Welcome back to my First Page Critique. Today we have Knights of Madness by Seán Hill.
This one is from a piece of flash fiction. Basically, it’s very short fiction – anywhere from 1-4 pages or so. Seán has a FAQ about Flash Fiction on his Twitter (now X) pinned tweet (or whatever they’re called now) at https://x.com/SeanCRHill/status/1815563879922946409
I myself am unfamiliar with the format, so you might want to take this critique with even a bigger grain of salt than usual.
The First Page
Black smoke hung in the air, its haze dimming the sun throughout the day, and at night turning the stars sickly. The countryside was ash and cinder, the embers smouldered but faintly, flashing briefly in strange patterns as bleak winds roared towards the battered edifice of the stained castle. Upon a single thin bridge did several baying warriors roll a battering ram, reinforced with crude iron bands and heaped cadavers. And around this, for several miles, did hordes of howling, chanting madmen rush and fall over each other trying to clamber up the sheer walls, the first ones slipping into the moat, a cesspool of whitened, bloated corpses, and the others dashing quickly across their drowning comrades’ backs.
No simple illness of the brain afflicted the warriors below. This was madness–twisted, perverted, screaming yellow madness, that each and every one of the crazed fools had willingly given themselves over to. One could almost see their hallucinations, skittering and gibbering incessantly at the edges of consciousness. Freakish altars, idols, and painted monoliths, before which wild blasphemies of blood and debasement were done daily, leered at the castle whose decayed stateliness was an affront to their warped desires.
Within the cracked stone and wooden supports, ragged-eyed soldiers in stained, patch-work armour stopped their ears with filthy linen strips to drown out the pounding battering ram. Some grasped frayed holy books and symbols, some stared into torches on the walls, some simply sharpened blades close to cracking. They could feel the wind creep across the ceiling, whispering things from outside. The words were trying to find a way in.
No shining army was rushing to their aid. The border had been lost a month ago. But this castle remained. They had never fled. They never could. It was either retreat into a wave of ten thousand maniacs, or defend what they were told was a beacon of reason and light in the dark of madness.
Worldbuilding
There’s a great deal of tone in this page. Death, despair, everything coming to an end. The countryside is burned for miles around. The world itself is reminiscent of medieval Europe, as much fantasy is. Aside from possibly the Madness itself, there doesn’t seem to be any magic, so may be fantasy, or might be an alternative history.
Characters
There are no characters, so no characterization. It’s not clear that there will be any.
Miscellaneous Notes
“…battering ram, reinforced with crude iron bands and heaped cadavers”
It seems from this sentence that the heaped cadavers are reinforcing the battering ram, and I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work. (Maybe something’s missing between those?)
That, plus the description of the corpses in the moat and the madmen piling over them give a very Walking Dead or maybe Orcs at Helms Deep kinda vibe.
One interesting note, it was mentioned that “…each and every one of the crazed fools had willingly given themselves over to [the madness].” I’d be interested in learning why that is. Maybe just out of despair? It sounds possible.
“…a single thin bridge…” is great imagery, showing just how small and lonely this castle is.
The mention of how the defenders “stopped their ears with filthy linen strips” because the “words were trying to find a way in” implies something supernatural about the spreading madness (well, that, and that it seems to be contagious and affecting almost every single person in the entire kingdom.) It also shows that these defenders have been dealing with this for awhile, and know what they’re doing.
The phrasing in the line about how the alternative was to “retreat into a wave of ten thousand maniacs” made me think of the band by that name, which kinda pulled me out of the story for a moment. It’s a minor quibble in an otherwise solid piece that does a good job of combining mood, setting, and background.
“…what they were told was a beacon…”
Questions
- A first page should make me want to read one. By raising several questions, this one does just that:
- Who are these battle-weary defenders, experienced, nearly despairing, but still fighting?
- What is the “Madness” – where did it come from, how is it so widespread?
- Why are they in the courtyard instead of up on the wall defending the gate against the battering ram?
- Why was this place supposed to be a “beacon of reason and light” and why isn’t it?
More
- If you want to see more of Seán Hill’s writing (including the conclusion to this one), you can find him:
- On his Substack: https://shadowsandsorcery.substack.com/
- On Twitter/X: https://x.com/SeanCRHill
To submit a page of your own to a future First Page Critique: https://pluther.us/submission-for-first-page-critique/
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