A Dark Night

Chapter IX

Chapter 9

The Scarlet Banquet II

 

Their eyes were deep, drenched with fear. They shook, shuddered and gasped like scared children. These children huddled together for warmth in this dead of winter that had consumed the winter forest. The snow mountain trapped us with her heavily forested arms, enclosing us in a snow circle. It was too perfect almost, no one else was to intrude on my banquet. I felt the hunger, the power in me rising like a hot flame. This flame gave me life within my cold bones and frosty skin. The cold air had chilled my soul and my body, chilled my breath and my hairs. But the flames within me had given me a new lifeblood filled with energy and power. Energy and power to spread the flames of death across the lambs of the living cross.

Feast my son. I know you are hungry. Kill these men, take their blood!  Spoke the robe clad mans voice again. His voice was distant yet right in my ear. It entered inside my ear flying though it’s canal into my mind, my soul, my heart. It’s commanding yet comforting sound assured me it was the right choice and the only one. The dark curtain had now cast a hand in my mind covered in blood. And from it came the fruit of unlife. Decayed, rotten and thirsty. It needed life. Fresh life. Fresh red. Fresh, blood.

From the arising hand in my mind, cast in blood, my hand arose covered in similar life. From it I clenched my blade and pointed it right at them. In my position I stood like a tower in the icy wind. And a tower I was, tall and powerful blade in hand. From my spot I gripped my blade and dash at them with speeding force, releasing an outward slash in the process. The result was beautiful. The speed of my dash added power to my already deadly blade allowing to break the chainmail armor of the men splitting their flesh open. The man fell down with a belly slashed open giving birth to a fresh scarlet river upon the virgin snow. Holding my blade to my near face, I licked the blood off of the blade. The trophy of slaying my foe, my once comrade, was rewarding for it gave me once more the gift of new life.

They backed off more. Scared, whimpering dogs clad in chainmail links and cloaks. I could see there were about more than 30 still. But it mattered not, for I had killed enough of them to scare them off. However the abundance of fresh prey gave me a new interest, the dance of death.

“S-Sire, stop!” I man exclaimed. In a split second I could see his whole face emerging from a crowd of weary, nervous knights. He was pale and fat, with lazy yet commanding dark eyes. His plump nose rested upon a thick hazel beard complemented by a tonsue, or the hair of monks. The brown, arrogant eyes stared into me sternly but with a slight nervousness. I could tell he was scared, yet the fool had a courage about him. And that courage came from his spirit, his spirit! Filled with light they claim, with grace! This man was no exception. For it was he who accompanied our company as a monk sent by the church. It was he who rubbed in our faces how he was a pure servant of the Lord and we were his killers. How I wanted to smack his disgusting, plump face before. The time was arising however to exact this wish to the symbol of the lamb. The lamb that spat in my face when I asked for mercy at becoming a monster. His blood was mine, and mine alone!

“Y-you.. You must have convened with the savages! I swear they must have fed him lies a-and turned his soul into a twisted pagan beast! You see? You see!? This is what we face, savages who turn our knights into man eating blackhearts!”

I did not respond to his insult. Instead I walked closer to him. He inched away from his already far proximity from I. I could see his fat, wrinkly fingers pulling out from a satchel at his side a bright crucifix as well as a clump of garlic, tied together with a sting which he fastened around his neck. Armed with a garlic necklace and a bright metallic crucifix he backed away as I drew closer. The light was growing brighter in my eyes and it grew hard to see, the garlic stench starting to numb my nose. But something inside me get me going. Hate. Hunger. Him.

“B-Back off beast! I will send you back to hell! You see? You see!? This is the work of the Devil! He has possessed our once good captain! He must have convened with Satan! Yes, yes that must be it! Wh-why of course! Ha ha!”

I chuckled at the fat monks little remark, and sped up my pace. There were trees well behind him and he would soon run out of space to run back too.

