I'm away for a few days so thought I'd post this strange little horror/fantasy tale. A group of friends and I were taking turns to write the next part of a story. The scene set is of a knight returning home to see his castle beset by strange creatures. It's silly, but offers a little escapism, anyway...
From a distance of perhaps 100 yards the gallant knight watched as his loved ones were thrown to the death giving ground below them. In a fraction of a second he witnessed a pair of leathery wings flop across the infernal scene and snatch a falling carcass, which was borne away over the encroaching forest and soon into the cloudscape. The other figure hit the inner bank below the castle wall and rolled slowly into the slim black moat.
Sir Ravenscroft sped on foot towards the base of the east tower. In the oily, fetid stream he spied thick black hair, growing heavy and sinking fast. He reached in, aware that his arms could be ripped from his body by some demoniac mouth beneath the surface. But it was little relief to drag from the stinking mire the broken body of his lady fair.
He traced her purple lips with his gauntleded finger. They seem burned and lacerated by a blasphemous kiss. Her clothing was torn and her body showed infinite signs of torment and torture at the sport of damnation. Blood dripped thickly down her legs and he fell hard on her chest in untold agonies, anguish his soul had not known could exist, despite witnessing the full horrors of Moorish battle.
The impact of his weight drew a sudden, sharp, agonising breath from the body of his wife. "John," she spoke in gurgled guttural tones, "Leopald, I tried to save Leopald. He lives yet." Sir Ravenscroft longed to look into the beautiful eyes of his wife once more before her life ebbed to a close. He expected to see horror and fear there and wished to insist they saw only peace before she met God. Yet as he brushed back her bloodied hair he gazed only upon two blistered sockets, scolded and torn with worms burrowing holes into the softest fleshes within.
The last thing his poor wife would have heard was the sound of her husband retching and heaving in paroxysms of revulsion.
2 comments:
You have so deftly recreated the horrific-fascinating atmosphere of medieval ballads, and that too in a prose-piece. The nameless horrors reminded me of Coleridge's CHRISTABEL, have you read it? The context there is more metaphysical/psychological, though.
Can't say I have read Coleridge apart from his most famous work. Thanks for the comment though SS.
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