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    Bowl Of Beasts
    Bowl Of Beasts
    Bowl Of Beasts
    Ebook239 pages3 hours

    Bowl Of Beasts

    By Kenneth Guthrie

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    About this ebook

    Monstrous men, evil schemes, creatures of devious deformity: This is the Bowl of Beasts. Arthur's brutal obsession with The Cup leads him across borders. The Irish, Scots and his own countrymen will feel his wraith as he tears his way, tooth and nail, towards what he desires with not a single care for the fires of hell he leaves in his wake. Can evil come to possess pure goodness?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLunatic Ink Publishing
    Release dateSep 30, 2013
    ISBN9781301938308
    Bowl Of Beasts
    Author

    Kenneth Guthrie

    Kenneth Guthrie is a writer of sci-fi, fantasy and crime novels.Profile image credit: Vincent Gerbouin at Pexels.com

    Read more from Kenneth Guthrie

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      Book preview

      Bowl Of Beasts - Kenneth Guthrie

      Chapter 1

      Arthur The Beast

      The sea of men swarming from one side of the battlefield to the next hurtle over broken ground littered with the remains of corpses and weapons. Once green grass is trampled bloody red by leather and steel boots slamming into the earth with the force of men and slaves who know that this may well be their last moments in life.

      The air around them hisses with the sound of sweet black death adorned with the feathers of crows, whose plumage was torn free while alive due to the desperate need for projectiles on this seventh day of fighting. It howls through the darkened smoky air of the pitch smoke strewn field. Huge earth mounds of rock and debris hail down with occasional accuracy through the clouds above. Each time one appears, almost out of nowhere (such is the visibility on the field), a shocked soldier's face is briefly revealed as he trips backwards into his fellows, a large fragment of the catapult fodder jammed into his chest, or side of head or worse. He falls and is trampled, much as anyone who loses their balance in this death rush, to be mangled and left behind - no chance of saving whatsoever.

      At the front of the massing, milling mob of men that run like a black sea carving its way haphazardly through a green/red painted beach is a red streak. His arms pound endlessly back in forward in full sprint and his graying scarred silver helm is pushed forward to allow his body to curve into an almost bull like charge. Below him his legs are a blur of metal moving and howling in outrage as it is slapped hard into legs that are mostly muscle with only the faintest trim of fat on his solid frame.

      This man is Arthur. Many know him as the king of half the known world (or at least the most important part of it: England), but for those that really know him there can only be one name: The Beast.

      Arthur's cloak flows out behind him in a long trailing mess. His armored chest with a raging hawk on it is more screaming demon with the scars and bloodstains that coat its long-ago new steel. Everything about him is rage. There is no efficiency to this man. He is grimly effective, yet it is in the most brutal of ways. In this charge, perhaps, this is the best strategy for what is about to come.

      On the opposite side of the field a similar scene is playing out. The mix for this final climax of this 7 days war is well armed soldiers from the North and farmers and slaves that will only serve as shields for their betters come their dying time.

      Somewhere in the middle of these men, flanked by the last of his riders, is Kane. He is known as The Filth of Ireland for the atrocities he has conducted in the name of his mother, a once-farmer turned mass murder known as Bloody Ann, and his homeland of Scotland. His great long beard wails out like a streaming sea of gray clouds spouting from his jaw. The man's eyes are steel gray and he wears no more armor than a steel breastplate and a helmet that covers most of his face except for the beard. In the tension of his huge muscles and the grit of his steely eyes is only the determination of one that the world has done wrong on. In this anger is his strength, but perhaps his weakness.

      The two sides stream towards each other. The great hawk demon looms over the left of the field and the mighty wolf bends its back in a growling upwards snarl at the beast flowing down on it like a tidal wave. The battle will be decided today and the victories name added to the annuals of history in their enemy's heart blood.

      Minutes pass before the first ranks come together. In that time outlawed prayers are spoken and wives and children and wished well. It is a last crying scream to a fallen crutch of humanity before brutality owns the day.

      Arthur draws as he meets the first slave to step in his ways. The man recognizes him and tries to pull away. The beast growls a curse, which is howled by the demons of today's death behind him in endless waves. The front line buckles under the fear this creates as a single man's head slowly slips over the massing milling line of black in a red trailing arch that sees it revolve thrice before slipping into the otherworld.

      Swords are joined and the hacking begins. Sparks ping off steel as weapons unblocked collide with armor just strong enough to take the heft of a man fresh to the field's arm. Around these sparks blood rains through. It is like watching the stars through a red field of rain that barely obscures the light above. Little splotches of plaid dirty flesh is soon added to this as chunks of the less well armed bodies are torn out and let fly to make this painting a delight to any sadist's eye.

