The Pile On

Brogan had recognized one of the men he had seen at the window - he knew that face with a fond feeling of recollection and something within his heart compelled him to go and greet him, face to face.

No sooner was he outside and into the grounds the clamour began. Wraiths came to him from all over and like an enormous bee stack attached to the hive, layers of ghostly beings clung to each other around him.

He felt nothing ... It all went dark ... Brogan faintly heard a squeal coming from high up in the house, and it sounded like Marley.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Bony Fingers Rapping & Tapping

The child ghosts were unnaturally aggressive - they were biting one another. The women were tearing at their dresses and beating at their husbands. Their ribs showed through with hunger, their breasts hung like an old woman's sack, and their babies had turned blue.

Brogan strolled over to the side window - twenty or more faces were pressed up against the glass - their bony fingers were rapping and tapping on the panes.

"I didn't think that this was ever meant to happen,” said Bart looking over his shoulder.

"It's not" Brogan replied, "It's not".

- Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Storm Outside

Father Tooke could be heard on the floor above, praying out loud from up the main staircase. The insane wails persisted in relentless waves.

The shadows had infiltrated the walls, showing all terrible scenes that gave a pictorial account of hundreds of final moments. These ghosts were more than restless; they were trapped in anguish, and overwrought with the pain of it. Something or someone had stirred the phantoms from their places in the ground.

"Do you think that the Priest will be able to annihilate them all?" Bart asked timidly.

His fear had got the better of him - as this generation of the fallen ghosts were a far wilder lot that even he had been used to. The streets of Medieval England must have truly been a rugged place to survive in.

"I don't know" Brogan considered "he has some powerful magic I have heard, and that is why Puck did bring him to us. His strength is the kind that could reduce ghouls into dust I don't doubt. When all settles we can go back to our party.” Although he said this reassuringly, he had never known anything like this before, and it worried him.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

One Last Prayer

After the King's army had departed, the Monks rose from the ground and brushed the dirt from their cloth. They neatened themselves as best they could; their tears making trails on their grubby faces.

Robin had been there with them all of this time, lain amongst them, and was wearing the same robes, as he did, when in their company.

"There is a challenge of a man to pray for" he said sarcastically.

He turned to the Monk beside him who seemed stricken with melancholy. He was trying to pull the shortened cord back around his waist - it had been cut with the Sheriff’s knife to expose his nakedness, before being forced to the ground.

"What now Brother Tooke?" he asked gently.

Satisfied that the knot would hold, he then looked back up at Robin and answered stoically: "My guess be that it is time for us all to take our leave" his voice went quieter at the end of these words as the two looked out over the fields.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Black Sheriff's Threats

"You cannot kill the Monks!" a voice shrilled bitingly.

"No, but I can castrate the bastards! I assure you it would be doing the Holy Church a service increasing their virtue..." the Black Sheriff sneered, and then spat, pacing around the twelve that were lying face down on the ground in front of his men.

The figures were motionless, helpless in submission, with their hoods over their heads and long brown robes, and just ankles and sandals bared.

"This Order harms no one Sir" the knight persisted bravely in his dangerous protest.

"Perhaps. Yet they contrive against me all the same - with their insolence. They endeavor to heal the foe we strike down - what madness compels them to nurture our enemy? It is contrary to law, and they needs be punished for their fickle humors."

Sweat drinkled down his neck, as the heat of the day had set upon them. Their tunics were weighing heavy, as none had slept and plainly his men had become weary.

"I will give them but one day to produce the traitor Robin or I will cut them all" he then added to pepper his threat: "Their hymns will be sung all the sweeter."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Humble Monk

Outside blood dripped everywhere, it shot and spurt in orbic globs, stickily clinging to the spectres that caught their sprays, patterning the outside walls with ghoulish graffiti, where lines dripped into pictures, in monochrome records of how the dead had fallen.

Once these were nearly all young and robust men. They had been sons of villagers, children of Barons, shouldered together, in fighting lines of mindless formation. Censored, disengaged, now angry men, whose ghost wives and children now stood beside them.

Frantic and accusing they stared out from sightless eyes, with mouths slung open, drooling witless words, stumbling steps from an atrophied and necrotic flesh.

"Oh the Priest is like the cleaner” he said knowingly - I imagine he will take the dark forces, bag them all up and commit them to some out-of-the-way place - he is that powerful."

***

They had expected an Archbishop but this fellow was but a monk.

They had anticipated royal purple robes, with embroidery and fancy work, and a golden cross upon the breast, but this humble Monk wore none.

He stoutly stood; pale faced and solemn - looking so deeply concerned, whilst everyone who was counting on him fell to dismay.


He greeted the group warmly and then said "Kneel brothers".

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

A Ghostly Ferment

“We must call in the Priest – he will know what to do.”

“What of Kybosh?”

“No, it is never any good to add calamity upon calamity - we need an expert in quelling this turmoil. I will find him and bring him here.”

Earlier that day Puck had met with the realtor and secured a winning price for Stanhope - its invisible householders were pleased. They had gathered together to celebrate the residence when the moors had started to froth over with a ghostly ferment.

Very soon its mists had grown faces and a stronghold of four hundred ghouls were howling at their windows.

Zombies are physical bodies who manifest without souls, and ghosts are astral remnants that live on without inhabiting souls - shells of former men recanting their past woes.

These fellows had been aroused from their rest and their carryon was overbearing. They even brought with them an odour most foul.

Tonight's party had fallen short.

"How about I'll go and get the Priest and you look after what is happening here?" offered Nervina who was chilled by their presence; for there were sides to humanity he could not stomach well.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series