The Kin

by Elsye Harwood

  Chapter Eight

  Soon after dark, the other five hundred men joined them and the army of locals sat around their campfires and waited nervously in the moonlit night. This time they couldn’t use Junius to gage the approach of the Kin, so when the attack came, it was sudden and unexpected.

  The Kin approached them silently, and came out of the darkness, so that by the time the men knew what was happening, the first wave was almost upon them.

  Hastily, the men stationed themselves into a circle around the mound, brandishing flaming torches and wooden spears, of which there were plenty in reserve. Marius was in one of the supply lines, his job being to hand out the weapons to the men as they needed them. It meant he could also keep a check on the two men who guarded the door of Junius’s prison.

  The first wave struck, and almost instantly the howls of the Kin marked the passing of several of their number. To Marius, seeing the battle at close range for the first time, their demise was rather satisfying; they disintegrated, then fell to the floor as a bundle of dried bones. From the multitude of shrieks filling the night, he gathered that Junius’s army weren’t doing quite as well as he’d expected.

  Several men fell and were dragged back, a few were able to re-join the battle, but most helped in the supply line. Marius soon realised that this would continue all night as wave after wave followed relentlessly after the other.