They eyes tracked the noises. Britus heard it too, freezing mid-step and listening closely, realising how close the sounds were.
“Men, keep quiet,” Britus said with an open palm out to them.
Hemish, Smiling John, Antony and the rest of the company fell into an eerie silence as they listened.
Tomas thought he caught the sound of another… thing, moving around them in the dark. Two howls, two animals.
He knelt slowly, drawing his longsword out from the scabbard resting by his feet, just in case.
“Whatever they are,” Tomas said softly, “they’re surrounding us. And there’s more than one.”
Rilan and Britus realised he was right. There was certainly more than one. The footsteps grew more pronounced.
“That ain’t no bear or wolf,” Britus warned.
Two things were moving around their campsite in the dark of night. They were big, whatever they were. Sticks snapped under their weight and the snow crunched as they circled around deliberately.
The night was so dark, however, that they could not see a damned thing.
Landry had dropped the rag and breastplate he was cleaning, keeping a low stance as he drew his sword on the other side of the campsite.
A pine owl bellowed in the distance.
The horses, tied to some trees at the edge of the camp, became uneasy. They started walking on the spot, anxiously nickering to one another.
Then out of nowhere, the horses began to whinny in a shrill panic as something rushed them in the darkness.
Tomas ducked to the ground as he heard a deafening bang in the direction of where the horses were.
Wood splintered and ropes snapped as a horse was ripped from its station. The entire pine tree was split in two and collapsed into the snow with a crash.
The other horses were in a complete state of panic. Some had had their ropes cut when the tree was split in two and took off running into the night. The remaining mounts reared on their hind legs and tugged against their ropes, trying desperately to get away from whatever was attacking.
Still, Tomas could not see the attacker in the shadows.
“To arms! To arms!” Gharland shouted, rushing from his tent with sword in hand. The sound would have awoken any man.
The entire camp fell into a state of panic as the men took their weapons and shields. None had time to put on their armour, wearing only their padded gambesons.
A brown and white object came flying out from the darkness. Rilan ducked as it flew overhead.
Tomas gasped upon realising it was a severed horse’s head.
The decapitated head sprayed fountains of blood and flesh as it clattered into the snow beside one of the fires. The head had not been cut but torn from the body before being tossed away.
The horse’s black eyes were wide open in terror.
The men huddled up in a large circle at the centre of camp, swords and spears pointing outwards. Captain Gharland and Lieutenant Britus stood in formation with their men.
Something rushed around the camp once again, just out of sight.
It was fast. So fast. Too fast.
“Stand firm,” Gharland breathed through his visored helmet- the only thing he’d had time to grab.
Tomas could feel his heart beating in his throat. Rilan stood to his left, Landry on his right. His sword trembled in his shaking hands as he took a defensive stance.
There was another monstrous noise. A deep, hoarse growl, rather than a howl. Straight ahead, right in front of the group.
Out from the eerie shadows stepped a creature, unlike anything Tomas had ever seen. Every single soldier froze up in shock and locked eyes with the monster.
It was easily as large as a carriage, standing on all-fours with longer forelimbs, its upper body rising higher off the ground than its hind limbs. Its ash-coloured skin was hairless; its back was covered in spine-like bony protrusions.
The creature had the face of a hyena, with a wide, snake-like, hinged jaw from which hung the lifeless body of the decapitated horse.
The dead mount’s midsection had deep, jagged gashes running along it, sending down torrents of blood and viscera as the creature walked towards the men with its captured prey.
Tomas was paralysed with fear, so paralysed that his shaking had completely seized. He felt the exact same rush of sheer panic that he had felt moments before the battle at Barrowtown, yet somehow this was a different fear.
Fear of the unknown. Tomas had never seen anything like this.
The heartbeat pounding in his head.
The tight chest.
The cool sweat dripping down his face.
Everything slowed as he considered his options.
Run? Or fight?
Stay? Or die?
He looked for a way out. Flee into the woods? Hide behind the boulders? What do I do?
Run…
Or fight?
“Stand firm,” Gharland repeated, pulling Tomas from his moment of fear.
Tomas reasserted his stance- he would not abandon Rilan or Landry. He couldn’t. Tomas knew that the men encircled with him were his best chance of survival.
They tightened their ranks in fear, pointing their weapons at the towering beast. Its jagged ears twitched in Gharland’s direction as he spoke. It locked its yellow eyes on the group before hissing with a beastly snarl and breath stinking of rotting flesh.
The men could not blink; they were utterly hypnotised at the horror standing before them.
Was it real? Or was this a nightmare?
The creature was a complete abomination.
The beast dropped the limp, headless body of the horse, sending it crashing into the dirt. It shot it’s head up and howled another blood-curdling call which they had been hearing.
The beast’s lower jaw split at the centre as it shrieked, opening hideously wide in three different directions,
