KING OF BEASTS (Hiatus)

Ares was in darkness. Flashes of colour filled his vision but nothing stuck. There was a fire against his stomach, a fire so cold that he thought it was ice, but he knew it was fire. It wasn't any typical fire either.

 

It was his fire.

 

His flames were fighting without his permission, but he was glad all the same.

 

'I'm dying,' he thought.

 

That much was obvious to him.

 

He was dying. He could smell it, the scent of death. He could feel it's grasp, so cold and weary, clung to him. Yet he would not give in to the touch, not yet, no matter how much it tugged at his soul. He refused to die, not right now at least.

 

His flames screamed at him and he awoke, gasping for air as the light filled his vision. He could see the sun of the morning and then he heard the shouting. A face came to him. He didn't recognise it at first, but he was sure he knew the person.

 

That stoic face, the horns, the slightly tanned skin. He did know them, he was a Horn. No, he was a Horn, but now he was…

 

"Torak," Ares whispered as he reached forward and grasped at the man's shirt. It was Torak, his friend who had come with him somewhere.

 

Torak said something, but Ares could not understand the words. They came to him jumbled, as though the words were from another language.

 

Ares opened his mouth to speak, but he could not find his voice. His mouth was too dry. Water. He needed water. He reached out and then called for water, and then after a few moments, rain fell. The trickle of water showered his face with wetness, forcing his eyes closed. He opened his mouth and allowed it to fill before swallowing it down, though with the first gulp, he almost choked as the pain soared through him.

 

He cried out and rolled aside, falling off whatever he had been on. He looked aside to see a leg of some sort, pure white, with a hoof right at the end that tapped the ground. He had no idea what it was.

 

"Torak," Ares called out. He reached out at the various figures, his vision now blurred. He could not see anything, but then Torak's face appeared. Yes, this was the Torak he knew.

 

"Torak," Ares rasped aloud. "She's going to be so mad."

 

Who was going to be mad? He knew someone was going to be mad, but he couldn't quite remember who it was. He recalled the name, the name of someone close to him long ago.

 

"Don't tell her," Ares said as he reached out for Torak's horn, his fingers wrapping around the bone, it felt so comfortable within his palm. "Don't tell her. She'll just get mad at me. Don't tell her." Ares coughed and turned as the pain soared through his stomach. "Don't tell anyone…"

 

The pain was too much now. Though he could hear their voices, he was no longer conscious. He had fallen back to sleep, allowing the flames to fight once more for his life.

 

He awoke once more to shouting and crying, to the sounds of slaughter. He looked out to see a number of shadows a fair ways away. He was bouncing wildly on a creature, a large, powerful creature that was bred for such work.

 

A horse? That's what they were called, right? He was on a horse.

 

Why did he need a horse? He was a bird. He could just…

 

Ares raised a hand and then reached for the open sky, which was darkening to dusk.

 

He could just fly.

 

Yet when he called forth the flames to lift himself, they did not come. They could not come, for his stomach was still burning with a great pain, so great he could not register it.

 

He heard the shouting and then a pair of figures leaving him. Where were they going? Who were they? What were they doing?

 

He could see off in the distance some… something. A mass of movement, and he could heard some screaming and whistling and shouting.

 

What was that?

 

'Ah Torak!'

 

He recognised one voice.

 

"Ride harder!" Torak exclaimed. “Ride!”

 

Who was he talking to? Why did he need to ride so hard?

 

Was it the mass of shadows? Did it need to be stopped?

 

'Fine, I'll deal with it!'

 

Ares raised a hand and then pulled up the earth to create a wall, but as he thought of the wall, patterns and shapes filled his mind, and so the plains became scattered, the ground misshapen as though an infant had tread upon it.

 

Ares then noticed a large leg ahead of him. Only one eye had been open and now that the other had decided to join in, he could see a leg. It wasn't a leg, a thigh, like a chicken thigh, but no, not like a chicken thigh. It was very different, so thick with muscle.

 

It was fucking swole.

 

It must have been Rori.

 

"Hey Rori, nice to see you."

 

Then Ares passed out once again to his wounds.

 

"Who do you think you are?"

 

The voice called out to him from the void. Around him he could hear the sounds of screaming, shouting, screeching, the sounds of fighting. The sounds of death.

 

"I'm Ares, who are you?"

 

"Ares? You think yourself a god?"

 

"I am a god," Ares replied with great pride.

 

"You are no god, but a pretender."

 

"Piss off mate," Ares growled in response. "Who the fuck are you to tell me who I am? You're just a nobody, a nothing. You don't even have a body or whatever."

