As he passes the front wheel he bumps against it and notices the blood, flesh and slime covering the thick rubber. He had to drive over the carpet of bodies to get out of the forest, the evidence of it now glued and stuck deep into the tracks of the tyres. But beyond the wheel he can see more blood and grime, and bodies. The courtyard was covered with them. Casualties from the attack that resulted in the humans being captured he imagines.

He looks around for Belle but she is nowhere to be seen and he crawls up the front grill of the beast to get a better view. Climbing up to his feet, one hand using the front grill as a ladder, the other holding his guts inside his body, he looks around to survey the battlefield.

There must have been a few hundred of them at