KING OF BEASTS (Hiatus)

Ares returned the walls as they had been when he had first demonstrated Morak what he had planned, though had shifted some near the back to be easier to walk from and to hold more. Ares turned back to the drummer that the Marching Blades had chosen and then asked them to play something, anything at all. Then he looked out to the enemy before them as they continued to move into position. 

The drumming was low and thrummed through the Marching Blades. Ares summoned a bow he had taken and then summoned an arrow into his hand, taking a few steps forward from the Marching Blades that had their shields up. 

Leoni had appeared once more with a hundred of his soldiers, taking a step towards where the arrows were planted on the floor and then shouted out to Ares.

“I offer you again! A chance to surrender now, for I do not wish for a single man under my command to bleed, for they are worth more than every single one of you combined. If I march my men through, I will slay every single one of you, and then when we get to your children, we shall slay them where they weep!” 

Ares looked down towards the Commander and he paused. ‘Wait. Is this the time? Can I really say it.’ Ares cleared his throat. Then he said, as clear as day, a single word.

“If.”

The Commander stared at him, a little confused. Then they looked back to their soldiers before looking back to Ares. “If?”

“If. If you march your men through.”

“I will march my men through.”

“You will march your men.”

The Commander seemed confused and Ares, rather annoyed that they didn’t understand. “I’m saying if, as in, if you are able to march your men through. Through.” He repeated as the Commander then furrowed their brows in confusion.

“I’m saying that you will march your men, but that they won’t get through. How are you holding the opinion that we are so stupid when you cannot even understand such a simple concept.”

Leoni ran their fingers through their hair once more. “Very well. Die then!” They raised their swords and then the first one hundred began to march through. 

“Enough.” Ares turned back to the drummer and then nodded. “Armal!” Ares exclaimed as Armal began to call out. Ares knocked his arrow by their word, then drew, then with the shout and the slam of the drum he loosed his arrow. The sound of the arrows escaping, all four hundred of them, covered the air. The soldiers ahead had placed their shields up to the air. Ares had aimed ahead and struck one in the shoulder, though they did not falter.

Then they continued to march as Armal continued to call for the arrows to fire, pausing between each words to allow the archers to do as they commanded. This continued as the soldiers marched towards the small gap, and it was then that the arrows began to truly hit their mark. They had to shift their shields in such a way that it allowed some arrows to fall in through the cracks, but by then the hundred soldiers behind began to march in.

Some soldiers fell to the blows, especially since they could not manoeuvre well with their shields. Ares followed the sounds of Armal to the point where he barely needed to think about it, letting Armal guide his motions. Instead he thought about all the things he could do with the enemy. As they continued to walk in, Ares smiled. He went into the flow of letting Armal guide his arrows, letting him then shift away the shields of the enemy soldiers for but half a second before letting the arrows strike the enemy and then slapping the enemy with their own shields. The bodies fell atop one another and the soldiers grunted and wailed in pain, mostly due to the surprised. The hundred behind them had no idea what had occurred no doubt, and Ares was certain that no one really did, but the soldiers continued to pour in to their deaths. 

A hundred soldiers had soon fallen, peppered with arrows. Ares smiled as he then shifted away the shields of the front few and then shot them with the javelins he had procured from the dead soldiers from Faltain’s group, piercing their heads with the javelins before then shifting them away. As the dead bodies began to pile the soldiers behind tried to push passed them, but they were soon trapped by the dead bodies ahead and arrows hailed death upon them, only adding to the dead bodies piling up. Ares then shifted a handful of soldiers from the bottom of the pile, just now and again so no one would really notice. 

There was confusion among the human soldiers, but they continued to push forward as the third set of one hundred began to march forward. Ares allowed them to march forward, inching forward ever so slightly as the dead bodies continued to pile. He didn’t even pay any attention to Leoni, who had continued to call for the soldiers to push forward, even sending a few hundred in one go. 

