Nonnah laboured
hard in the auxiliary tent tending to the wounded, when a blood-curdling
screech came from without. One of the
internal guards exited the tent, but was slain with a sickening splatter of
blood on the canvas wall. Hooves were
heard and Nonnah ventured to peek outside the tent to see a creature of
horrendous proportions and an awful shape hobbling over toward the tent,
looking straight into her eyes. The
sound of hooves, she saw, came from Mahz, who galloped toward the tent at a
great pace. It didn’t take long before
he reached the creature, and sliced through its neck with his claymore with
ease. He looked at Nonnah and shooed her
into the pavilion, but as she turned the ground beneath her shifted violently
and out of it rose a creature of equally brutal but not similar shape and size
as the one outside. Many more burst from
the ground around the pavilion like ugly birds from their shells and promptly
hacked to pieces with utter brutality and numbness the women and the
wounded. Mahz burst inside and began
hacking the brutes, and they all turned on him, who was the greatest, and only
threat among those in the healing tent.
Nonnah hid behind a side-turned table and in horror watched as the
creatures tore at her father’s flesh with their sinister claws with looks of
glee upon their malformed faces. Mahz
fought valiantly and slew many, even as they crowded around him and bore down
heavily and mercilessly, obviously joyed by his struggle and his agony. When one only stood, he rose to cleave its
neck, but this one was quicker than the rest.
It dodged his claymore strike with ease, but then turned and drove his
claws into his side, and Mahz fell.
So, this is the climax of Book One. I wrote this in a Word Sprint challenge with my family on December 29, 2012. It was a great bonding moment with my family, and many quirks were revealed, as we only had time to write what our semiconscious impulses dictated. We had also done a 5-minute Love Haiku challenge, a 3-minute Riddle challenge, and a 5-minute Limerick challenge. Part of the Limerick challenge required that we played a random song of whatever genre that matched the limerick, and did interpretive dancing to match it. It was glorious madness, and much fun was had. I feel this begins a new Earle tradition, and one I will certainly pass on to my future children, if the Good Lord decides to send me down that path.
