Kostya

*Title to be decided.*

The leader of the pack was a gigantic brute, it would have stood head and shoulders taller than a man, and even malnourished, its limbs and torso were heavy and thick. Its simian features twitched as it called to the small group with guttural cries, the black pupils, barely discernable in its shiny obsidian eyes darted left and right for the source of the scent it was following. Its large nostrils flared as it tasted the air, its nose was grotesquely snubbed, almost porcine. In anticipation, its thin grey lips have receded, baring two interlocking rows of sharp, curved, pearly teeth, behind which a thick, dark purplish tongue lolled expectantly. As it tilted its head back to catch the scent of Alfredo Garcia’s dead body floating towards it on the wind, its massive jaw jutted outward. Its body was gaunt, ribs and joints peeked through the curtains of sickly grey skin, and its movements were languid though determined. As it trotted, inexorably towards its target, everything about the Daemon, its sharp, flesh-tearing fangs, its powerful bone crushing jaws and its ravenous eyes, bespoke its predatory nature.
Behind the leader, a small, but equally starved group of Daemons followed, though these creatures were smaller than the Alpha, being only the size of an average adult man, their predatory physiognomy was identical and they called excitedly to each other as they caught the new scent of prey, baring their fangs. Each Daemon already had a dark ring of saliva building up around their hungry maws, and the faces of some were smeared with dried blood.
The stranger observed their approach from atop the ramparts as he nonchalantly notched an arrow into his bow. Aurelio flinched visibly as the sound of each Daemon call reached the town, though he gripped the pike firmly with his fat fingers. McLain swallowed hard and fondled his pike for reassurance, as the Daemons broke into a ragged gallop as they caught sight of Garcia’s corpse, now clad only in its drawers lying outside the gate. The stranger drew the bow carefully, and took aim at the leader, who had broken free from the pack and was bounding across the desert ten paces ahead of them, howling lustily. As it moved within fifty paces of the gates, the stranger exhaled slowly in concentration.
‘Shoot it man, for heavens sake!’ McLain’s strangled plea seemed to have no effect upon the drifter, who closed one eye and tightened his grip. McLain was choking in panic, he gurgled incoherently and almost toppled backward from the rampart. The Alpha was only ten feet from the corpse, when the stranger loosed his arrow.
It sailed through the air in a perfect arc, dropping as it sped towards its galloping target, lodging itself in the gigantic Daemon’s eye socket with a meaty report. The force of the arrow’s impact twisted the Daemon’s head violently to the side, and its skull snapped backward as the colossal body pitched forward sickeningly into the dust.
‘Stone heads McLain,’ the stranger muttered as he notched another arrow, which was indeed tipped with chipped flint, ‘Apache use stone heads, I don’t.’
The smaller Daemons hardly noticed their fallen leader, skirting around its twitching corpse, they were drawn by their insatiable hunger to the meal ten feet away. The stranger took aim again as they enveloped the corpse in an orgiastic feeding frenzy, his second arrow fell too quickly and struck the Daemon, a smaller juvenile on the edge of the group below the throat the throat. Gouts of warm, blackish blood welled from the wound, but the Daemon was unfazed, it managed a distress call as it clamped a hand around the wound. Instantly the group responded, feeding ceased, and they suddenly took notice of the defenders atop the wall. They surged towards them, leaving Garcia’s mangled remains behind, led by the wounded juvenile who continued to bark for assistance. The stranger loosed one last arrow as they tore towards him, this time his aim was true and one of the larger Daemons was felled, the shaft protruding from above the bridge of its snout like nose.
The stranger laid the bow aside as the Daemons reached the base of the walls, their calls were urgent and deafening, almost immediately a tall adult leapt towards McLain and took hold of an imperfection in the wooden palisade. McLain thrust his weapon downwards towards it mechanically, whimpering with fear, but still following the simple instructions. The wide blade slid between the Daemon’s shoulder joint, and with an outraged cry it fell back, its arm hanging unresponsively at its side.
Aurelio meanwhile, was in danger. His first strike was batted aside with a powerful forearm by one of the adult Daemons, while to his left, a juvenile had managed to find a handhold and was preparing to haul itself to the top of the wall. The whites of Aurelio’s eyes were visible as he reeled the pike upward hand over hand, and turned his attention to the ascending assailant. He committed heavily to the blow, putting his weight into the thrust, and succeeded in skewering the adolescent through the head, the blade entering just under its ear as it cleared the top of the wall. But as the fiend dropped from the wall, it dragged the pole with it, wrenching it from Aurelio’s hand. The second Daemon stepped over the corpse in search of the handhold. Aurelio fumbled frantically for something to throw.
McLain’s fear was overcome by the success of his first blow, and he struck out again as the Daemon he had just wounded mounted a second assault on the wall flanked by two other large adults. The weight of his pike was enough to smash through the bridge of the Daemon’s nose, and it died noiselessly. The Daemon on the right had its hand amputated by the drifter’s bizarre weapon as soon as it found a chink in the wall. The attacker on the left hand side was frustrated by the sheer wooden wall, and it scurried towards Aurelio’s side of the gate where the second Daemon was clinging, its nose bloodied from where Aurelio’s boot had stunned it. More Daemons stepped over the corpses and prepared to climb to McLain’s position, they were being overwhelmed.
