Slowly wending a line toward Londinium, weary soldiers press onward in bright sunlight, their boots weighed down with dried mud and caked blood. Sweat drips from foreheads and seeps through the thick cloth of military jackets, but they don’t stop. The first wave to hit the White Ladies is vanquished thanks to the strange visitors […]
Read more "Umwelt: Darkness Flows Like A River Episode 29: Meridians"Stuttering gunfire raddles the sea air and whips into the waves, throwing up red frosted fans of black water. The deep boom and thud of cannon fire resounds through the melee as a bass note, thrumming in the chest, the bones. The Mengel warships plough the waters swift and deadly as shark fins, aiming for […]
Read more "Umwelt: Darkness Flows Like A River Episode 25: Deep Rising"Raised voices and the pound of feet upon the hill resound through the quiet forest. A rotten galaxy of hungry red eyes gleam in the sea of darkness residing within the close-clustered thrust of arrogant pine. Black serpentine limbs crawl hypnotic dances, needled teeth bare and slather and the hungered moan of five thousand starved […]
Read more "Umwelt: Darkness Flows Like A River Episode 24: Bad Company"The sound of guns in the distance is like the ruffian cadence of heavy rain on a tin roof. Black smoke trails in funereal banners through the clouds as, somewhere out there beyond the walls of Londinium, along the embattled coastline, ships burn in the cool of early morning. In response to the distant clatter […]
Read more "Umwelt: Darkness Flows Like A River Episode 21: Guns In The Distance"Londinium’s face is broad and multi-faceted. Hewn from pale yellow stone, gleaming white marbles, and the grey hulk of granites, it is noble and degenerate, a harlot, a king, a priest, a charlatan. A harbourer of rats and angels alike. It hides secrets well, this stone narcissist, and separates wheat from chaff with aloof disdain. […]
Read more "Umwelt: Darkness Flows Like A River Episode 19: Freak Show"Lit in solemn shadow a candle sputters, sends menacing shapes across the walls. Sat in the centre of a round table it awaits company. Strange company. Then, from the back of the tavern, a lithe, thin fellow, all angles and spikes, sneaks through the shadows toward the table. The straw-thin man settles into the left-hand […]
Read more "Umwelt: Darkness Flows Like A River Episode 15: Strange Company"At first glance it appears to be no more than shadow, until the watcher realises that the sun falls direct onto that corner. Where there is shadow there should be blinding light. What then is that strange conformation of darkness? The watcher leans closer, peers into the bars. A low hiss, as of steam escaping […]
Read more "Umwelt: Darkness Flows Like A River Episode 13: The Hunger of the Lost"Amidst an entourage of sharp-eyed rooks, Vespesian perches atop the Cathedral, stares out across the stone and steel patchwork of the city. In the thin light of morning Volitares swoop across cloudless heavens like swans, their weighty grace almost incongruous. The distant chug and puff of their engines calls up the dawn as if it […]
Read more "Umwelt: Darkness Flows Like A River Episode 11: The Hand That Feeds"The atmosphere in the boxing parlour is taut as a whip, fit to crack. Alexander stands in the ring, fists poised, knuckles bruised and bloody. His chest heaves, bare of shirt and spattered with blood from his opponent’s flattened nose. He rubs his forehead across his forearm, never removing his gaze from his adversary; who […]
Read more "Umwelt: Darkness Flows Like A River Episode 10: Parasols At Dawn"‘Come one, come all!’ The distant cry reverberates across the muddied grass as a straggling crowd moves toward the mouldering yellow and green stripes of the big top at the centre of the park. ‘Come to the Preternatural Circus. Such delights, such horrors, await your disbelieving eyes. Be charmed and terrified, astounded and repulsed, amazed […]
Read more "Umwelt: Darkness Flows Like A River Episode 9: Silk-Dressed Savages"
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