The blare of the horn rang throughout the city. The acoustics of the palace were designed to carry sound far and wide, spreading royal proclamations across the massive courtyard, but now it carried the rallying call of Gaspard’s horn. He threw the scavenged instrument aside and moved into position. The noise was already beginning to attract attention. He could hear the horde scrambling to answer his call.

His plan was threadbare at best, thrown together from what scraps he had gleaned of the beasts nature, yet Gaspard felt no doubt in his heart. He had managed to sneak past the guard, infiltrate the palace, and find the perfect position from which to deliver his coup de grace. Everything was falling into place. Gaspard could not stop now, nor would he. Only death would dissuade him now.

Gaspard found his way to the balcony which overlooked the throne room. A roiling horde of reddened flesh and protruding bone had overwhelmed the central chamber of the palace. Some were still in the shape and size of men, while some were towering and misshapen, but all were equally loathsome. The king, the pale, gaunt creature wearing a cloak of flesh, towered over them all, roaring with displeasure as he tried to cut his way through the crowd.

“Leave,” the king growled. “Obey me! Leave!”

The king now demanded the obedience it had known in life. Even now it still wanted loyalty from those it deemed its lessers. Only the guard paid any heed to its words, trying to force intruders out of the throne room. Some of the creatures nipped at him or encircled the armored guard to try and deliver a flanking strike, but none attacked just yet. Gaspard ended any disputes by delivering a hoarse cry. All bloodshot eyes turned to Gaspard.

“Intruder,” the king rumbled.

“Liar!” Gaspard shouted back.

He leaned forward, clenching his fingers so tight against the balcony rail he feared he might crack the stone. Gaspard managed to pry one shaking hand loose to point accusingly at the king.

“This king, this monster, and all of his conspirators, told us that the Mad Moon came without warning, that they had discovered it mere hours before giving word to the city. They told us we had only a few weeks to make peace with our lives before the moon came to claim us.”

There was a roiling tension in the crowd of beasts below. Gaspard knew that some of them were too far gone to make any sense of his words. He only needed a few. Even the most threadbare mind could still understand vengeance.

“And they lied,” Gaspard shouted to the horde. “They knew! They knew months ago! They knew the Mad Moon was coming and they hid the truth from us all!”

Perhaps it was mere coincidence, but a low rumble spread through the crowd of monstrosity’s. The king remained silent, his pale, sunken eyes staring up at Gaspard.

“They knew for months, and did nothing! They knew our doom was coming, and they let us toil in ignorance so they could grow fat off of our labors, spend the wealth of our taxes. Then when their ruse reached its end and others discovered the Moon, they threw us their scraps and called it a Carnival. That king called called it generosity as he spent hoarded wealth he stole from us!”

The king found himself the center of attention in the room. Those few beasts that still had some scraps of their past minds were staring at him with hunger in their eyes. The mindless beasts could merely smell the tension and the rage hanging thick in the air, their bloodlust drawn to inevitable violence. Of every blooddthristy beast and vengeful monstrosity in the throne room, none had a glare of pure, unbridled malice that could even hope to rival the hatred in Gaspard’s eyes.

“You lied to us,” Gaspard hissed.

The king drew his cloak of flesh close about him, drawing the bodies of others closer to hide his own withered frame. He looked at the gathered, hungering monstrosities, and kept his head high.

“I command,” it rumbled. “Obey.”

The low, rumbling growls of the beasts fell silent. The guard had made its way to the side of his king. Eyes hidden behind the metal walls of its helmet, the armored guard stood tall and strong, brandishing its sword as the hungering masses closed in.

Then the corroded blade turned, and the guard sunk it deep into the chest of the king.

The single drop of blood sparked an orgy of gore and viscera the likes of which Gaspard had never seen. Every bit of tension among the horde sparked at once, fang and claw and blades bared in a shower of torn flesh and spraying blood. Howls of rage and pain and hunger rang out in every direction. Though widespread, the violence was not wholly indiscriminate. Reaching claws and hungering fangs tore with purpose, all driving towards the center of the bloody orgy -towards the king. Every hungry beast desired recompense for cruelty, and they took their pound of flesh, in the most literal sense.

A long tendril snatched the crown from the king’s head. Razor-sharp claws tore away the cloak of flesh that disguised his frail frame. Blackened teeth dug into his throat and tore bloody streams of gore from his veins. The king howled and flailed and gave orders that were ignored by the bloodthirsty mob, until his withered, panicked frame vanished within the mass of flesh and bone. Gaspard watched the last vestige of the king’s pale body swallowed by the horde, and felt a due sense of grim satisfaction.

With the king consumed, Gaspard turned his back on the bloody display. He left the halls of the king, lighting a torch as he went, and dragged it along the tattered tapestries, held it to the shattered furniture, tapped it against every doorframe he found. Then he went to the exterior of the palace, found the tinder bombs he had lobbed against the palace walls, and ignited them as well.

The fire rose as night fell. Gaspard wound his way through the city streets until he could no longer feel the heat of the flames burning his face. He doused his torch, sheathed his blade, and stood back to watch the palace burn. The crackling flames could not quite muffle the screams of the beastly horde within, too consumed by their bloodlust to bother escaping the flames. A palace tower crumbled, no doubt crushing dozens of monsters as it fell, and sent a shower of sparks surging high into the sky.

Gaspard watch the embers fly skywards and flicker out one by one, like fireflies soaring into the night.

The dim light of the distant inferno barely illuminated Gaspard’s smile.