Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Bold (emotionally) (08/30/07)
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TITLE: The Fortress | Previous Challenge Entry
By M. I.
09/03/07 -
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Before him, the fortress walls shot to the clouds up the cliff-side, gray-red from thousands of battles. The winter sky was crisp and cold. There was no wind. All was silent. The commander shifted, chain mail dangerously musical over his neck; and he pulled his sword from its sheath.
“I say to you; surrender!” he yelled again.
It echoed back at him, mockingly: surrender, surrender, surrender…
“So be it.” He felt his shoulders slump. He bowed his head for a single moment. Then he swung on one heel, facing his silent army—the myriads of still forms like black sand as far as the eye could see. They were countless. He would surely win. But—he had not wanted it to be this way.
He raised his sword, thrusting its point towards the slate-colored sky. “CHARGE!”
They charged. A million battering rams cracked into the fortress walls, ground trembling at the force, little particles of dirt and rock chunks slipping from high on the fortress walls. There was no gate to the fortress; no entrance, no secret staircase or trapdoor.
It was a refuge and a prison. He was here to destroy it.
Thousands of battle-worn feet ran forward; muscles bulging as they swung the battering rams, teeth gritted as they heaved. As each group fell back a new group advanced, so there was no rest on the walls. Cracks slipped up its sides. They crawled across it in dark tendrils. The fortress groaned, crying out with each thud to its slick walls; and finally, loosing control. Stones the size of houses broke free and hurtled down, through the dust, crashing onto the heads of the warriors below.
The dust settled. The army, unscathed, climbed upward; over hazardous defenses of fire pits, and water trenches, thorny walls within walls. At each barricade the commander braced himself and cried
“Surrender!”
But there was always silence.
Finally, he reached the pinnacle. The cliff top plateaued onto a garden—plants withered, ground cracked. Brown clumps of grass rattled from the edges of pathways. A rosebush clung to a wall; cloaked with shriveled buds that had never fully formed.
He stepped over these. The pathway was strewn with death and dust, but he followed it, deep into the heart of the garden. An old well stood crumbling and covered in ancient ivy. No water bubbled within it.
“Go away,” a voice croaked.
A small figure huddled miserably at the base of the well. Its head lolled back, eyes sharp with pain. He took a step towards it. It retreated in agony, crying, making dark splotches on the chalky ground.
“Surrender,” he whispered.
“Go AWAY.”
He knelt before it. “I cannot, and will not. You need me.”
The thing glared at him from beneath its stringy hair, trying to hiss, failing with a sob. “I’m fine by myself, the way things are.” It waved a hand at the desolate garden. “See? No life; no pain.”
“No life,” he whispered, “no love.”
“I don’t want love.”
“I love you anyway.”
“Please,” the figure whispered. “Please go away.” It stared at him, defenseless, permeated to the very core.
He leaned over it. Parting its hair with one gloved hand, he kissed the pale forehead, and whispered: “Surrender.”
Water bubbled in the well. It flowed out over the cracked ground, a sweeping, crystal flood; and life sprung from it, grasses exploding in green, flowers dripping nectar, ground soft, and the rose-buds blooming with heavy crimson blossoms.
Again, he kissed the figure. Its eyes had closed in peaceful sleep. The skin glowed with warmth, and its rags were purple robes. He picked her up and cradled her in her arms. He turned to his waiting army.
“It is finished,” he said. “Christ has triumphed over death.”
And they rejoiced.
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Be careful with semicolon usage. It should only be used in places where a period would also be correct; both parts of the sentence should be complete sentences, able to stand on their own (like this one).
You have a gift for words, and this is a fantastic piece.
your description of the grass exploding green and the flowers dripping nectar.
I was eagerly reading trying to find out what would happen. Great job on the writing AND the message!