 

"No, I am not nothing. I am a god, a true god, heir to a divine. You are but a pretender!" A roar filled his mind, not the roar of a beast, but the roar of a man.

 

"Fuck off!"

 

"You are nothing before me! I will kill you! I will slaughter your people like chattel, I will destroy you! Wait for me! I will come!"

 

"Come at me! Come at me right now!"

 

"I will come! I will come to slaughter you and every spawn you allow to breathe! I shall slaughter you and your wives, you and your children, you and all you care for! Rivea will crumble to my boot!"

 

Ares roared in response, but his voice did not come. Yet the blackness was beginning to fall away and he saw something fly towards him. No, not towards him, towards Rivea. He reached out to shift the thing away, it was a large rock, or was it ice, he wasn't quite sure for it was the blue-white and slightly clear that he associated with it. He could see it fall towards Rivea.

 

"No!" Ares exclaimed as he reached for it.

 

Then it came.

 

The grasp of death.

 

The touch of the void.

 

Ares roared out and exclaimed with great pain as the blade of death pushed through his back and then through his chest.

 

"Argh!" Ares screamed out, gasping for air as the pain flooded through his stomach and his chest.

 

He watched as the rock fell, but he reached out further and the ice disappeared. The rock was no longer. The ice was gone. Whatever it had been, it did not fall on Rivea.

 

Yet the pain filled his chest, the pain filled his everything. Ares kept crying out in pain and then came a figure to his side.

 

It was Lana.

 

Lana tossed herself behind him to a figure he could not see, to the impending death that was coming. She fought with her great might, but the figure, a blurry mass of black with shining gold beaming out from the void, grabbed her by the throat.

 

Lana was choking.

 

He could hear her voice.

 

"Ares," she gasped for breath. "Wake up!"

 

"I'll kill you!" Ares exclaimed as he reached for the voice, and then the light beamed and showered him, causing him to cry out in pain.

 

"Wake up!" Lana gasped.

 

Ares felt invisible hands and fingers grab at him, and he was too weak to resist.

 

"No!" Ares exclaimed. "Let her go!" He cried as he watched Lana continue to gasp and struggle for air.

 

The darkness began to lighten and he saw more shapes, seeing the tears pour down from Lana's cheeks and then drip into his arm.

 

His arm.

 

Ares let go of her neck, eyes wide with great terror and anguish. The pain in his stomach was heavy, but it was not as much as the scene before him.

 

He was pulled away by the invisible hands, no, no longer invisible. He could see Rori and Torak, Lana ahead of him with tears, and Emerli who was watching wide eyed.

 

What was going on?

 

Then he looked up to see the ceiling of his tent, the rods which went straight up, and then the opened to the tent ahead of him, where it had been whenever he awoke.

 

"Lana?" Ares called out.

 

Lana was coughing, catching her breath. Rori and Torak kept a firm grip on Ares though.

 

"Lana?" Ares called out more urgently now as he looked at Torak and Rori in surprise. "Lana…"

 

"Ares," she said. "You have awoken."

 

"Lana…" Ares said, his breaths coming in quick and light as he struggled to breathe. "Lana are you okay?" He asked as he saw the bruises on her neck and then reached out for her. Rori and Torak pulled him back, but Ares reached for Lana's knee and held it gently. His vision became blurry again as Ares began to sob.

 

"You're alive," Ares whispered as he fell into the pair of men keeping him still. He continued to sob and cry. "Lana, fuck, everything hurts." Ares gasped for more air as the pair of men began to loosen up on him.

 

"Am I alive?" Ares asked.

 

"Yes," Torak said.

 

"Where am I? In Rivea?" Ares asked as the thoughts returned to his mind.

 

"Yes," Torak said.

 

"Are you real?" Ares asked as he tried to push himself onto his elbows to sit up, but the pain flared up and he fell onto his back and looked at Rori and Torak.

 

"As real as first we met," Rori said as he stared down at Ares with a stone cold face.

 

Ares grinned wide and pointed up at Rori, gasping for breath once more for each movement caused his stomach to flare with a throbbing pain.

 

"You're Rori," Ares said still catching his wits. "Torak… we were gone, weren't we? Away…"

 

"We have returned."

 

"Is everyone okay?" Ares asked.

 

"You need to sleep."

 

"That means they're not..." Ares rolled his head to the side. He wasn't sure what that meant. He had others with him, hadn't he? He had gone with…

 

He couldn't recall. He was still mostly confused, his mind fuzzy, as though as he could see were clouds and vague shapes within them.

 

Everything was still coming to him.

 

"Lana," Ares called out once more.

 

"Ares?" Her voice was sweet and so close.

 

"I brought you a gift." Ares smiled.

 

Then he fell asleep.