KING OF BEASTS (Hiatus)

“To arms!” Ares called out as he raised his own spear.

 

They had been travelling for the entire next day rather peacefully. There was nothing that molested them, and though they spent a little while checking the tracks of the buffalo that they had seen the night previous to see if anything had been hunting them, they continued onward.

 

They had gone through a large area that was sparsely populated by some thin trees and not much else. Every so often they spotted a boar here and there, nothing out of the ordinary, or at least not to Ares and his companion, especially not to Beor. If anything was amiss, he didn’t mention it.

 

Yet when it had approached late afternoon they had seen smoke off in the distance, and as they swiftly trekked towards it, they noticed a scene most foul.

 

Hundreds upon hundreds of boarfolk were dealing with the rhinofolk. Ares had only been caught for a moment from the mass of slaughter and death ahead of him, but he would allow no such thing to occur ahead of him. He wouldn’t have joined the fray, but he could see that most of the rhinofolk were civilians, some of them had weapons of course, but they were routing and it didn’t seem like they had put up much of a fight.

 

The other eight accompanying Ares readied for battle. Torak with his axes, which contrasted quite nicely with Jiaga and his shield and axe. Beor had a giant axe too, and was more than eager to use it. Heria and her wolf rode forward, bow already loosing an arrow. Ezak grabbed his bident and was ready to follow Ares. Orndu had his long spear, and he carried with him a round shield that covered half most of his torso with ease. Then there was Zika, and well… Zika was a weapon.

 

Saykkera was perhaps the deadliest weapon though, as she was quicker than Heria on her wolf, and she soared in the air towards the boarfolk. She splashed a wall of flames ahead of them to cut them off from the rhinofolk, and she dodged some arrows that flew over towards her. Only a handful of boarfolk carried with them short bows, and it didn’t seem like they were good enough to hit Saykkera, though that wasn’t a slight against their skill since Saykkera was just that good when she flew in the air.

 

Ares did not take to the skies, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to start shifting around too much whilst he was out. Part of this was to train himself to not rely so much on his phoenix powers, whilst also training every power at his disposal so he could wield them with surgeon-like precision.

 

Ares and his group of six warriors, all remaining fairly close to one another, dashed forward. Heria had apparently caught some of the boarfolk that were riding on boars, but her wolf was much quicker, and Heria’s arrow flew truer than any of theirs. There were about nine of them chasing her, or rather, eight, and then seven. The seven finally gave up, pulling away and then retreating into the village to receive some cover.

 

Then a horn was blown and the boarfolk began to retreat away from the village. They grouped together off to one side as the rhinofolk continued to escape. Saykkera and Heria returned back to Ares as they grouped nearby.

 

The boarfolk seemed to shuffle around as they tried to figure out what was going on. Ares turned to Torak and Heria.

 

“We don’t want to start a fight, we came in only to stop the slaughter. We can still salvage the situation, as long as they’re not eager to fight.”

 

A small group of boarfolk riding on boars started to slowly make their way over, obviously being cautious at the new group that had arrived. Ares raised a hand and then stepped forward, with Torak following a little behind, and Orndu beside him.

 

“King Ares, if I recall correctly,” a boarman said. “Why have you intruded upon our lands and within our fight?”

 

“Rather rich coming from you,” Ares joked with a soft smile on his face. “I had come to speak with the various tribes here to invite them to Rivea. I saw that you were partaking in some unsavoury business that I cannot stand, and so I decided to intervene so that I could sleep peacefully at night.”

 

The boarfolk seemed rather uneasy with Ares about, but they did have the advantage when it came to numbers, though many of them had seen Ares fight before and so they weren’t eager to fight him.

 

“They had beaten us down for long enough, we were merely returning the favour,” the boarman said.

 

Something didn’t make sense to him. Where were all the rhinofolk warriors? If the rhinofolk were in charge, then no doubt they would have protected their own people the best…

 

Was this a trap of some kind? No, the rhinofolk were definitely in danger of the boarfolk, but… what was wrong here? Something didn’t smell quite right to Ares.

 

“They might, or they might not. I don’t know if they were part of the rhinofolk that had treated you so, and I don’t particularly like the thought of allowing you free reign against such a defenceless foe right now. They seem to have no warriors, do you have no pride?”

 

The boarfolk wanted to protest, though they decided better against it since they were so close to an embodiment of death.

 

“This does not concern you,” the boarman said.

 

“It does now,” Ares replied as he stared deep into the boarman’s eyes. “I will allow you to pick whether or not you want to concern yourselves in this matter any longer.”

 

The boarfolk remained silent for a few moments.

 

“Return back to your homes,” Ares said, “and go drink and rest. There is no need for further bloodshed today.” Ares lazily rested his hand onto the sheath of his short sword at his side, the same he had taken from the first officer he had ever killed.

 

“Saykkera though, she’s down for a slaughter.” Ares motioned his head to the dragonfolk woman that had created quite a large wall of flames, which had dissipated luckily enough.

 

The boarfolk eyed up the dragonfolk woman and realised that with her and Ares, they probably didn’t want to take this fight. They nodded their head.

 

“We will remember this, Ares.”

 

“They don’t call me Merciful Ares for no reason,” Ares said with a chuckle. “Actually, they don’t call me Merciful Ares at all.” Ares stared cold and hard towards the boarfolk before they retreated away, heading away.

 

Ares sighed and then rubbed his forehead. “What a day…”