Overture Downs long live the king

he ate with a heathen's ardor, the bloodied pulp of a body beneath him rendered simply to cracked bones and long, transluscent swaths of intestines. by the time the first dog was upon him shardik's mouth was rimed with dark blood and viscera, his gaze glazed over -- hot blood and warm organs sat comfortably in his stomach, cradled just so.

a sharp sting to his flank ripped him from his gorging frenzy - with a piggish squeal the beast trundled around, pulling out from the dog's staved-in chest ragged bands of intestines -- like a clown's never-ending and unfurling hankerchief. only, these weren't rags that dragged in ropy droops behind him, but a bloodied film of mauve and scarlet membrane that seemed impossibly long to have come from something so small.

demon dogs, come to avenge their dead kin.

let them bite, let them howl - shardik, belligerent in his rage, sent the first one a welcome present in the form of a massive swipe of his bloodied claws; fuck dogs -- and then, another sunk its teeth through his blonde fur.

it was too much -- they came out of the woodwork like the blacktail dogs, high shrieks and frenzied yips -- if their pack had the same strength as the last, shardik might have just subscribed to his last meal. his stomach, hot and heavy with fresh meat, gurgled its discontent to be so rudely interrupted -- but he had already eaten more than half of that sorry appetizer of a coywolf, and with more wolves arriving it was looking as if now would be a good time to leave.

he squealed again, a loud and thunderous noise that shook the tall rooftops of the conifer trees which flanked around them; with great heaving strides the beast made a break through the underbrush, charging towards the girl and the dead grey dog as he went. if he could not eat the bigger dog, at least he could trample it and the pathetic thing that wailed alongside it -- with a fiendish glee shardik swung his rage in hyacinth's direction, aiming to trample both her and the corpse as he fled.