Enter the Lamb's Head (The Adventures of Ranthos Book 1)

by Jasper B. Hammer

  Bell kicked the dappled mare’s sides again, but the animal hardly needed more motivation to escape the encroaching hordes. The dappled mare whinnied and snorted at Bell’s attempts to rush her further. She was trying the best she could.

  Bell apologized with a pat. It did little to put either of them at ease. Her arms and legs were scraped with sheep tooth marks, and her side felt bruised to high Heaven. It was getting harder and harder to breathe, much less focus on anything at all. Bell hadn’t slept in two days; she hadn’t even sat down to catch her breath.

  Thankfully, the dappled mare was considerably faster than the sheep or the flockers, though they were still persistent. Bell rode on through the monotonous landscape for so long Bell could barely keep her eyes open. She felt the lure of drifting unconscious stronger than any temptation she’d ever met. But she stayed awake—barely; and the dappled mare kept running—barely. She had slowed her pace slightly, but still ran as fast as she could manage, her heavy head hung low. She breathed heavily and smelled like she was balanced on the verge of collapse herself.

  The sheep followed them tenaciously, still far enough that she was safe from them, but the horde showed little sign of stopping, like an encroaching army marching with their uneven and broken hooves through the grass. The sheep at the front chomped their rotten teeth together expectantly. The flock had almost become a single entity, like a massive beast of empty, endless desire. Each one wanted Bell’s corpse. Each one wanted her body on display.

  She felt sick.

  Vhurgus was likely dead, killed by Bull’s Hoof or Worm’s Heart. He couldn’t protect her anymore. The weight of grief settled into her chest as she thought of him; he was a rude, belligerent oaf, but Bell couldn’t help but mourn. He was a good man who was prepared to give his life for Sarky and some random hodge cub.

  Bell could feel the dappled mare wavering, her steps slowing, and her breaths becoming shaky. She was a good beast; she had kept Bell, a stranger, on her back this whole time as they were chased by hungry devil-sheep. Her legs and fingers were sore, and her skin felt raw. The dappled mare’s hide felt like sandpaper on Bell’s thighs. Bell stroked the dappled mare’s failing muscles gratefully and prayed that these would not be their last moments together.

  The sheep still looked the same as they ever did, trotting behind them. Their mouths hanging open hungrily. Though, the flockers had faded into distant dots in the horizon behind her, following still, but not as eagerly.

  Bell didn’t know what to do. Fear bubbled up inside her and sent her heart racing. She could barely breathe as she imagined being torn apart by the sheep. She drifted into the nightmare.

  Bell pulled herself away with the shake of her head. She refused to be corrupted by them. She needed to hold onto hope, wherever it was.

  But there was nothing to hope for. This was her death, not heroic martyrdom, a futile chase through empty plains to be torn apart by livestock.

  Bell spied a standing stone in the distance, stark against the horizon, and she felt chills as she focused on it.

  Thum.

  Bell heard a barrus’ footstep. Her spine straightened and her eyes widened.

  The barrus trumpeted—it had more resonance than any that she heard before, with more depth. The massive silhouette of a single barrus revealed itself, marching over a hill, standing at twice the height of the standing stone near it.

  Bell steered the dappled mare towards it.

  The flockers behind her cheered as the barrus trumpeted again, likely readying themselves for another hunt. Bell didn’t want the herd to lose another member to these freaks, and further, hated the idea of putting the innocent beast in danger.

  The dappled mare smelled hesitant to near the barrus, but Bell turned her face back to it whenever she veered off course.

  Bell saw the barrus more clearly now; it was massive. Even after her last encounter with the herd, she was completely unprepared for the immensity of it. The sight of the living beast in the daylight rendered Bell dumb and mute.

  The barrus was larger than even the scarred barrus, if that were possible. It bore many scars like she did, but also carried an extra pair of long tusks on its upper jaw. These were considerably longer than those from its bottom jaw, and curled in towards each other. Its head was hung low on its huge shoulders, and its ears flapped back and forth as it stared at the flock. It lifted its short trunk to them to trumpet again.

