MicroHorror

Lorkan’s battleaxe rose and fell, the blood of his foes spurting into the air beneath a crimson sky. The bodies of his knights lay scattered across the battlefield–heaps of bleeding torsos, split armor, and severed limbs. His legion was down to a hundred or so stout men and dwindling fast.

The barbarian hordes had staged a clever ambush, hiding themselves in the deep grass, and the knights had been overrun from all sides. It was a slaughter.

This field was not where Lorkan wanted to die. The air reeked of dark magic, emanating from a smoldering pit at the center of the clearing. The barbarians had sprung a wicked trap, and more than sixty men had fallen into a pit of spikes and hot coals. Their screams had filled the air. One of the victims had been the great sorcerer Altoth, a vengeful man whom Lorkan had never liked.

Now, as he drove his axe down and cleaved a barbarian’s skull, Lorkan could sense the malice laced into the dark energy rising from the pit. He suspected it was the work of Altoth, some foul spell released upon his death in order to avenge him.

An arrow glanced off Lorkan’s armor. Another one glanced off his helm. Lorkan wiped sweat from his eyes so he could glimpse his attacker. An archer was slowly advancing toward him, taking aim at his partially exposed throat. Lorkan hurled his battle axe and it lodged in the archer’s chest. The archer slumped to the grass.

Lorkan stooped and lifted a fallen war hammer, rising just in time to deflect a spear thrust. “Fall back!” he cried to his remaining men–as he’d been doing periodically during the slaughter. But they were too busy trying to save themselves to listen.

Bloodcurdling screams split the air and Lorkan wheeled about. Something was rising from the pit of death–a mass of bloody and burned corpses fused together. The corpses were wailing in phantom voices, some in agony and some in rage. Slimy tendrils shot out like worms and seized other corpses, dragging them into the growing mound and feeding it.

A monstrosity was swelling on the battlefield, a mix of the dead and the living, a shuddering mass of dark sorcery, hatred, and suffering. Atop it was the head of Altoth the sorcerer, bloated to the size of a boulder, black blood dripping from his fattened lips. His eyes were fixed on Lorkan.

Lorkan seized his axe and wrenched it free of the archer’s chest. Using all the strength in his massive body, he hurled the weapon at Altoth’s head. The axe stuck in Altoth’s forehead. A dastardly moan escaped the sorcerer’s gaping mouth.

Then Altoth smiled and shook the axe free of his cranium. The entire mound–now the size of house–shifted and began moving toward Lorkan at a speed he couldn’t hope to escape. Lorkan took off his helm so his enemy could see his face, and he lifted the war hammer. He’d been a proud knight who’d survived more than a hundred battles, and he intended to die on his feet.

Lorkan wanted to cry out at the sorcerer, “I’ll see you in hell!” But that would have been pointless. Hell was coming to see him.