear through the back of the creature's neck and on a choked roar of agony the creature ceased from ravaging the helpless woman who lay bloody and half bare beneath him and turned on me as I withdrew the sword.

  The Lion Man fell over on his side still staring up at me with a look of such loathing hatred that I felt my blood chill. His eyes were decidedly not human just as little else about him was.

  To my horror I realized that, though it had been but seconds since I had killed this one, there had also been a second one to deal with, which I had forgotten in my rush to the woman's aid. I wheeled around only to see the second individual pounce from the wagon with teeth bared.

  I tried to bring my sword up but it was too late and I was driven into the ground by the weight of the Lion Man. I rolled off to the side and scrambled up to my feet only to be sent reeling backward through the air and slammed into the side of the wagon.

  Blood ran down my chest beneath my torn shirt. How had I been wounded?

  My eyes took in the hands of the creature across from me and saw that the fingers of the creature had the talons of its feline heritage. Everything I knew or thought I had known of the world was being redefined in this moment.

  I'd lost my sword and I watched as, with talons spread and jaws open, he came at me on two legs with a roar of rage that sounded darker than the night.