the seventh seal

The spectre of death looms the more ominously the more his scythe fells with each stroke. The crusades have proved their futility ~ bankrupt of "honor" or divine support they are exposed a mere exercise in the erosion of conscience through the casual spilling of blood. Having found the Holy Land devoid of holiness, an errant knight staves off Death in the desperate hope that God will show his face. The plague ravages the land inspiring armies of flagellants to embark on vain pilgrimage. Blanket accusations, sincere contrition, and laborsome petitions to an indifferent God are ever on their lips. The sins of futile war are revisited even upon the homeland, and the knight's hubris drags the innocent with him into the pit, where the soft voice of God is never heard and the lamentations of the void echo upon deaf ears.