Sentinel

The evil sentinel squatted on a pillar above the castle gate. Blood, viscera and phlegm draped down his dark reptile skin. His towering wings lightly opened and then closed as he lifted to survey the scene. No amount of darkness could protect the approaching army from his awful gaze. With nobody summoning him, with nobody commanding him, the sentinel swooped down upon the invading throng, slaughtering them one by one. Silence, the cracking of spines and the wet sound of organs against rock. The night proceeded infinitely. The desolate army continued to approach. The sentinel maintained his bloody watch. The townspeople lay down upon the streets sobbing and reaching for the softness of one another. They dared not look up. They dared not see the shadow in the sky or acknowledge the awful fluids that rained down upon them. They dared not call the sentinel their own.