      Within this picture of grim death, men swing swords in rolling slashes that curve around their bodies with every bit of their might they can muster thrown into them. Soldiers and slaves and mercenaries' faces are bared in grim white snarling tension. Their eyes are wide with the lust of men set lose into a swirling, clutching whirlwind of fear - of last moments and honest disdain for anything but survival. They chop with every last breath of life in their bodies, knowing each may be their last, and fight for no one but themselves.

      BACK! comes the howl of a captain on the Hawk's side.

      Men hear this blessed command through ears howling with the sounds of the clangs and crunches of steel being ruined around them. They are dragged back by more even headed fellows who see the death lust these men are trapped in.

      Steel stripes out from between the gaps these men make. Some were slow to move and are impaled, but, by battlefield standards, the loss is minimal. Pikes slam through the necks and chests of the slaves of the enemy too slow or too inexperienced to understand what was coming. The flashes of steel slam out again and again until greedy bodies hold them so tightly that they must be dropped to the ground as their worth is lost.

      The gap in front is a few meters wide. The first to transverse it is the red stripe of the army's leader. He charges the enemy with his long sword held high and slashes into the ranks. Arthur's face is taunt. He cries out what could be a battle cry or just a curse. It is taken up by his men immediately and the bulk of his better trained soldiers charge full force into the weakened and bleeding hounds of Kane before their leader can take too much of the glory for himself.

      The front line destabilizes quickly. Arthur is no stranger to combat. The man's entire life from the day he watched his mother raped and torn limb from limb to this moment where he reaches out with one clawed gauntlet, dripping with heart blood, and grasps the temples of a man who has lost his helmet to lift him upwards to throw into his neighbor, which Arthur runs through as his sword is lustily thrust upwards into the man's weakened steel breastplate.

      The Beast tears his weapon free and slashes left to right to clear some space. He charges a well equipped man with a plume on his helmet that marks him a man of fanciful ideals of leadership and stabs him in the right wrist, taking his weapon away.

      FEED! he yells as he grabs the man by the plume and pulls him back into the mass of howling man-demons behind him.

      The soldiers of the enemy take wild glances at the red cloaked oak tree of a man they stand against. Their leader's body is torn to pieces by the hands of strong men with hearts black and seeping with evil intent. Only his head is thrown back to the opposing forces with an ecstatic shout of glee.

      Be at them! Arthur yells.

      The soldiers surge forward around him and the slaves among the soldiers in front turn to run. They are chopped down by Kane's better trained men, which results in them turning to be chopped down by Arthur's. At least the sword arms of the Hawk's men will be a little more weary before they meet those of the Wolf's.

      The milling battle continues on and on from minutes to hours. The two forces are relatively evenly matched. Kane has bought a significant number of slaves with him, which act as padding for his main forces. Men, women and children are thrown at the better trained and better armed army. It is a strategy that tires the enemy for very little actual loss on the Wolf's side. Unfortunately, this was expected.

      Arthur breathes for a moment. He stands with sword lying against his side and mouth wide as his great chest heaves in air thick with the scent of sweat, fear and death. The man's eyes are brown and wide as he takes in the only thing that can truly make him feel anymore. He can see the slaves in front of him are wearing away and knows that it is time to let loose hell.

      Bring the heat, he tells his latest attendant.

      The man salutes, draws out a red stained white flag and hauls it into the air, waving it about like a white dove flying in the midst of a great blackness.

      A massive non-human howling sounds from the rear of the front line. There is a pounding that any trained soldier knows well, and knows well to fear. From above a black stained arrow of something slick and shiny flows through the ranks, parting the ways with no care for what it tramples.

      Arthur turns, ignoring a line of men that have broken through his ranks to take down the one that has taken many of their family and friends from them over the last 7 days, he sheaves his weapon and puts out his hands to the side, spreading his fingers and bowing his head forward with a wicked grin as he sets himself in a pose of waiting fury.

      A lone man, naked and painted black, appears above the ranks. He is tied onto a great scared stallion, whose body has been painted with pitch and holds two containers of the very same liquid sloshing about to its sides.

      The stallion charges towards Arthur. The man on top holds the reins, but does not sway. It becomes clear that his tongue has been cut out and his eyes with them. He rides blind and does not see his master ahead.

      Arthur roars. It is a great bellowing sound that flows out from the deepest depths of his soul. The effect is immediate.