McLain leaned out over the top of the wall, and balancing precariously, tried to stab one of the advancing Daemons before it could get to the wall.
‘McLain, damn you! Don’t!’ The stranger was too late, the last of the adult Daemons latched onto the shaft of the pike, which sunk into its abdomen and wrenched the pike backward. McLain, still holding the pike, still smiling with premature triumph tumbled forward, over the wall and into the hungry knot of predators below.
Without a sound, the stranger cleared the fortifications, following the bloodcurdling scream of McLain over the wall.
The large, hungry Daemon had clamped its powerful fingers onto the top of the wall, and Aurelio backed away in horror as the sinewy muscles began to work, hauling the starving predator towards him. Suddenly his head cocked sideways, as the second grey set of fingers latched on, and he reached into his belt, fumbling for something. As the Daemon’s head rose above the wall, a triumphant, ravenous grin across its demonic maw, blood still seeping from its nose, Aurelio’s chubby arm swung down with a metallic flash on its right hand. The heavy knife he had pilfered from Alfredo Garcia sliced neatly through the Daemon’s fingers, and caught off guard, the creature fell suddenly, smashing its jaw upon the top of the wall, before collecting the pack member following its path up the wall as it plummeted to earth. The fingers, pattered softly on the wooden rampart as they dropped about Aurelio’s feet.
Aurelio’s opponent landed awkwardly, conjuring a cloud of dust as it collided with the unforgiving desert, and the stranger capitalized on the momentary distraction to cleave in two the head of one of the three Daemons that were advancing upon him. McLain’s screams had ended abruptly when the brute, which had levered him off the wall tore, his throat out with its jaws, the pike still impaled in its abdomen. This same creature, now with a split head, dropped noiselessly, but its companions, the one handed adult and a stout adolescent moved closer, splitting apart to try to flank the stranger. The drifter held his sword in directly in front of him with both hands, poised in position to strike. The one handed Daemon came at him from the left with a low undulating growl, simultaneously, the smaller Daemon advanced in a pincer attack. The Daemons were fast, but the stranger seemed to know their plan before it was executed. With acrobatic precision, his blade cut through the neck of the one handed Daemon, as the thin man slid past the falling corpse and the young Greyskin clawed at empty air. An instant later, the sword angled upward and with a rapid, staccato slash, the drifter severed the head of the young demon. It popped off neatly, like a newly plucked melon and bounced with a meaty slap against the hard dusty plain before the body had even sunk to the ground. Gouts of thick, black blood coursed from the bodies, congealing quickly into a crusty tar. As the last remnants of the pack, the stranger reached for the rag in his pocket to clear his blade before the blood clotted on his blade, but it was nowhere to be found.
The two Daemons from Aurelio’s side of the gate had recovered and they began to circle towards the dangerous threat, joined by a wounded young one, the stump of the arrow was still protruding rudely from the cleft of its collarbone, the wounded surrounded by a glossy obsidian coating of clotted blood. They were more cautious now, moving slowly, deliberately, watching the stranger’s movements intently.
They had him surrounded on three sides, and as they began to close, the stranger drew his blade through a fold in his shirt, the greasy, half dried blood catching in the coarse fabric, and then reassumed his inert position, blade in front, facing the largest of his assailants. They closed slowly, trying to get behind his peripheral vision to attack, but his eyes watched the lengthening shadows in the dust below his feet, which told him all he needed to know.
Everything slowed to a stop. The Daemons paused, just beyond the range of the drifter’s bizarre instrument, none wanting to make the initial, probably suicidal attack, and the stranger’s body remained motionless, coiled in waiting.
Over the deadly calm, all of a sudden, the air was filled with a venomous hiss. Before the Daemons had registered the sound, the drifter was in motion, and his katana sliced through the upraised hand and then the skull of the Daemon behind him on the left, while the arrow from the ramparts struck the adult which had been standing directly in front of him through the left knee. His sword did not halt for an instant, having slaked its blood thirst in the first victim, its glinting steel searched with precision as he pirouetted, finding the throat of the fingerless Daemon to his right. The largest tried to advance upon him, but the severed tendon behind its knee sent it crashing into the dust, where it was executed with violent grace by the stranger’s humming blade, the head removed with a single blow.
Upon the ramparts, her blonde, tousled hair unfurled into the wind, Sarah Black waved awkwardly…


Bonus offer: Name my flesh eating humanoid predator!

Basically, now that you've got a better idea of what these things are and look like, feel free to suggest names. If your name is selected, it will become the name of this chapter, and I will send you a preview of the next section as soon as its written.
Any questions regarding biological/theological dimensions of these thingamabobs, PM me, I'm kind of building a theoretical database on them, in my mental, crazy head...