Book prologue draft one

Hey everyone out there; this is my first post on this blog and I have to say, I'm really nervous. I started this page because I wanted a place where I could write short stories without any pressure to be an amazing author. I love fantasy and myths and so I also wanted a place where I could share some of my favorite discoveries about fantastical creatures and maybe get some input on what I could write about in my stories.

The story below is about a girl who is unknowingly rescued from being sacrificed to a dark god known as Golgoloth. He is a god worshiped by a people known as the tribe of Gaulith, who live on a remote planet, similar to that of Earth's moon. These people have the power to open up portals and access the darkest parts of the universe in order to summon their gods, and in turn, have those gods summon forth some of the darkest creatures to do their bidding. In the story the girl is being given as an offering to summon Golgoloth and gain his blessing and also to wage war on another deity known as the Mother Phoenix who, in this story, is the Mother of all the universe and who is charged with protecting the world against the darkness that threatens to destroy the universe as we know it.

This is only a rough draft and the beginning of the story, not the whole thing but there is another version of it that I may post later depending on what people think of this one. So go ahead and have a look and I hope you enjoy it and please don't hesitate to tell me what you think.

The woman lay on the altar, her hair spread out around her like a raven's wing. The scent of incense and the sweat of the bodies of the manic priests who surrounded her was suffocating. Through the mind-numbing fog of fear and mandrake wine, the woman struggled to remember the vision she had had before she'd been taken to the Gathering of Golgoloth. A ceremony performed by the renowned priests of the god Golgoloth, god of war and wisdom meant to garner his favor and ensure that the planet's life force was not suddenly turned against them.

It was a common belief among the people of the Gaulith tribe, on the small moon of Gailith,  that if you offered up the blood of a young magi woman on the Darkest Night of Samelhiene, when his army of Shades was released from their black prison looking for blood, he would spare the people and bless them with bountiful harvests for the coming year and continued peace among the tribe.

The chanting of the priests became louder as they continued to invoke the prayers of Golgoloth, the Head Priest raised his knife and the woman closed her eyes against the horror of the dark. She felt the red hot pain of the knife entering her chest, the world turned red and then she was plunged into a cold viscous blackness and she knew no more.

Outside the temple, revelers continued to plead with the war god, erecting a large altar in the middle of the temple courtyard. Wearing robes and white masks to cover their faces, the worshipers of Golgoloth, carry lanterns walk clockwise around the altar chanting prayers to the steady solemn beat of drums.

Suddenly a loud horn is heard from atop the steps of the temple and all the onlookers gather together to watch as the priests emerge with  the woman’s heart in a black lacquered box and her body covered in a silken shroud. The crowd watches silently as the priests solemnly ascend the steps of the temple and arrange themselves in front of the altar presided over by the large polished black marble statue of Golgoloth and then the High Priest addresses them: “worthy children of the Gaulith; tonight we honor the tradition and benevolence of our god and protector Golgoloth by offering him the blood of this young magi and rid our world of her defiled spirit and appease the Shades of Samelhiene, that we might absorb her life force and use it to access the divine powers and blessings of Golgoloth and bless our harvests and further strengthen  our people so that we might overcome and put down the Children of the Phoenix and their twisted powers and avenge those who were lost to us in the God’s War and give to our Great Warrior and Protector the gift of the Phoenix Heart and the key to controlling all the Outer Void and bring order out of the chaos the witches and heretics have caused!” The crowd cheered and the priest looked on with a sober expression while other temple servants built up a pyre and laid out the sacrifice at the foot of the shrine. When everything was in place, the priest raised his hands and people quieted and two soldiers stepped forward and  stood at the head and foot of the shrouded corpse with torches in one hand and ornate bowls in the other.

The priest turned to the crowd and said “now we must partake of the flesh and blood of this wayward soul and sate the appetites of the Shades of Samelhiene and ensure a bountiful harvest this year!” The crowd reverently fell to its knees and grew silent as the priests and temple acolytes began chanting and dancing to the beat of a great drum and the ringing of bells. The noise picked up into a frenzy as the guards that stood at both ends of the pyre, set it alight and the flames began to consume the wood reducing it to a bed of coals and ashes.

The smell of wood smoke and burning flesh permeated the air as the people continued dancing and chanting, as the reveling seemed to reach a crescendo, a massive fork of black colored  lightning slammed into the shrine and exploded leaving behind an open pit swirling with viscous purplish black clouds full of shrieking spirits of the Shades of Samelhiene. The depraved demon souls arose out of the depths of the Abyss and began to consume the flames and the spiritual essence of the young woman until all that remained of the sacrifice was a black scorch mark. It was then that the priests opened the lacquered box containing her heart and cut it into pieces, gave each of the acolytes a piece and crushed it into a cup that was then filled with blood drawn from the Abyss by the Shades and infused with their power and drunk by the high priests, who were imbued with the ability to infuse the planet's core with power and fertility and control its life force in order to have access to the Outer Void and eventually control the demons and other beings that dwelt there.
Soon after this was done, the priests removed small vials of their own blood and poured them into the open maw of the pit while ordinary citizens and worshipers cut their wrists and sprinkled the blood into a basin that was set out in place of the offering. Once full, the contents of the basin were offered to the Shades and consumed and, with another almighty crash of hellish lightning, the portal closed itself and in its place was a large, perfectly round, polished  stone about the size of a soccer ball, that writhed with a seething black mass of nebulous cloud.Hovering above the stone, was a strange being with the head and face of a bull, the body and legs of a man-his chest, abdomen, and legs were that of a human man, as well as his arms, however, his massive hands each sported a set of deadly black claws. His feet were cloven like those of a goat and he had a pair of lethal looking horns spiraling out of each side of his head; his eyes were two black obsidian pits tinged with red. He was dressed for battle in a leather skirt plated with strips of steel, his chest was bare but across his back, he carried an impressive sword the length of at least two grown men's arms and in his right hand was a heavy looking battle axe. In his left hand, he held a spear, at least twelve feet tall as thick as a tree trunk. Raising his spear to the sky, he let out a wordless bellowing war cry and smote the butt of his spear against the stone as if to break it, but instead of shattering, the stone burst into a white hot flame and rose up from the base of the shrine while underneath it, there came out of the ground a profusion of rope like formations that twisted together like the thick roots of an old tree forming a pedestal and  hardened into an iridescent greenish black stone where the powerful Shadestone now sat. From all around them came a voice like a rumbling thunder that simply said: Go! Avenge my children!” With those final words a mighty pillar of fire came up from the Abyss and carried the being away. The god had given them his blessing; it was time to prepare for war.