181 A Gory Sight for Sore Eyes

Among all of them who were riding with the knight, it was only Erom himself and Kelley who had been in the room when the bruised and battered men fresh from combating the beast had arrived with their gory tales of what the beast had done to them at the banks of the river of the alligators. In truth, if Erom or Kelley had remembered in time, they would have thought to warn their companions of the gory sight that awaited them. But they did not remember. Even they themselves were shocked beyond their wits. It was the oppressive stench as they approached the river bank that alerted them to the fact that something was not alright. A foul nauseating mix of blood, decay and sweat. When they broke through the last line of trees and onto the bank, the scene that greeted them was nothing short of a nightmare. The ground was a grotesque display of violence and death. Blood pooled in the low spots of the earth, turning the grass into a muddy, crimson mess. Scattered across the bank were the