Dead began to fill the air as the soldiers continue to cry out and wail. Then Ares looked back to the drummer. “Play a tune, but not loud enough to interfere with Armal.” He said and the message was relayed. There was a gentle throbbing of drumming that began to echo throughout the Marching Blades.

“Let this music fuel you. It is not yet your time to fight, but it soon will be. I want you all ready.” He called out to his men, just loud enough for them. The archers began to move back, one rank at a time so that they were always a little further away than the humans could reach with their javelins, though none had been able to toss them as of yet.

Then a scout had called out. “Archers!” 

Ares looked beyond to see the human archers that had taken place near the arrows that had been on the floor. They began to knock their own arrows as Ares called out. “Marching Blades! Shields!” The Marching Blades then raised their shields up and tucked themselves under it, though Ares continued to shoot to the beat of the Armal’s drum. 

The enemy archers rained down arrows onto Ares and his allies, though only a handful of arrows had managed to reach them, though Ares made almost every arrow disappear and then sent them back to the enemy that was marching ahead towards them, slaying but a handful of them when the arrows pierced through the gaps between the shields. 

“Keep your shields up!” Ares exclaimed as then more archers began to support the enemy, now three hundred archers marched a little forward into firing range of the oxfolk, yet even so, the oxfolk did not fire back. The human archers rained even more arrows, and this time a few arrows managed to reach them and struck the shields of the Marching Blades, though Ares had made quite a large number disappear. “Do not falter! I am here!” Ares called out as the arrows continued to pour down, though he continued to take them all, sending them back towards the humans ahead of them, no doubt Leoni had no idea that each arrow that they sent marked death for their own men.

He enemy continued to push forward, though only meeting death at the arrows that their brothers had sent forward. “Marching Blades! Remember this beat! This is your requiem! Your requiem of death!” He exclaimed as he continued to shift more and more humans away into his ring as the bodies continued to pile until the soldiers were stumbling over the bodies. Leoni continued to shower arrows and send forth bodies, growing more and more enraged with each passing second. 

Ares wondered just when the commander would realise that this was futile. Yet he didn’t seem to mind at all, allowing Leoni to send forth dead men, each one only bolstered Ares’ power. Five hundred soldiers had come forward and had met their end, a tenth of the enemy. Now Leoni gathered a thousand archers, though only a few of them were truly any good. 

“Armal! Now!” Ares exclaimed as Ares shot out his hand to summon forth a little bit of rain onto the ground ahead of them, letting the water seep into the ground around the enemy that had come to where he had terraformed the area, causing it to grow somewhat slippery. He continued to do so, summoning forth a rain as Armal shifted the focus of the archers, no longer to the soldiers ahead of Ares, but to the thousand or so archers that were trying to rain arrows upon them. 

Four hundred arrows struck against the enemy archers, and shock fell through their lines as they tried to flee, only to find that the ground beneath them caused them to fall against one another. The whistling arrows now echoed through the groans of death towards the archers. 

The groaning of their brothers around them, the cries of their brothers ahead, and the screams of their brothers from behind, Ares watched as the soldiers that marched towards him began to stumble and splutter. Ares smiled at them as the first few soldiers managed to reach the little section that Ares had built for their death.

“Marching Blades! Spears!” Ares called as the front twelve dropped onto their knees, the human arrow fire no longer approaching them as the archers fled, and then pointed their spears forward. The second rank held their shields at chest levels, their spears at their armpits, and then the third row had much longer spears that rest on the second rank’s shoulders. “Attack!” The humans tried to push forward, grabbing at their javelins as they stumbled over the dead bodies of their allies, but they met the end of the Marching Blade’s spears. The next lot stumbled into the same scene, only to find a much quicker death, and Ares then shifted away a larger number of bodies and then began to thrust his own spear. This continued for some time until the human archers were all but destroyed, and the eight hundred or so soldiers that had come to attack were now dead. 

Ares looked out to Leoni who raised his sword in defiance to the death that his allies had suffered. “Attack! Damn it! Show these beasts their place! Attack!”

Then three thousand soldiers marched forward.