The Prologue for my latest work
I'm about two thirds of the way through my latest book, Cleansed. It’s going to be considerably larger than my first. Here’s its prologue:
Cleansed - Prologue
(505 years after the start of the Reign of Chaos -R.C.-)
Dirge lay on the ground, dazed, gazing up at the sky. Tumultuous, roiling clouds of grey, red, and black stretched as far as he could see. Black lightning crackled from cloud to cloud, like a dreadful spider’s web, before coalescing and stabbing into the earth. The ground shook and exploded, vomiting out dirt and rock, hurling bodies in all directions. Long, thin funnel clouds stretched out like grotesque, gnarled fingers tearing the land asunder. The funnel clouds drew in all that lie near them, soil, trees, animals … men. What little they spat back out was difficult to look upon.
The ringing in his ears muffled the sound, but he could still make it all out. The clash of steel. The crackle of the lightning. The screams of his dying comrades. The worst were the screeches, growls, or snarls of the Grunkin that prowled the battle field, the hideous, twisted beasts that embodied Edis, the God of Chaos. They killed anything within reach, including each other.
Dirge struggled into a sitting position, pain wracking his entire body, and gently grasped his jaw, tasting the slightly metallic tang of blood. His surroundings slowly came into focus. His once resplendent armor lay about him in ruins. His sword, a gift from his master, lay at his side, a twisted hunk of dross. And worst of all, the mutilated bodies of his friends and comrades littering the field. The stink of burnt ozone mixed with charred flesh, offal, and shit, twisted his stomach.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not an hour before, the sky had been a perfect blue and the sounds had been nothing but the victorious cheers of the Righteous out to rid the world of Chaos. How could this have happened? How could his God, Ukase, have let him down like this and abandoned them? This was not what he had been promised.
