last days

The boy ran behind his family, he urged them on, his voice going horse with the effort. He looked east over a beautiful green field as far as the eye could see. Yet, he had no time to admire the scenery. They were being chased.

The refugees were moving in a shambled line west to the last place they could think of for shelter. Worried faces, gaunt with expressionless eyes were driven along by weary legs and shattered hearts.

The boy gazed at the long line of refugees; it consisted of many different people from villages and towns. All destroyed by the chasing evil, a malevolent force destroying the land like a locust plague.

It had been around 50 years since the last Rembrant stone had been destroyed. It was the last magical stone that had kept the rift to the demon realm sealed. As the years passed a slow trickle of demon entities seeped into the lands, but the monks of Urigor kept them in check.

The monks had worked and toiled, keeping the lands safe. All they asked for in return was for food to be delivered to the poorer villages that littered the land.

For a few years the townships kept this up and the taxes paid out extra for the food. However like all things to do with money the, city coffers began to get hungry, and slowly the food supplies were not sent, and even in some cases the villages were getting taxed.

Orn - The chief abbot at Urigor - had found a small village dying of disease and malnutrition. He cursed the rich barons of the Lands and immediately stopped the protection the land so needed, he spread the word and his monks returned the Urigor. The doors shut and no one had seen or heard anything form the monks since.

They became recluses, and spoke to no one. Urigor a giant castle structure on a large field plain stood out like a toddlers tooth in an otherwise empty mouth.

The land began to eat itself, and the years past, and most forgot about the Monks of Urigor.

The demon forces slowly gained power until a full rift was torn into the portal between the two worlds. Through this rift with a sizzling crackle came and the world destroyer know as Zigerust.

Zigerust, a demon lord of 7 feet tall with golden skin and cat like eyes. He had seven tentacles that oozed underneath him when he moved, one tentacle was missing and a sickly stump wiggled to one side. He had a long face and sharp razor sharp teeth; he carried a long whip with razor edged blades at the end in seven points. In his other hand he held a long blade of dark metal that glowed.

Under his guidance the world was raped and pillaged. Town, village and city - none were safe from the hordes.

There was nowhere left to run the land was dying, so the refugees moved to the one last hope. A ghost castle with monks in that no one had seen in over 50 years.


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The boy squinted to see the shapes at the back of the line - what he saw made bile jump to his throat, demons and imps were mauling the straggling people. He couldn’t see very well, such was the length of the train of people. He turned and shouted to every one who could hear - "Demons!!!!!"

Screams and panic hits the refugees like a hammer, every one looking over their shoulders. Dark shapes coming closer. Knowing that you cannot outrun the evil makes even the elders move as fast as a frail body can.

The boy and his family are the first over the ridge, and they see salvation, a small glimmer of hope in a castle in the distance, standing, like a watchman, still unmoving, totally dead. The bricks giving no idea of what awaits inside.

In a moment of brilliance and terror the boy has a fleeting thought, a thought well above his years. Time slows, his family head down the slope to the castle in the distance as if running in treacle.

`What are we doing? ` The boy thinks to himself, `The monks in the stories of old were, ancient men, with no vices, no children and no wives, ` the boy gets pushed into action by another boy and he runs with the group for his very life, the thought doesn’t leave him, and neither does the image of the ghostly castle and the mocking way it stands there still and unmoving.

The demons feast, more appear on the horizon, the bloodletting is beginning, and the final days of the land are coming here.