  The dappled mare neighed as it did so, and Bell rushed to calm her, but could hardly move once she saw that the barrus had turned its head to look at her. It sniffed her with its trunk, and Bell was sure it only sensed her fright.

  The dappled mare, spurred more by fear of the sheep than Bell’s urging, finally came close enough to the barrus that Bell could hear its heartbeat. The entire creature seemed unreal; the heart beating in its chest sounded like a boulder tumbling down a cliff, and its breathing sounded like wind rushing through a forest. The barrus stepped nearer to Bell, its massive body growing larger and larger in Bell’s vision. It was as if a mountain had uprooted itself, looked her in the eye, and thundered near her.

  It felt like all she could see was the barrus. Bell was petrified. Half of her was relieved to have found a possible ally—if this one was as kind as the scarred barrus—but the other half of her feared desperately for her life. The barrus smelled more pungent than any of those in the herd; this one was a male, and seemingly a loner. Its scent carried the same sadness that the other’s did, but this one with a thick odor of anger, which smelled like smoke.

  The dappled mare reared in terror, throwing Bell off her back.

  Bell crashed into the grass, all the breath escaping her lungs. She groaned breathlessly and pulled herself to her feet.

  Bell reached out her arms desperately to the dappled mare who was kicking up dust as she bucked about, unsure of where to go, trapped between the encroaching barrus and the looming flock. Bell cried out to the sky in pain, struggling to her bare feet. She reached out to the dappled mare calmingly, shushing her desperately.

  Bell felt warm, damp breath down her back. She froze as the two massive tusks of the barrus came into view from either side of her, and its trunk reached over her shoulder. Bell covered her mouth so she wouldn’t scream as she watched the thick, sharp tusks sway with the barrus’ lungs. Bell’s hair was tousled about with every thick, odorous breath.

  The dappled mare bolted over a hill and ran around the nearby standing stone as the barrus focused on Bell. She was alone.

  The sheep drew nearer, circling her like vultures. They were close enough to strike, but waited for the perfect opportunity. The flockers too had caught up, and readied their weapons for the perfect opportunity.

  Tears rolled down over Bell’s hands. The barrus’ scent of musk and rage only multiplied with each beat of its heart, and she could smell it heavy on his breath. Bell couldn’t still her body from shaking. As Bell grew more frightened, so too did the barrus grow more angry.

  Bell decided that it was time to act, she had to do something. She spun herself around to face the barrus’ looming face. Its wrinkled gray skin was freckled with pink and its trunk sniffed her neck. Bell imagined it strangling her, but didn’t let herself fall into it. She placed a hand on the bottom of the trunk. The moment her fingertips touched it, the barrus growled a heavy rumble like thunder and Bell felt the creature’s heart. It was a mighty leader, and an ancient creature. A king. Its spirit was angry, but similarly protective.

  The barrus pulled its head back up to its full height, its shadow enveloping Bell.

  The flock of sheep bleated and bolted towards Bell.

  The barrus took a step forward, Bell now standing underneath its body. The barrus swung its tusks through the horde, flinging aside sheep left and right. Its massive feet crushed the sheep like flies, and its tusks broke their bodies like their bones were made of glass. It stepped side to side, but never leaving Bell, wading through the biting sheep, and keeping them from reaching her.
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  The barrus king had taken Bell into his protection.

  22

  Ever May He Reign

  Bell could hardly focus on anything. The barrus king’s breath was heavy and strained as the sheep bit at his legs, crawling atop each other and scrambling for a better piece of the beast. His heart hammered like a thunderstorm, and his tusks flashed through the sheep like lightning.

  Most sheep kept their distance, waiting for him to turn away before charging, but few were not met with fury.

  A sheep escaped the storm and rushed Bell underneath the barrus king. Bell kicked its face away and grappled it to the ground by the horns. It was already wounded, its muscles rotting and weak. Bell, keeping it pinned with a precarious hold and one foot on its leg, swiveled around it, so that when she released, the sheep scrambled to its feet and was caught under the barrus king’s foot.

