The Wells of Hell

With the Black Death at his heels, it took the abominable King Vil of the Desert Wastes just one year to take the rain-soaked Castle of Wells.

His incessant sand-worn canons and long iron muskets blasted the fastness till it literally burst open like a bubo.

He slaughtered the people therein, taking great pleasure in their tortuous pain. 

The men were first boiled alive and then gutted like fish and the women went to the witchburner for his fiery blessings.

The children were spit roasted and eaten by the battle-weary troops in the courtyard.

Vil stood resolute on the high balcony and hailed his warriors heroes.

We can drink again my noble men for now we have water to quench us. More water than all the blood in the world and we shall drink and spill it all, for I, King Vil, have challenged the Reaper and triumphed! Black Death be damned, I declare the Devil and his princes my lap-dogs!

Vil's men stopped eating. Their revels were paused by the danger of Vil's boasting and an uneasy mood settled over the garrison as they billeted for the night.

No one ought blaspheme the Beast. Not even King Vil.

And so it was that the victors stayed and settled into a life of spoils, downing the wine in the cellars till they collapsed and exhausting the vats of rainwater fed from the mouths of the knowing gargoyles high above.

There is no more rainwater Sire!

Then we must enter the wells Captain! Send your laziest two men down the hole and we shall see what comes back from the Castle's own sea.

With the two parties readied, Vil watched eagerly from his high ledge as the twitching pair were lowered in a massive pale down into the darkness far below.

Whoever brings me water first shall dine with me this evening! The second will be our dinner!

The descending soldiers hurried and before long even the light from the candles they carried was assailed by the blackness of the holes as they fell ever deeper into the frigid bowels of the earth.

Eventually the rope stopped dead and naught was heard for several hours save a distant yell or two, but these were discerned to be full-bellied wolves in the faraway hills.

A pull on the tether signalled the troops at the heads to wind.

Up, up, up came the two and the full pale was dragged sloshing over the sides with no sign of the pair.

Plenty of water but no men Sire!

I can see a shadow deep within the pale!

The captain reached in and pulled up the head and body of one of the well men. The figure flopped over the side and stood nervously staring at the King above.

The man was nothing but his pink musculature. His whole skin had been roughly removed and was held in his hand like a coat. He shivered and wailed.

He wants our skins. You can have your water King but he wants our skins in return!

Who wants our skins boy? Who?

The keeper of the water.

And who is that for God's sake?

He who guards the wells location.

Which is where?

Hell! These are the wells of Hell itself!

What! Codswallop and foolery! You're wasting my time boy. Hell is here now with me. Salt him and his mate for the roast this night.

Both flayed men were rolled in trays of salt. They screamed as the grains burned their exposed tissues. Their loose skins were brined too and grilled making a fine crackling for the King to start with. 

After eating both cooked men, the scraps and bones shared out among the billet, the King wiped his lips and held out a huge flaggon.

Bring me some well water!

He drank till the clear liquid poured down his huge paunch and he slammed his empty vessel down, before drinking the pail dry.

Delicious! Truly! We must fetch more! Captain! Send down as many men as it takes to drain this glorious well.

And thus a single file of countless troops was formed at the rim ready for the royal command.

Descend! Fetch me my water! Fill the vats!

The hours went by and the vat levels steadily rose, as did the number of skinless men shambling out of the buckets, this time their skins nowhere to be seen. A thousand were sent to their doom and returned screaming.

Each beleaguered naked soul was cruelly guided towards the salt trays and once fully cured they were stored upright in the the cool dungeon for the King's larder. The moans of agony could be heard throughout the castle.

King Vil dropped one of them into the hole to listen for water.

We've not scratched the surface of these sinks. I want it all! I want all the water out! 

Inexorably the soldiers remaining dwindled to but one, the King's Captain and the King himself. 

Lower me Captain and stand guard for my safe return. I command you!

Before he could turn the handle the entire larder of salted men ran past in droves screaming and leapt head first into the sable infinity of the well, their yells and wails filling the cylinder like dying wolves.

To hell with them Captain, lower me!

Vil was bucketed into the pit and at length, after many countless fathoms, he bottomed out and waded from the pail into a wide red coagulating ocean. It lay like an open wound in a seemingly infinite chasm of flesh, where legions of tumbling bodies fell from a million well shafts blistering its fetid ceiling high above.

Vil was fascinated by this vision of Gehenna.

After a few minutes gawping the monarch stood before a figure, which had arrived from nowhere, its back to him.

It turned.

The Captain!

But, how did you get down the well?

I flew Sire.

Flew?

Yes. With my wings!

Wings?

Yes, these!

The Captain spread out a pair of glistening scabbed things with what were clearly human faces set within it's leathen breadths.

We needed the skin you see Sire.

We?

Yes, myself and my true King!

What! I am the King! No devil shall nay say.

No, Sire, the true King is the keeper of the wells.

And who is that?

Tis Asteroth, the Arch Prince of Hell, the Great Duke of Tarturus, and the Right Hand of the Lord of Plagues.

.... And he needs your skin to finish.

Finish what?

His body of course. His new body! It's time for him to rise again and join Satan on the surface.

At this the demonic Captain smiled with long shark's teeth and approached the old man who was now stood trembling in the pool.

The creature drooled as he stared into the King's terrified face and all at once the demon grasped Vil's hair and wrenched his entire dermis from his body in one grotesque flourish. It hung in the dark Captain's hand like a damp red coat. 

Excellent! Asteroth will be pleased!

The demon Captain flew with it into the vast cavern of meat, a place so black it was as if night itself was trapped inside.

The agonized Vil twitched and convulsed in his nakedness.

Give me .. give me my skin back you coward!

With titanic will the flayed King staggered through the crimson slick until he reached what appeared to be a hill erupting from it.

He looked closer.

The hill was writhing.

It was his men, who had jumped into the well. They had formed a giant heap of muscle and tendons, spasming in the desolate bay of blood.

Vil climbed and climbed, his hands and feet clutching his skinless countrymen as he reached the wet peak, his chest heaving and his tissues tearing apart.

He groaned in pain but scaled the top and stood naked, battered and trembling in front of the eternal blackness of Hell itself.

I ... I want my skin!

But, You're in it Sire!

The demon he once knew as his Captain, now hovering behind him, shouted and urged him on.

In it?

Yes, you've stepped into the great vast mouth of Prince Asteroth himself with his newly-lined palette, lined with your copious covering, for which he will be eternally grateful.

Vil stared hard and gradually discerned enormous teeth behind him and a gargantuan puss-filled throat in front, opening and closing, enticing him in.

Suddenly the Arch Demon's tongue flicked slightly upwards and King Vil slid down the the loathsome gullet of his own damnation, being slowly digested till the end of days, joined every other second by one of his salted men without skins who pushed the dissolving King deeper and deeper into Hell and the blackest of all deaths.