THE PURGE

FIRST MOTION PAGE

For over a decade, Argon suffered a deadly scourge from the brutish Camnivores, a clan of blood suckers and flesh eaters who foraged the night with the scythe of death, hung above their blood-shot eyes with hideous fangs and venomous stingers dangling below their corrosive hides. Creeping maliciously within the luminous shadows of the moonlight and beneath the incarnadine root of the dreadful deep, they ravaged the land in cold blood, and with such a great craft of devilry, as never seen before, they made living their dead, zombies, ghouls, golems, and hybrids like them, a parlous mixture of vampires and anthropophagi in one damnable soul. Thus, the land was accursed. Terrified by this foray of evil, Lord Quadrack the third, ordered his finest soldiers into Argon to purge the evil thereof lest it spread to his own kingdom.

Argon stretched beyond the nine realms and was so named after the Order of the Blood Moon. It became nature's curse where the sun would loath to point its fiery torch. Not even the stars would ever consider pointing their glitters to its denatured terrain as the land had become heavens scorn.

Prepared verily for the purge, Higlac the Valorous led his finest soldiers out of the Hadryan alp and matched East. They had expected to vex their swords and shields against creatures whom they bethought men as of their own kinds. But what came thereafter was far worse than the mystery of their weaponry. Choked by the stench of horror, which whiffed through the cosmic phantasm of death's bilious hate, the soldiers drowned in mortal disaster

From within the heart of the jungle came a sudden ambuscade. The soldiers were suddenly attacked! Not by creatures of a ubiquitous form as with humans, but by some sought of being fast as the comet and very furtive in their dark promenade. They came suddenly from the wind, from the earth's gastro-cell, and with their claws, ripping into the hearts of the knights. The drums of their hearts were smashed and squeezed: a tagliatelle of intestines drooled out— water and blood slushing all over the fissures of the brownish earth. With their slim sharp pieces of tusk-like venomous fangs, they pierced through their necks. And with their claws locked upon the soldiers' ribs, they drew out blood for their wassail. Higlac was mad! He waved the edge of his sword here and there hoping to strike any of the creatures, but his effort was futile and short-lived. He became exhausted. His muscles flaccidly dropped, heaving a heavy sigh unto vanity. A deluge of sweat gathered all around his thick white skin. He was deeply lost in the misty formlessness of the void and nocturne blackness, out of which many balls of red eyes peeped. Within a twinkle of an eye, they pounced on him like bats, tore his hands apart, sucked him deep, and ripped his head off. In a few seconds, they had shared his parts, each for everyone. Eventually, the purge had suffered a sulfurous debacle.

Few years after, I was knighted. A new sect had evolved, called the Horient Magi. Quadruff had become king. He was the third after Quadragon, who succeeded Quadrack. In his reign, the scroll of Psalmeticcus was found. It was a very powerful scroll- a tome- which contained several enchantments, prayers, supplications and curses. Every night, we would gather at the temple to learn all the scriptures, which the magi gave unto us. They were meant to prepare us for the next purge.

In one of my personal studies at the temple, I read about the adventures of Higlac. He was, indeed, the greatest of all the Hadryan knights, a very chivalric martyr and a spate of motivation. The story of his adventures summoned a great deal of consternation upon every heart that read them. Determined to make a difference at all cost, I devoted myself to rigorous practices, such that every night, I would spend many few extra hours with one of the Magi, Magus Augustinus. He was a very gifted sage. It was he who unfolded the science behind the creation and evolution of every strange eerie creature that had ever existed. He spoke of his encounters with demons in some of his astral-travels, the knowledge he learnt from them and how he applied such knowledge in outwitting a few lesser demons. An astronomical number of these demons dominated the kingdom of the damned, where humanity had lost its touch with nature.

One night, the Magus showed me a painting, which he had kept secretly for many decades. It contained, within its structure, the physics and anatomy of all enigmatic beings: vampires, lycanthropes, Goblins, trolls and a few many others. The painting was replete with covert celestial drawings and symbols, which could only be detected through the use of a special magnifier. Each line of the drawing was an optical illusion of different images, which displayed the various classifications of species. The first classification included zombies, which were identified with vampires. 

Zombies were considered an inferior class of vampires for the simple reason that they could not undergo what the Magus called astral metempsychosis: a change of form from one form of being to another. He revealed a lot to me, a lot of knowledge and the application thereof. After years of rigorous training, we were fully set for Aragon.

At the Royal court, the Magi conducted a final consecration exercise before everyone including the royalties and the citizens of Hadrya. After the consecration ceremony, we rode East— fifty Hadryan knights before the Kingdom of the Damned.

VOCABULARY

1. Camnivores: portmanteau word for carnivore and omnivore

2. foraged: wandered around searching

3. scythe: tool for mowing and reaping

4. incarnadine: blood-red color

5. golems: magical clay figures raised to life

6. anthropophagi: cannibals

7. denatured: contaminated

8. tagliatelle: a type of pasta (The word is used metaphorically)

9. deluge: sudden heavy downpour

10. consternation:  a feeling of alarm, confusion, or dismay often caused by something unexpected.

11. astronomical: immeasurably great

12. lycanthropes: werewolves

13. metempsychosis: the supposed passage of somebody's soul after death into the body of another person or an animal

me·tem·psy·cho·sis