Venality [TFTG]

Venality

“Over a hundred and eighty bodies lay in Gode Hollow. I’ve no doubt that tomorrow we’ll see twice that number. No king would stand for this.”

Seated in the wooden chair, King Sefus remained silent, ignoring the pleas of his Captain-at-Arms. He stared out the window of the castle at the frenzied horde gathered below, his face drawn downward in a sullen expression of contempt for his subjects.

“Your father would not have stood for this either!” Corvalis said, his voice rising in anger and frustration.

“My father was an arrogant, selfish cow, content to graze on the bounties of his title while leaving the ministrations of his authority to brutes such as yourself.” Sefus replied. “I’m twice the man he ever was.” His lips turned upward in a slight, malevolent grin. “Or do I need to prove that to you again?”

Upon hearing this, Corvalis grasped the leather-clad hilt of his rapier and pulled it a third of the way from its scabbard, but the damp, writhing sound of the blackworms gave him pause. He didn’t need to turn around to know that the colony was already beginning to swarm at his back, covering the gloomy walls and vaulted ceiling of the throne-room and transforming it into a dark, squirming cavern of horror. One step forward would bring them raining down, and they’d strip the flesh from his bones within seconds, leaving a bloody skeleton within a suit of chain-mail behind.

Sefus turned to face him, and for the first time, Corvalis beheld the extent of his physical deterioration: the pale skin, the dark circles under his eyes, and the frailty of his withered physique. “I want fifty pounds of ore per day, and I don’t care how many get sick. We must depart for our world by the coming of the winter solstice, and if that requires the sacrifice of ten thousand wretched souls, so be it. The Star Ark cannot wait.”

Corvalis’s blood ran cold. He was speechless.

We?

The true nature of his King’s relationship to the blackworms was becoming clear. He remembered the courage that Sefus had shown that day on the road to Equestria so many years ago, when the young prince had so unexpectedly – and for the first time - brandished his sword in response to Corvalis’s relentless bullying, besting him in a maelstrom of savagery seen only in the most formidable of knights. He’d taken this as a sign of nobility, but now he realized that the steel which formed the foundation of Sefus’s power had nothing whatsoever to do with virtue, or valor, or birthright.

All along, it had been them, and now King Sefus and the blackworms were one and the same.

Yes, what you see above is all there is. It's a story I wrote a few years ago as a short-short, and I thought it would work nicely for the contest.

reply to post by Flatwoods


It does work well with the theme of the contest. Nicely written. SnF.