  As the sheep neared, all scents were drowned out, leaving only Bell’s fear—and that of the barrus king.

  Bell looked up at him; he was afraid, and his fear hung heavy on the ground like a humid mist. Bell watched a pair of sheep tear the skin from his knee, and she watched Bull’s Hoof, wading through the sea of filthy wool, crash his hammer against the king barrus’ tusk.

  Crack.

  The king cried out with a moaning trumpet. His retaliation against Bull’s Hoof only opened him up for a strike from another flocker, a long jagged spear slicing into his trunk.

  Bell shrieked. She looked for some route of escape. The sheep had surrounded the barrus king. Bell didn’t know what she could do.

  The barrus king shook off the sheep at his knee, and kicked aside a flocker, who snapped his neck upon landing.

  Most of the sheep which he trampled underfoot or tossed aside with his tusks began to helplessly squirm about the ground like slugs. Broken, but not dead.

  A gout of hot blood splashed onto Bell’s side. The barrus king groaned weakly, his neck skewered by a thick pike, and then another. Bell was petrified again. Bull’s Hoof broke bone inside the king’s leg.

  The flockers cheered and screamed with glee as the king flailed his trunk about aimlessly.

  Bell could see his legs faltering. She was not imagining this. Bell’s fear built upon itself again and again, as she waded through the fog of the barrus king’s scent.

  She had to escape or be crushed. But Bell could hardly move her legs, watching her protector gush blood out onto the grass as the flockers thrust more and more pikes into him.

  With a crash, the king’s skull met the ground. His heart thumped weakly, and his breath caught in its pierced throat.

  Bell watched in horror as he fell, and with as deep a breath as she could manage, she leapt out from underneath him as his torso came cascading down to the ground. She crashed into the barrus king’s leg, which scraped the ground behind it for traction, for some hope of continued survival.

  Her mind reeling, and the world spinning, Bell stumbled out from his protection, and her arm was caught in a sheep’s teeth. She hardly noticed, her eyes locked on the fallen king. Bull’s Hoof swung again at the tusk, breaking it off entirely. Another flocker scurried to reposition it, pointing the tip at the barrus king’s temple so that Bull’s Hoof could pound it through.

  Crash. Bell slammed her eyes shut in horror, and the king exhaled his last. A low, pathetic moan. Bell was angry—though she couldn’t smell it—and gouged the blue eye of the sheep on her arm, and dodged out the way of another which charged her. She removed the biting sheep’s maw from her flesh with several kicks to its face and ran off towards the standing stone.

  Bell’s foot caught on the dead body of a flocker. His torso was twisted and contorted awkwardly by the barrus king’s blows. Two sheep bolted towards her, and she scoured the body of the flocker to find a weapon. She rolled him over and unfolded his limp joints. Bell had never touched a person so lifeless. It was like a warm, soft, heavy doll. Bell’s sweat ran cold.

  Frantically, she drew a sword from the scabbard caught between his arm and his breastplate. It was heavier than Sarky’s, thicker and with a straight blade and only one sharp edge. With both hands she hewed the leg of the first sheep, and, all the strength she could summon, impaled the neck of the second. She removed the sword and brought it back down on the neck, removing the head completely. She didn’t know what had come over her.

  She climbed the hill to the standing stone at its peak and collapsed with her back against it, her legs sprawled outwards. The barrus king’s corpse lay motionless down the hill, a massive beast toppled and taken from the world forever. Bell kissed her knuckle and prayed that her own soul be delivered to Heaven painlessly and swiftly. She had little else to hope for.

  All that lay in the West was her grave.

  The flockers had hammered the other three tusks into the king’s head, and were now busing themselves with sawing off the head, while the sheep that remained gnawed through the beast’s limbs, deconstructing it for display.

  Bell couldn’t breathe fast enough. This was the first time she was not moving since she entered Sortie-on-the-Hill—since she left to find the healer.

  She counted Two living flockers and Bull’s Hoof, and nine sheep that were not dismembered or crushed.

  “What should we do about the girl?” asked a squirrely voiced flocker.

