Eros

Hail to the King - 12

Gurak, the Warchief of the Bloodhowl clan, marched over the ashy, barren earth, and a dozen Warspawn followed.

His eyes were obsidian orbs, his nose flat with diagonal slits, and his broad jaws bracing large teeth that could crunch a bone with a bite. Rocklike muscles bulged against his tough hide, its mottled gray torn in a wide collection of scars. Dusky, matted hair hangs down his neck.

Four, maybe three hundred Warspawn crowded at the edge of the campground they marched towards. A grin twisted the Warchief's wide mouth.

"Observe the warm welcome the Boneshatter clan prepared for us." Gurak said, and guttural laughter spread amongst his clan. The Boneshatter crowd snarled and growled as he approached them.

"Boneshatter!" Gurak threw his chin up and bellowed. "Send forth your Warchief!"

A single Warspawn emerged from the crowd and faced Gurak. As their Warchief halted, the Bloodhowls lined behind him. The four closest to his sides held up iron stakes. Warspawn heads smeared with dry blood and rot were displayed atop of three. The fourth spike waited empty, glinting.

"Gurak Bloodhowl, the Chief Slayer." Boneshatter's Warchief uttered his title in a mocking, rasp. Boneshatter towered above Gurak, a mountain of hulking muscles. White, dense bones built a skeletal bulwark across his arm as they jutted into the air and criss crossed over his flesh. His skin was coarse and pale, marred by a number of scars that challenged even Gurak's.

"Krakar Boneshatter." Gurak acknowledged Krakar, ignoring his scoff. The severed heads spoke for him. Krakar's black eyes glittered in their sunken sockets, flickering between Gurak and the spikes the Bloodhowl had brought.

"You challenge me, Gurak?" Krakar tilted his bald head in question, his mouth stretching in a thin, eager grin. Silent, Gurak reached over his shoulders, grabbed his twin war-axes, and swung them free of the straps across his bare back.

Madness took the crowds of both clans. The Warspawn spread out and closed a circle around their Warchiefs, bestial roars booming from their chests. With a rattle of the iron chains around his waist, Krakar drew his heavy, spiked mace into his fist.

"When I am finished with you, there will be no head to put on a spike." Kraker snarled and raised his shield of an arm halfway. It covered nearly half his massive body, the bone cusps hovering beside his head and below his knee.

The Warspawn around them fell silent in anticipation. Gurak shut his eyes and loosened his arms, letting his axes dangle at the side of his body. Krakar growled and stomped forward, swinging his mace in an arc to the side of Gurak's head.

The Chief Slayer's eyes shot open with his opponent's footfall. He leaned back, air brushing across his face as the mace passed before him. Then, he lurched forward, arm flexing and axe flashing overhead. Kraker heaved his shield, the axe skittering along its skeletal surface as he batted it aside, and thrust his leg into Gurak's abdomen, launching Gurak back in stumbling.

Krakar rushed after his unbalanced opponent, swiping down his mace. The Chief Slayer stepped and drew his torso back. One of the mace's spikes scraped over his chest, cracking his hide. Gurak's face twisted as dark blood dribbled out the cut, showing no pain, but a savage smile.

He threw himself forward, pulling his axes after his body, and hacking with one after the other. Krakar slid a foot back and raised his bulwark before him. His shield arm tensed as the axes' heavy blades ground against the dense bone. Boneshatter bashed Gurak off with his shield, then pulled it aside and thrashed out his mace.

Gurak sidestepped away from the mace's arc and revolved to face it, his axe streaking. The weapons' shafts met in a metallic clash, and as they slid against one another, the lower curve of the axe hooked the mace below its head.

Gurak jerked his axe, pulling at the mace, and Krakar extended his hand and tightened his fist, refusing to release it. The Chief Slayer raised his other axe, his obsidian eyes flashing with bloodthirst, and chopped down at Boneshatter's stretched arm.

Realizing his mistake a moment too late, Krakar bellowed in anguish. The axe carved through bulky muscle and cracked through the elbow in a spray of muddy blood. With a dim thump, the large forearm slapped the earth.

Krakar wobbled backwards in shock, blood gushing from the exposed flesh of his half arm. He swung his glare from the stump to Gurak, let loose a thundering roar of rage, and charged at him, thrusting his bulwark before him.

Gurak swayed aside, the shield's skeletal rim scratching his shoulder, and whirled as Krakar charged past, his axes whirring through the air. The first cleaved deep into Boneshatter's back, and the second tore through his ankle. Krakar stumbled on his ripped foot, coughed blood out of his torn lung, and collapsed to his knees.

Gurak stepped over the trail of blood in Krakar's wake, and stood at his back, crossing his axes before the defeated Warchief's throat. Slowly, the Chief Slayer surveyed the daunted crowd of the Boneshatter clan. Then he raised the axes over his opposite shoulder, and lashed them down like scissors. Each axe sliced into a side of Boneshatter's thick neck, grazed over its twin as they cut the spine apart, and burst bloody out of the other side.

"Boneshatter!" Gurak roared as the severed head rolled, and the headless body fell forward. "Who is your Warchief?"

"Gurak Bloodhowl!" The Warspawn's united shout shuddered the air. "The Chief Slayer!"

"My clan, we shall hunt beasts no more." Gurak shouted, and confusion spread through the Boneshatters.

"For I will crush every Warchief who dares to oppose me.

"And I will watch the clans kneel united before me.

"And together, we will hunt the prey Brasgar intended for us."

Gurak raised his blood dripping axe into the air, and the Warspawn went wild, roaring out every ounce of air in their chests.

"Together, we will feast on the flesh of the weaklings over the wall!"