Blood Horn: Chapter 28
The Wrath of Man Made Monstrous
Welcome Back to Bloodthirsty Thursday!
CHAPTER 28
Shells exploded.
The Horn’s ears rang.
Violence pulsed through him, a second heartbeat. It made him stronger, bolder, braver, angrier.
The government army unleashed their artillery, the wrath of man made monstrous. Smoke plumed across the battlefield. Jacobites screamed and fell. Blood splashed moss, grass, and melting snow. Soldiers stumbled over the moor, slipping and sliding, struggling to stand.
And the Horn kept to the outskirts, feasting on their pain.
He was not proud, but he was full. This is not who you are. But it was, it was, it always had been. Orsa had brought out his softness, and so had the twins, but that was not him. It was who he could have been in another world, under a different sky, yet this world and sky had sharpened him.
He wished he regretted it.
He didn’t.
Horror fed him.
Cruelty fueled him.
So he surrendered to this madness and made it his own.
A cannon fired. The shot split the battle like an ax. A mortar answered. Its shell exploded nearby, pulping bodies. Red spattered his vision. Orders and shrieks bombarded the moor. Dirks and swords flew through the air, silver flashing in the midday sun. Bayonets stabbed stomachs. Guns thundered over the field. Copper stung his nose, the metallic tang of insides made outsides. And Prince Charles pranced atop his white horse, large eyes wide, baby face slack with terror.
A terror he hid before anyone but the Horn could see.
“Advance!” Charles shouted, a pretender, a chevalier, a bonnie prince who tried to rewind cogs far greater than himself.
The Horn admired him. He prayed for success, and he prayed for defeat. Either would spawn the surge of feeling he so desperately craved.
Feeling he’d never craved before.
Emotion was weakness. Vulnerability. He’d lived like that for decades before Orsa, before Eamon and Oscar, and he wished he had never met them, wished he had met only them, wished he—
A horse trampled past him, relaying Bonnie Prince Charlie’s order. The Horn jolted aside and dove into hiding. No one had seen him, but they could have. His thoughts were quicksand, dragging him down, trapping his hooves mid-flight. Worry was dangerous. Lethal. Though he would always rise again.
An acrid taste bit into his tongue. He could not die. Could fall, but could never stay down. The curse ran circles in his skull, reminding him, torturing him, day after day, month after month, year after year, lifetime after lifetime, till insanity consumed him.
A canister volley sprayed the Jacobites. Bodies toppled. Wet, mushy thuds. The Horn toppled, too. Agony ripped through him as the government army loosed heavy fire. He wheezed, eyes stinging, body screaming. The weapons that forged him throbbed in his bones.
He died.
Sweet relief.
Then revived.
Sour grief.
Jacobite regiments knotted around him. They didn’t notice him, a bloody chunk of meat among other bloody chunks. The Horn belonged among wreckage. He blended in here, in battle. He was not the only one speared with blades. Not the only one with red eyes. Not the only one with a skinless hide, or gaping wounds, or exposed ribs and a flayed face.
He was not the only one in pain.
Regiments crumbled. Soldiers collapsed. Drummond tempted the enemy to no avail. MacDonald fired muskets to little impact. Officers erupted in gory bursts. Without leadership, Jacobites fell to chaos. Cannons and cavalry caged the rebels, but they fought on. The government’s first rank dwindled slightly.
Yet there was a second rank, impenetrable.
This is fantastic, bloody, messy warfare, it's packed. This bit though-
"He died.
Sweet relief.
Then revived.
Sour grief."
Well that's just brilliant, the way it punctures the action as well. Damn you!!
Omstars this is action packed beautiful. And the part where he died then revived....that part sings. I'm in awe....