“Darkspawn! I-I command you to stop! If you surrender yourself, your soul may be saved! S-Surrender yourself and your life will be spared! W-We may only excommunicate you! Y-Yes! We’ll spare your life and won’t burn you at the stake! Y-yes, surrender yourself and we’ll spare you, ha ha! Ha ha ha!”

And then the pigs laugh came at an end. He backed into a tree. I could see the grip of fear in his eyes, his once condescending gaze became like that of a dog to be put down. His panting grew heavier, heavier and heavier! Plump little fingers like sausages gripped the tree and in his other hand he barely managed to keep a crucifix in front of him.

I came close to him near at his face. I looked him dead in his eyes. His shaking hand holding the crucifix backed at his chest. In the intimate moment we shared I could see who he was the whole time, scared of us knights. We held the blades and all he held was a petty relic. And this puny piece of metal supposedly gave him power over us but he was wrong. For he who holds the blade holds the power, that’s how it’s always been.

“Tell me father, do you believe I can still be saved?”

“I-I-I.. ”

“No? That’s a shame. But his Lordship never fit me anyways. Go now, be with your God. I will reign as representative of the Lord in your stead.” His eyes grew bigger and pupils dilated, mouth gaping open. He breathed one more time until I placed my hand on the crucifix gently. It burned my hand but the pain was nothing. I then grabbed it firmly while he held it and pushed it against his chest, increasing in my force. Now I could hear his screams. They were like a hymn in my ears, reminiscent of those sung by his kind in churches. I pushed the cross further in his chest penetrating his robes and skin, bashing against his flesh and bones. The monks blood now stained the cross descending closer to his being. From my back I felt the stares of the snakes in cloaks watching in horror as their beloved priest was being reunited with the cross.

All the while I stared at his eyes gently while his agonized at the cross shaped pain in his chest. By now a sea of blood drenched my arm and the crucifix was deep in his chest past his ribcage penetrating his heart. His soft organs ripped and split at the force of the metal cross and bled like gutted piglets all over it. His lungs, now desecrated by the metal cross, reveled in torment as her neighbor did. His heart was penetrated by the metal cross and spilled itself all over it. It was sweet really, the cross had broken open his cold heart and let out it’s sweet life all over it. In a sense, this was the most open the man had ever come to “spilling his heart”. His spilt sweet life landed on the cross he had dedicated his life to. Although he may not have always been the most pure of monks, as evident of his escapades with village women. Claiming his adventures with them “trials of God”, and “repentance for their sins” his soul was now redeemed in the eyes of the cross. His last breath gave out and he became one with the crucifix finally, something he had not been so keen on in life. Indulging in pleasures and flesh had corrupted him when in fact he had taken a vow of celibacy. At least now that he was gone, no more innocent pagan women would have to fear his vatican lust. And no more would the cross have to bear desecration of its name from men like he.

From his heart I removed the bloody cross, still leaking blood. I held it over my face and let it run on my face. It tasted more beautiful than anything I had ever tasted. The blood of a monk was truly something, or perhaps was it because he was a man of God? The blood of such “virtuous” men surely left a taste in my mouth. The fresh scarlet ran over my life reminding me of my own baptism. This moment itself, was a baptism. Now the metallic cross in my hand bleeding in its might over me, began to crack in my hands. It bled its last over me baptizing me in new life and new beginning. When all the life had but run dry from said cross it became of no more use and I crushed it in my hand. Turning around I could see the dead pig with a cross shaped valley in his torso. The embassy of God no more existed in this forsaken cold land. There was only I. The one who had escaped death from the hands of devils and been born in new blood, and I was prepared to send these men to their fate. Their fate was interwoven with mine as I was to feast on them before they had passed. All these men, all these knights. All these comrades of mine had to die. So I could live. Live a new life that the bastardly Lord had given me.

Blade in hand all the preparations were done. They were scared and without hope from God. Now all that they needed was to be spared of the fearful night and that was my duty. To send them to one last splendor before their demise, a bloody banquet.