Britannia Unleashed

Temporalis-8

Belvedere hadn’t realised just how close to the jungle’s exterior he’d been until almost falling from it. If not for some hasty thrusting out of hands, he would have fallen straight out of the leafy canopy and into the hell that was monsters at war.

Fortunately, he caught hold of a robust branch and hung for a moment over the ensuing madness. Directly ahead, occupying the centre of a meadow-sized clearing, one that had gone unseen from the cliffs, was a beast to give most people nightmares: Belvedere was not most people.

“Good God, what am I looking at?” Belvedere whispered under his breath. For there, not more than a hundred feet away, stood a behemoth. The beast balanced on two legs, not unlike a human, but that is where any resemblance ended. One-half tail, one-half gaping maw, the thing roared and bellowed like a pride of angered lions. It stood close to twenty feet tall with razor teeth each the size of Belvedere’s forearms. The creature was a king, but a king not without enemies.

Belvedere hadn’t seen the three lesser beasts, so drawn to the mightiest of them was he, but a trio of miniature versions of the larger stalked their giant relative. The three crept through the long grasses in military-like deployment. Two of the man-sized lizards moved to flank their foe, whilst the other, almost right below Belvedere’s elevated position, crept towards it in plain sight. Most amazing of all, which caused our hero to wipe at his eyes with his free hand, the central of the three held a rider on its armour-plated back. This must have been who Belvedere had earlier heard, but there was no sound from he or his fellow hunters now: they sought to kill by stealth.

Belvedere eased himself back into the leafy branches in an effort to silently camouflage. It was not silent enough. He had made only the faintest of rustling sounds, but the rider heard it and span round, twisting on the creatures bare back. Human eyes met inhuman eyes, the creature he had taken to be a man in both shape and sound, in fact, far removed. The thing, proportioned as a human, even in skin tone, bore the red, slitted eyes of a demon.

The creature glared into the treetops as the mighty giant pawed the ground at his back. Only when satisfied that Belvedere posed no immediate threat did the demon turn back to its gigantic quarry, but too late. The enormous beast had decided that attack was the best form of defence, one that ordinarily Belvedere would have admired, but because it hurtled towards the mounted demon and the tree he himself resided in, he was less ecstatic.

A moment’s readjustment and the red-eyed demon had regathered its wits. “Shabat! Shabal!” it bellowed. The two flanking lizards shot forward, flinging themselves at their greater cousin.

Belvedere knew all too well the art of warfare and that the two, although brave, had been forced into actions beyond their control. Like a thing possessed, their giant prey flung them into the grass with flicks of its gargantuan head. Not for an instant did it slow its momentum as it crashed into the third predator. The demon rider leapt to one side as the mighty beast hurtled through and on into the tree that had become Belvedere’s sanctuary. The collision was almighty: his fall painful.