      The great black devil of a stallion - seeing the TRUE devil before it, eyes glinting red and fangs burning with white flame - slips to the side. Arthur roars on as dozens of horses charge by him, splitting the way for the one that their leader feared. The charge the lines with tails set alight and flaming. The hair is burning away at a quick rate. Soon the skin with set fire and...

      There is an explosion of flame behind Arthur. The man closes his mouth as whooshes of fiery death explode upwards in fountains of burning heat. Men scream, howl, beg, and die behind him in those moments as the entire pack of horses becomes a charging living inferno, spreading pitch on the enemy and burning them where they stand.

      Arthur turns, his red cloak swirling around to hug him in its embrace, and watches on with eyes glittering in joy. The slaves are running, but they don't get far. The leadership of the enemy could not expect this. Certainly some of the wiser commanders will allow their slave fighters to slip into the safety of the well-armed ranks, but for many this will be too sudden of a change. The bloodlust will be too strong in them. They will see their slaves routed and force them back into the line, into the fire and into their death. Their own stubborn unreactiveness will be their undoing.

      Move the men forward, Arthur growls.

      The command is not passed on. He looks to his left. The attendant is dead on the ground with a hoof mark on indented on his helmet.

      I NEED A NEW ATTENDANT!

      A man quickly steps forward. He bows his head. Arthur looks to the runt.

      Prove yourself and you will earn your post, he tells the man.

      As you wish, my lord, the man cries in awe.

      Arthur gives his command again. It is passed on with enthusiasm.

      For the Hawk! men scream at the top of their lungs as they stream past Arthur and into the flames.

      The Beast grins and surges forward. His feet are fast and he is quickly to the front again. Smoke billows and bulges around him as he leaps dying horses and tramples those that dared stand in his way.

      He stops at the front of the army's true ranks.

      KANE! he bellows, throwing up his arms and spreading them to the heavens as if to rip his enemy from the clouds.

      A man steps from the enemy. He is tall, maybe 3 heads taller than Arthur, and a monster in size. This one is well armored and his weapons well oiled and clean. He is a fresh man and clearly a fighter of some skill by the graceful swagger that he holds as he comes to stand with his hands on his hips looking amused.

      You come for Kane? he shouts in a baritone voice with hints of another nationality to it.

      I do. Are you him?

      The bigger man laughs.

      Do I look like him?

      Arthur taps his helmet with his fist.

      Ah yes, I forgot that your lord is uglier than a pig bred with a mangled sheep. You are just ugly.

      The men behind him, who are readying themselves for the real battle's beginning, howl with laughter and clap their weapons on breast plates or shields.

      You will pay for that, Englishman, the giant professes.

      Arthur chuckles and reaches to his side. He pulls a small pouch from under his armor.

      Well, if I must pay to see Kane, will this do?

      He throws the pouch to the ground. It falls open and scatters its contents in front of a screaming, dying, flaming horse.

      BASTARD! men call. ANIMAL. HEATHEN. BEAST!

      Twenty feminine fingers lie on the ground in front of Kane's guard. Each has a wedding ring on it that is without a doubt Scottish in origin. They glitter like little fairies winking out at the very end of their lives as the horse meat beside them slowly fries away the skin, showing the thin bone and muscle underneath.

      Taken from the hometown of your leader, Arthur cries joyously. Stripped from maidens just married. There is not a women's finger under 25 years of age in that pile.

      He looks to the men standing with their hands gripped hard on their weapons in front of him.

      The blossom of your youth was raped, mutilated and these fingers stolen from them. We were sure to leave their husbands alive, without their manhoods, of course, so they may not breed again, to tell the tale to you in full when you retreat to your home with your tails between your legs.

      The men roar. The Beast has gone too far. Their blood is boiling in their veins and anger is making their eyes wobble about and mouth dry with need. The beast has gone TOO far this time.

      Men break the line. No one stops them. Arthur puts his hand up and grins.

      Tire the fools.

      His own jump forward and cut into the enraged Scots in front of them. It is a short battle that lasts only moments, but the results are telling. Arthur's elite stand around him on the field this day. To either side the lesser men battle, but in this pocket of motionless waiting, the best of the best cut down a disorganized riot of madmen bent on death. This strikes fear in the ones watching. It is said that Arthur makes his elite rape and murder their own families before they are able to join the ranks of the Beast's best. It is only a rumor, but seeing their eyes burning with nothing more than pure animal intent, it is hard not to believe that these are the wickedest of wicked men.

      The giant nods his head in respect. The time for words is

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