Most creatures of the earth can see. It is only man who can see beyond the simple colors and shapes, to see the soul of what he gazes upon. It is man’s greatest gift, to have both sight and vision.

-Massachio de Vimme, in his essay “The Gifts of Man”

Gaspard held the spyglass to his eye and peered through it. After finding himself a suitably high perch, he was now due to begin his reconnaissance on the city center. He would not charge in blindly again. He had at least a week before his shoulder was recovered. He intended to make use of that time to prepare.

The palace at the city’s center was visible from any part of town, due to the ostentatious height of its spires, but there was a little to be seen in those marble parapets. The monsters abhorred those glittering heights; they lurked among the alleys and buildings, where shadows were never far away. Gaspard scanned what few open spaces he could see. The palace courtyard was clearly visible from this vantage.

There, standing at the doors to the palace, was a beast with which Gaspard was all too familiar. A guard, of sorts, the one who had unleashed the hound upon Gaspard. Still clinging to some semblance of its former life, it patrolled the palace grounds and stood watch at the door. It was a grotesque beast, still wearing the armor it had worn in its former life, though it’s bulging flesh now burst from seams in the metal. Red, distended veins were visible at every joint. Gaspard could only imagine what horrifically twisted face he might see if he lifted the visor of the guards helmet. If it could be lifted. Flesh and armor seemed as one now, a horrific fusion of man and metal forged under the Mad Moon’s light.

The telescope collapsed in on itself easily, and Gaspard put it away. He did not wish to linger long on the guard. Of all the beasts he’d fought, the ones that retained a shadow of thought disturbed him the most. The horror had lingered in the back of his mind ever since his encounter with the suicide, and it had been refreshed by the painter. She had been able to form words. Crazed words driven by mad obsession, but words nonetheless.

Gaspard wondered how much of the guard truly remained. It had enough of its mind left to patrol the grounds, yes, but was it repeating old habits? Or was there something in it that remembered loyalty, remembered what it had once been charged to protect?

The guard had once sworn to protect the king. The king who was one of the co-conspirators in the great lie. Gaspard gripped his sword. He wondered if there was enough left of the guard that it might understand the king had betrayed it -betrayed everyone he ruled.

The thought of having a conversation with such a monstrosity faded from his mind quickly. At best, the idea would torment it -and Gaspard had no desire to add to the indignities that any of these creatures suffered. They were twisted, foul things now, mockeries of the persons they had once been. Gaspard was doing them a favor by killing them all.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

With nothing more to see from this vantage, Gaspard moved on. He would locate another tower, a new angle on the city’s interior, and find new avenues to approach the palace. He had already seen several holes in the guards patrol. It would be easy enough to slip past that lone creature. He simply had to ensure there weren’t other surprises waiting in store. After being ambushed by the fused corpses under the burnt district, Gaspard would take nothing for granted.

A home with a particularly high balcony beckoned. Gaspard carefully pushed aside a pile of rotted corpses that had piled against the door. Their attempts to batter it open had left the door weakened, and he was able to force his way in with relative ease. He benefited from a great deal more finesse than the average moon-crazed monster possessed. He stepped in over the broken skulls of the dead and was unpleasantly surprised to find that he had not left the smell of rotting meat behind when he had stepped inside. The closer he got to the balcony, the worse the smell became. On the highest floor, he could easily tell the source of the rot was coming from behind a nearby set of closed doors.

Against his better judgment, Gaspard pushed at the door. It gave way under the slightest touch. He looked in, and took heart that it wasn’t the worst case scenario. There was no monster lurking in the eves, feasting on rotting flesh. Just a few corpses, being feasted on by nothing but the flies. It sickened Gaspard that his standard for “pleasant surprise” had shifted in such a way. Gaspard stepped into the room for a closer look.

There were three corpses -two larger, and one much, much smaller. The two larger bodies were virtually indistinguishable now. The smaller was clearly a child. Gaspard bit his tongue. In their state of decay, he could not tell if these two large bodies had been embracing the smaller one, or perhaps savaging it in their final moments. The nature of the Mad Moon meant both were equally likely.

Gaspard exited the room and slammed the doors shut behind him. Better to leave the dead where they lie. He headed for the balcony and drew his spyglass again. It took some adjusting, as always, as this spyglass had been designed for astrology, but Gaspard managed to get a clear enough view of the city center.

The main thoroughfare leading the palace seemed surprisingly clear. There were mounds of corpses lining the left side of the street, but those were simply remnants of the Lunar Festival. Gaspard kept watch for some time but saw no abominations prowling the streets, no strange figures lurking in the shadows. The road was clear.

Too clear. Something was wrong.

Gaspard found a seat and watched. Long enough that his arm, and his eye, grew sore, and Gaspard had to switch the spyglass to his other side, gingerly holding the telescope in his wounded arm. His persistence paid off in the end.

The corpses being aligned only on the left side of the road had seemed too neat for good reason. There were no corpses at all. As one, the rotting limbs suddenly found movement, groping out with gangrenous extremities to find the ground and push against it. On a hundred limbs, a serpent of rot found its footing and shambled forward, moving along the street.

Gaspard folded his spyglass and moved on. Such a creature was a problem for another time. He left the three bodies he had found where they lay, as he left all such corpses. The dignity of the dead nagged at the back of his mind, but it was an instinct easily suppressed. In a time of such monstrosities, to be a simple corpse had a dignity all its own.