The Messenger

Charging in defiance of daylight, a messenger and his steed strode across perilous chasms and moors. Glancing out in the distance there laid a castle nestled by its amass of fortifications.

A sea of dark clouds shortly followed them. Rain began to pelt the ground. It soddened the soil, forcing the mount's hooves to squelch through the thick mud.

As if conjured on command, nature bellowed its gusts of winds, contorting the trees scattered along the path. Almost to breaking point. The spirited colt sensed that evil lurked behind them and powered through, battling onward to the beacon of sandstone.

"Open the gates!" screamed a watchman, spotting the pair looking pale as death.

The courageous steed collapsed as the messenger went to dismount and became trapped under its frame. It did not move or struggle to get up. He knew feeling his body pressed against the animal that it had already drawn its final breath. Then he heard the gates creak open slowly and a pair of footsteps approach. Two watchmen pulled the injured man from beneath his horse, dragged him under the gatehouse, and propped him against a wall.

"Lord be praised, never would we have expected anyone to survive such a journey" declared one of the watchmen.

The messenger's eyes showed what horrors were etched in his mind, foreshadowing the words that resided behind his frozen lips. "Satan's army has devoured the entire northern outpost, it's lost!"

"Sa-Satan's army?!" shouted the other watchmen. "This man's mind must be addled!"

"I saw the whole thing," the messenger responded softly, his eyes drifting towards eternal slumber. "They're coming, run while you can..."

At that moment an arrow made of human bone shot into the horse's corpse, and drums of war erupted with the thunder that raged amongst the clouds above.