This is one of my stories from Suppose: Drabbles, Flash Fiction, and Short Stories.

In a bygone century, Marino Payo is imprisoned in an inescapable fortress protected by ghosts. At least, that’s what the legends claim. But Marino doesn’t believe in ghosts or inescapable fortresses.

He intends to prove the legends wrong.

—

Sparks flashed in the night. Prisoners outnumbered the guards, who were still foggy from sleep.

Iron on flesh. Iron on bone. Iron on stone.

Shouts bellowed above the sounds of battle.

“Unhand me thou son of a sow.”

“Thy head is mine.”

“Thy mother was a —”

“Thou cur!”

“Escape is impossible.”

“Nay. We have a way.”

“The exit is barred.”

“But we have the keys.”

Soon the last moan faded into the silence of death. The prisoners were free. Free to steal the gold. Free to unbar the exit. Free to flee from the dreaded prison dubbed The Donjon of Bones.

Their leader, Marino Payo, had been sentenced to life for stealing the jewels of a wealthy woman who rejected him.

Now, for the rest of his days, he was doomed to waste away in a fortress on a remote island. An inescapable fortress with a cache of pirate’s gold protected by ghosts who rode fierce dragons. Ghosts with fangs as long as their fingers. Fangs that dripped the blood of their victims over the backs of their dragons. Blood that flowed through the air, a shower of red, as the ghosts soared across the night sky.

Or so the legends said.

Marino didn’t believe in such preposterous superstitions, and he did not wish to spend the rest of his years without fine wine and women, in this abominable pit of filth.

Gold stitched into his breeches had bribed a guard’s silence and purchased a map with the escape route. Verily, the thunder of gold vanquished the whispers of ghosts.

Three months of inciting cellmates, conspiring, waiting.

Until tonight.

Marino guided the bedraggled band of convicts through torch-lit passages. Bats flapped and squeaked from hidden crevices. The stench of their dung mingled with the stink of mold and decomposing rats. The men swiped at spider webs and chanted as they marched:

To the gold, thou slaves,
Thy fortune to follow!
To the gold, thou knaves,
Thy riches to stow.

After they filled their sacks with as much treasure as they could carry, Marino led them toward the only egress from the island.

The footbridge across the ravine swayed in the salty breeze blowing off the ocean: a breeze promising freedom, fair tides, and fine maidens.

They peered back at the fortress that had been their dungeon for so long. Silhouetted against the sky, it was indeed a sinister sight to behold.

Pointed spires. Unyielding stone. A lone watchtower piercing the stars.

But no ghosts. No dragons.

Marino shouldered his sack. “I suppose that’s it, then. We should forge onward without delay. Our fortunes and women await us.”

Lewd comments and laughter erupted. The men turned their attention to their crossing. With cautious steps, they crept across the bridge.

It shivered. It groaned beneath the weight. It collapsed.

Screams of terror and surprise echoed against the rocks as the prisoners plunged into the chasm below.

Gold on flesh. Gold on bone. Gold on stone.

The grotesque grins of the skulls in the gorge taunted the men’s dying cries. The convicts’ crumpled bodies reddened the white skeletons that had cushioned their fall. Every man relinquished his treasure and his life, joining the multitude of previous inmates who had attempted to escape: inmates now powerless to appreciate the delights of wine, women, and wealth.

Within the fortress, the guards reawakened to resume their posts. Injured flesh healed. Uniforms mended. Weapons repaired themselves.

The gold vanished from the gorge and rematerialized in the treasury.

A glowing sunrise of red, yellow, and orange peeked through the trees to illuminate a freshly formed footbridge.

And The Donjon of Bones waited for the next greedy fools who dared to doubt the legends.

—

You’ll find more short fiction like this in Suppose: Drabbles, Flash Fiction, and Short Stories.

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