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This story contains references to mass atrocities.edited by Amanda Helms
Dourglamis. The largest castle I’d seen in the flesh. Barreling towards me, it was also clearly the fastest. Great granite legs churned beneath its paving stone belly, crushing everything in its path like a memory of elephants on parade.
A parade I could have avoided.
Feral might’ve been the word for me. Wild. It’d been a time since I’d come upon a castle roving the plains. I’d wanted nothing to do with walls when the last castle I’d stowed aboard was cannibalized. At first. I’d since learned some walls were necessary, if one is to eat on the regular. But I’d still never made my peace with them.
And never would.
But, I made my choice. The only choice I had.
Drawing my grapple-shot, I headed for higher ground. Sand weighed down my hole-ridden boots as I climbed the highest dune, thighs burning like the second sun. I’d only have one shot.
I aimed, fired, the kachung of the chain rippling through the grapple-shot, the chunk of the blades buzzing through my wrist as they penetrated the granite of Dourglamis’ outer hide. A pinprick, to a castle that size. Pushing down the reel on my baldric, I held on, the chain rattling as I ripped off towards Dourglamis at speed.
The old castle came up to meet me like an angry face as I searched for an entry point. Must have watchers on the walls, I thought. Archers and the like. But as I hit the wall—harder than was graceful—and mustered my way up the nearest crenellation, I noticed not a soldier. Not a soul. The ramparts lay empty as the dusty plain beneath the castles’ feet. Remembering a bit of recent rumor, I relaxed.
Souls weren’t needed to guard Dourglamis. Not anymore.
A window seemed the logical entry point, but I couldn’t harness the courage to test them. A malevolence there. Angry, soulless eyes. Watching. I moved to the garden I’d noticed on my way up.
Immaculate eaves greeted me as I descended; the lawn, freshly trimmed, hid the sound of my footfalls. Nothing out of place. If a soul still lived here, it was not its time to rise. Dourglamis would decide the hour.
Ripe pears lingered on the branches of the trees; snap peas trellised delicately along the walls; beautiful melons of strange origin lay row upon row. Half the morning I spent savaging that garden, reflexively glancing over my shoulder for angry servants who never came. The melons’ juice had a familiar, metallic tang that I didn’t recall until later. Until it was too late to do anything about it.
When I was full, I dozed.
When I woke, I was inside.
***
A bed soft as sin, many layers of blankets binding me like a patient of the wards. I rose from fear more than anything, not remembering where I was, still less remembering how I’d gotten there.
I was naked, and somehow freshly bathed as I had not been since I was a young boy. My beard had been trimmed. Someone—or something—had laid a doublet and stockings on the small dresser next to the bed.
Sneaking down the stone stairs, my mouth began to water. I smelt breakfast. The kind I’d never been privy to but always longed for: eggs, fried bread, tomatoes fresh from the vine.
The king of Dourglamis sat at the head of the table, a full banquet before him.
“Be not wary,” he said.
A better sentence to make one wary, I couldn’t imagine. He noted my reluctance.
“You’d be dead if Dourglamis wished it, traveler,” he said. “Have some breakfast.”
The king’s wisdom prevailed. I was into my second plate when he addressed me again.
“What brings you here?”
I waited a moment, swallowed.
“Wages, milord. Roof over m’head.”
He shook his head.
“Base motives. We’ve little need of peasantry now. Dourglamis provides all, now that true sentience has been achieved. Why Dourglamis in particular?”
“Nothing particular about it. Smaller manors have all been eaten by the bigger ones like Dourglamis, milord.”
Deep rumbles shook the stone halls, the glasses, the cutlery, grim acknowledgement that this castle was alive as we were.
And still hungry, apparently.
The king waved his hand.
“Plenty of smaller operations out there,” he asserted. “Surely Dourglamis can’t have eaten them all?”
“He can. He has. If it weren’t for spotting him, I’d be dead of exposure.”
He had the gall to look disturbed.
“The larger independents, Pinehurst, Tambelin…”
I shook my head, poured another ale.
“Swallowed up last summer by Tanner. Was on Pinehurst as a stowaway when it happened. Took less than an hour. Tanner’s two hundred thousand square now, quick, too, and probably just as empty as this place. Tambelin, she was swallowed whole. Some say it was Gwihocken.” I looked up at the glowing green tesserae of the mosaic, verdant sunlight glittering down upon our breakfast. “Some say it was this place.”
The King sighed. “A castle has needs. Expansion is their dream. They hunger, you know. More towers. More staircases. I tried to convince Dourglamis that Tambelin wasn’t to be touched, but…”
“Couldn’t stop it.”
He swirled his glass sadly. “A castle needs to feed, after all. If they’re not eating, they aren’t growing. Dourglamis had every right—”
“’Tain’t about right, milord. Truth is, they can’t be controlled now. They rumble along as they will. You pretend some level of control, but you know as well as I. Castles decide things now. Not kings.”
“Have done!” He slammed his glass down. The sound reverberated off the stone walls, a low grumble the only response from the castle that made the king flinch.
“You have a solution, then?” he asked me.
I shrugged.
“None. Only a question, milord. Say Dourglamis is it. The last. All others end in his belly. When the last can swallow no more of their kin, where will they turn for their supper?”
A great rumble from the rafters cut off the King’s reply.
“You see,” I said. “Dourglamis knows. He’s hoping you don’t.”
“A castle without a king? Impossible.”
“He does without everyone else! Haven’t you yet wondered where the rest of us peasants went? Think it’s only brick and mortar that grows the fruit around here?”
I broke open a pear, felt the warm blood trickle through my fingers before I tossed it across the table. The King held it, entranced.
“What am I to do?” he whispered.
I bared my teeth, took another bite of my bloody breakfast.
“Drink the blood. Eat the flesh. As you’ve always done,” I said between swallows. I was beginning to get used to the taste. “Just save some for me. I’m through starving.”
© 2026 by Derek Wagner
1114 words
Derek Wagner is an author of speculative fiction, horror, and fantasy. He was born and raised in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, located in Chief Drygeese Territory, the traditional land of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. He is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop, a member of Codex, and his fiction has appeared in Factor Four Magazine, Neon Dystopia, and The Kindread Coast, a horror anthology released through Black Cat Books. He loves to read, lose at online poker, lose at basketball to his son, and eat ice cream while he licks his own wounds. He can be found online on Bluesky @dmwagner.bsky.social and Twitter (X?) @DMWagner6, and in his house, watching old sports highlights on YouTube as he slips further and further into an early senility.
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