Thundering hooves unsettle the earth,

Birds rise, restlessly hovering

Above the awoken soil.

Thus it begins.

The horn resounds deep into distant lands.

Hounds feel the tremors through their paws,

Through their ears.

They have nothing to fear.

Beasts are sinless.

The unknowing human foolishly

Believes himself to be safe.

Folklore is forgotten.

Old tales are mocked.

Disbelief will not save you.

Crowded cities will not protect you. 

Through the rural belt the mist advances.

Harrowing cries pierce the nightly sky.

The earth trembles as they approach.

The old ways are forgotten and renounced,

Nothing can save you now.

They smell the sin in the breeze,

They smell the shame.

No done deed escapes their gaze.

The screams will make you shiver,

Hooves will shake the earth beneath your feet,

As you see them,

The Horsemen,

The Hunt,

Riders bringing reckoning.

Horsemen bringing horrors.

A wrath that purges the land

Of all humanity.

Tuur Verheyde is a twenty-two year old Belgian poet and student, currently completing a Master’s Degree in English, Literature and linguistics at the University of Ghent. Although Dutch is his first language, Tuur writes poetry exclusively in English.