The Last Trumpet Sounds

The rain still fell from the heavens, and the sun was a dark crimson rose in the sky, a baleful eye rimmed with stormclouds the colour of blood. Rann's ship ploughed the crests of the waves, her sails swelling with the breadth of the winds, goading the hopes and the dreams and the faith of those survivors who were aboard her. The horizon was ever an unknown, heliotrope grey waters ever shifting beneath the cruel and brooding firmament above, laced with electricity.

"Bitch." Nade ground his fist into the cabin wall in a gesture of futile and impotent rage. "Whore." he hit the wood harder, bruising his knuckles.
"Poor Nade." laughed Yarl, sipping a little alcohol from his hip-flask. "Too pretty to pleasure a woman, you are."
If it had been in Nade's power to murder the cynical artisan there and then, he would have done. Fendrake intervened.
"You probably just spooked her. She sounds like a fickle one."
"What should I do?" requested the cinnabar haired youth plainitively. His pride could not be left broken thus. The Earl Fendrake shrugged.
"You could always rape her. Tie her arms, spread her legs and pump her full to the sound of her begging and screaming." he gave a husky sigh.
"My Earl!" exclaimed Yarl. "I thought you an honest and decent man! What would the boy's mother say?"
Fendrake ignored the obvious sarcasm of this comment. "I think you would know that better than me. You are the one who is fucking her, after all."
Yarl studied Nade's expression carefully, but the youth appeared unconcerned. "There's not many women who could have given birth to him and still kept a body like that." said Yarl. Much to Fendrake's surprise, Nade grinned.
"Thanks. I'd tell her you said that, but she doesn't like me associating with her lovers. She says it gives me bad habits."

Dana checked Tia's arms for bruises. "That boy should learn to stop thinking with his dick."
"He didn't hurt me." said Tia. Privately she was embarrased at this woman's hypocracy. "He just ran off."
"Probably you scared him. Serves him right for thinking with his dick." Pragmatically, Dana laced up Tia's top. "You need new clothes." she said. "Dark colours for you, I think. Reds and blues to bring out the sparkle in your eyes. I've never seen such pretty eyes as yours." Dana grinned, and Tia sd bad back. "Will you be all right here, while I go out again? The food is over there." Tia nodded and Dana hugged her affectionately before leaving once more. She ate her food, and climbed into the bunk, waiting for sleep.

They flew, side by side, Sahaqiel and Morael, their eyesight keen even in the perpetual twilight. A bright bolt of lightning hit the water that rolled far beneath them, and Morael broke their silence, the pearl that Ardarel had given him in a pouch at his hip.
"I am Ardarel's lover, Sahaqiel. Do you hate me for that?"
His friend shrugged between wing-beats. "I believe that which you have done is wrong , what has passed between you is wrong, the acts which you have committed are wrong, product only of your own carnal desire. But I do not hate you, no. I cannot hate you. You have been my friend too long."
For a long moment, Morael regarded him in silence. He considered that any other reply would have been preferable. Sometimes Sahaqiel could be colder and more remote than the ice which smothered the mountains, his aristocratic features as pale as such.
"For that I am thankful." he replied, and he kissed Sahaqiel's cheek in way of apology for testing their friendship. "I would not have you as my enemy for the sake of all creation."
"That is a foolish thing to say, my friend."
Morael sighed. "But it is true."
"If I was to become your enemy, and I had the opportunity of taking your life, even your foolish sacrifice of all of creation would not sway me to have mercy on you."
"You have no mercy, Sahaqiel."
"Let us not talk of such things."
Eastwards, a column of smoke rose from a mountainside, and the angels smelt the scent of Man, and they landed amongst them, giving voice to a wild and beautiful song. A killing song.
For, lo, they came to give judgement.
It was a small settlement, consisting of women and children, huddled in makeshift tents, and some of them screamed as the angels came, terrified at the reality of judgement. Some were more accepting, the pious, willing to die, and yet more were confused as to wether the angels were friends or foes. It did not matter. They were all to die that night.

A tiny silver necklace in the shape of an angel fell through the water in Tia's dream, and she caught it, only to find that it was the body of an unborn child, perversely alive, warm and twitching, covered in blood. She tried to scream, only to find that her mouth was gagged.

Captain Rann's dream, meanwhile, was far more real. There was the red-haired seamstress, naked and straddling him, and for some reason, she had one of her hands down his pants, moving it back and forth. Even fresh from the fog of sleep and alcohol, he soon realised the reason. She wanted to fuck him. There was some kind of reason why he wasn't supposed to fuck her, but he had quite conveniently forgotten it. Oh well. It was the end of the world, after all. This time he did not refuse her offer.
Dana smiled with pleasure. His body was everything that her estimation of it had promised it to be. He was lean, muscular, and incredibly handsome. Coaxed to his full length, he was bigger even than Yarl. Yarl would be jealous, she knew. Granted, the alcohol would take some of the edge from his experience, but she was willing to overlook that. As long as Yarl was jealous. Yarl was best when he was roused, not merely the courtesan's dry wit, but a furious, dangerous beast. With this in mind, she turned her attention to pleasuring Rann.