  “I’ll handle her,” said Bull’s Hoof confidently. He looked up at her and lifted his hammer onto his shoulder and began sauntering up to her slowly. His entire front was spattered with fresh blood; the entire area around the barrus was dyed red.

  Bell was thankful that the beast was downwind, so she could only faintly smell the blood.

  The others seemed content to let him kill her, and obviously didn’t see her as a threat anymore, too busy tearing apart their largest trophy, which Bell led them directly to.

  Bell smelled her grief, and for the first time realized she was far enough away to smell again. She knew that she should stand and run away, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She was struggling hard enough to withhold more tears as she watched the insides of the barrus king wash out onto the grass.

  Bell’s skin prickled with the magic of the standing stone, the leyline fount. She placed her hand against it and felt what seemed like a pulse, like the stone had a heart and was pumping blood. She looked down at it, and it was completely still. It must have been the magic flowing from the stone.

  Bull’s Hoof smirked and waved at her as he approached. He smelled arrogant.

  Bell felt the magical heartbeat swell and subside again.

  Bull’s Hoof stopped a few paces away from her.

  Bell weakly raised her sword, it shook between her hands. She couldn’t leverage it high enough to point the tip to him. Bell panted for breath, dirty, sweaty, bloody.

  Bull’s Hoof dropped the heavy lead hammer onto the ground. It kicked up a cloud of dust. He crouched, holding the handle by his shoulder. He furrowed his brows at Bell.

  Bell kept the sword pointed at him, and said, through desperate breaths, “Don’t come any closer.”

  Bull’s Hoof raised a palm to her, “I will not.”

  “What do you want? You won.” Bell felt the leyline swell again.

  “I want to tawk to you, Bewwewaw.”

  The leyline receded.

  “Don’t say my name.” Bell didn’t know how he knew it, and she didn’t care. She hated hearing the words come out of his evil mouth. It made her insides turn when he said it, even with his silly voice.

  “Why?” Bull’s Hoof’s burnt, cut face curled into something that looked concerned, but Bell could smell his scent. He was enjoying toying with her. He stepped closer to kneel beside her, dragging his hammer behind him.

  Bell followed him with her sword, dreading the inevitable moment she would be forced to use it.

  He hardly minded the blade, reeking of hubris. He smiled widely as it wavered in her trembling hands.

  “I don’t like when you say it. You say it wrong,” said Bell.


  “How should I say it?”

  Bell’s limbs shook violently, betraying her fear to Bull’s Hoof despite her best efforts to tighten her muscles and still them. “Bellelar,” her lip curled to a snarl.

  “Bewwewaw.”

  She needed to act—she needed to do something. Bell dragged herself closer to him again with her sore legs, “No.”

  The leyline pulsed.

  She enunciated each letter of her name like she was speaking to a child, “Bellelar.”

  He was slowly growing frustrated, “Bewwewaw.”

  The leyline receded.

  “No.” Bell inched closer to Bull’s Hoof, keeping the sword steady as she could. Her arms trembled, but she began pacing her breaths to calm her nerves—it did little, her heart still thundered in her ears, and her strength still faltered.

  The scent of frustration eventually overtook that of arrogance, and he shouted, “I’m saying it wight!” slamming the head of his hammer onto the ground angrily.

  “BeLL-eL-aR” Bell said even slower, milking the frustration, as she positioned herself so that the sword was but inches from Bull’s Hoof. Bell tightened her grip and mustered all the might she could. She was likely about to die, but she would take a piece of Bull’s Hoof with her, make things a little easier for Ranthos later on.

  The leyline pulsed.

  “BeWW-eW—”

  Bell plunged the sword into his shoulder through a gap in his armor. Blood squirted out from the wound. Bell’s arms felt like they had died; they went almost completely numb for a few seconds.

  The leyline receded.

  Bull’s Hoof wailed, pulling the sword out of himself with his gauntleted hand, and tossing it aside. “You bitch!” he screamed, turning red and huffing through his nose. His lips curled all the way up over his yellow teeth, and Bell could see veins bulging on his head. He raised his hammer to crush her once and for all.