Overture Downs long live the king

dogs.

stupid, chattering dogs. shardik's eyes gleamed with sinister delight as his paw swung in the manner of a bludgeon - he knew soon as he saw rannoch that he would be the only victor - he knew it the same way a wolf knew when its prey was cornered. there was something so delightfully cruel about hunting dogs - he imagined it was the fearful flash of their eyes when they recognized he was their executioner: they were just intelligent enough to see with clarity their maker and shardik reveled in that sight, for it was like observing a thin flame flicker and die out to swallowing blackness.

there, and then gone -- smothered out for all eternity by the brutal stroke of his unyielding hand.

there was a flash in his peripherals as something piteously small flew against him and stung his forearm with teeth: he batted it away with the ease of a horse whisking away a fly -- stupid mongrel -- i will eat you first. he didn't need to see the brainmatter that seeped from the dog's staved in skull to know she was dead.

 in his eyes, she was dead the second she had come across him.

which left the other cur -- who had caught the tail end of his scythe, and went down with the same loose form -- lucky bastard, thought shardik, for the claws that had been intended to ream through his howling face had instead sundered the dog that flew in front of him. no matter -- he had still nicked the dog in its temple, and it was just as still as the girl whose brains spread out like a grotesque bouquet of floral tissue and dredged matter.

both were down; both were dead -- hulked down in front of the girl shardik bellowed his victorious warcry -- fuck dogs. he would eat the one that bit him first; she hardly looked like she'd fill a fraction of his stomach. coelho, appetizer; rannoch, main course. the two would fit comfortably in the glut of his stomach, bones, fur and all.

lurching forward, the beast clenched his conical teeth around the girl's impossibly small skull; and in rough hearty heaves, crunched what remained of her skull between his powerful jaws. the skull gave way like a soft grape, oozing pulpy meat.

bone, gristle, brain matter, and all -- hot-pressed and oozing through tongue and teeth -- all washed down with implacably hot blood.

fresh meat.