Beast of the Night

Overwhelmed - ELEVEN

"Brother, get out of there!" Ennard shouted, stumbling over the stones of the hill. 

The greyed, bearded hunter carrying a small dull knife, and a matchlock handgun, stepped closer and closer to the broken-down home, only to halt at the smell of blood. 

...

Continued 

... 

Leuan, stepping further back from the extirpated woman, his stomach churning with pain as he bent over in trembles. The odder was worse than the musty smell of an abandoned cottage. The tall man stumbled out of the scratched and torn wooden door, into the dusk light of the night. The ominous feel to the cold settle air swept the sweat-dampened long hair of Leuan. Yes, it may be his officious character that brought him to this bloodbath in the first place. Even as a soldier to his town, he was still irritable as a child would be to the sight of blood. 

An inopportune glance to the boy running up the pinnacle made the hunter gasp for air. But as the glowing red eyes of the small figure in the distance reached the hunters eye, and the smell of iron fell like a metal plate to his head, the hunter intuitively knew of what had happened at his home. The torn doors, the boy running closer and closer to the home. "Get away from my home, demon!" The hunter cried out in a hoarse voice, lighting the lock of the gun with preparation to fire. 

Ennard halted in his steps, acceding to the warning of a click. The raven-haired boy shot out his little black claws from his pale hands, clenching his fangs to his white teeth. When Leuan stumbled out of the home with red glistening smears over his freckled cheeks, the humans trembling hands clenched to the handle of his matchlock, and his dilated eyes widened. "Irea," the man whimpered out with tears in his stubborn eyes, "my wife! What 've you done to her, vampire!"

Leuan gazed over with trembling hands and feet, watching as the barrel brandished to Ennard and lit up with threaten to fire in an instant. The venal hunter blamed all to his wife. It was the woman's fault he had to leave! Irea had the legs to walk, the mouth to speak, the hands to fondle. She was a beautiful woman. If the woman had just listened to him, and ran off to the brothel, she would have been safe from these... beasts.

Ironic, one would say. At least, this was what Ennard's mind believed. The numbness in his arms caused his body to relax, as it did his mind. The thought of death. It did not scare him; it almost gave him a feeling of solace. He was just a rampant beast, was he not? A beast of the night. Yes, he deserved this. His own mind premeditated this. But Leuan, he had a deft instinct. A skilled warrior for his family, in war and domestic affairs. Each click of the humans rough stained finger to the metal of the pistol it his ears in an instant. 

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The expression of calmness, yet like a fawn cornered by a hunter. Leuan stepped forward, his supple body contorting forwards and darting to his little brother. The tie to his mahogany brown hair let loose, the wrap falling out, but keeping up in its place. Ramming into Ennard, knocking him straight to the cold ground, the ankles twisting with pain at the sudden suppression of his body. Leuan stumbled to stand, "Ennard, why did you follow me here!" 

But it was too late. The priming powder had been smashed inside the pan of the pistol, the trigger had led the string to the powder, and the barrel let out an ear-shattering blast. Gunpowder fell from the sides as the hunter fell to his rump, blown back from his weak state. Smoke shrouded over the hunter and covered the ground.

Dripping liquid fell from the side of Leuan, the damp grass of the hill staining with the inevitable leakage. As the boy's chest bulged and receded with his harsh breath, a comprise of all the foggy words reached his ears. "Leuan?"

The man standing over Ennard glanced down to his torn side, then to the panting hunter that stayed trembling to the ground. Leuan had a gaping hole in his side. Not like the normal matchlocks he had seen in war before. The human lying to the cold earth had created his own, filled with a deathly size of musket metal. An explicit thud echoed on the silent hill; the tall figure looming over Ennard's overwhelmed body slowly drifted to its side until it pounded to the earth. 

Ringing was all Ennard's ears could process. Until he stood with trembling feet had he gained his mind. The boy swayed in his stance, and within a second had he appeared over the hunter. The throat of the elder man was covered in dripping blood, the slit trailing straight across the middle tore through the meat and esophagus. The hunter fell with a splutter of blood, laying to his back with wide confused eyes, destitute to all breath. The child's big, dilated glowing eyes glared back to the figure twitching to the ground; the boys chest protruded with heavy breath, and his teeth were as crimson as Leuan's side. "Leuan!" He stepped off the motionless body and ran to Leuan's side. The boy with tears to his little eyes fell to his knees and cried out for his brother to wake. He shook the collar of the twitching man, tears pouring out of his own eyes. "Leuan, please do not leave me!"

Just as Ennard sobbed out his last mumble, clutching to the chest of Leuan's robe and burying his raven hair to it, the last stately breath escaped Leuan's lips before the twitching ceased. Ennard's teary eyes widened, uncovering themselves to star into the soulless eyes of his brother. It was all the boy's fault. He let out one loud cry that made Adriel's little ears perk in the warm air of the castle dining-room. "Mama? Where's m' brothers?"

...

---(Next chapter will be in present time, Vee & Ennard.)---

---What character is your favorite so far? (I will be asking questions randomly throughout the book)---