There are echoes in the chambers of heroes long since past. Their bodies lay damned and rotten in the grave, yet their minds naturally walk the way of madness in the arms of Hastur in the afterlife of their most wretched and forgotten state. So it is that these former heroes rise from the dead to serve their evil Master, whereby they come to lay once again, fallen at the hands of one as mad as Hastur himself — The Green Knight.

Night rolled in over the town of Little Hovel, and a shroud of fog along with it. Townsfolk hurried inside, braced the doors and boarded the windows, for they knew the strange shapes amid the fog were cadavers brought to life.

THWACK!

A mother clutched her child within the closet of their family’s two-floor home.

THWACK! KA-CRACK! The sounds of an axe outside chopping wood, followed by the hollow, gurgling sounds of attempted speech with decomposing vocal chords.

“I’ll handle it,” the husband said, grabbing an axe warily, listening to the noise coming from below.

“Ben, are you crazy?! You’ll be butchered by a demon!” The wife whisper-shouted in quiet retort.

“I can at least draw him away, make him go some place else while you keep safe with Nacy here. It’s the least I can do for… For all you done for me, hon,” the man said shakily with tears in his eyes.

KRRRACK! Within moments, the house tilted suddenly, causing everyone inside to brace a wall and gasp. Quickly, Ben marched down the stairs and unlocked his back door, motioning for his wife to lock it behind him who pleaded with him every minute to stay. Yet, with a stern look in his eyes, he told his wife his last goodbyes, and bid her his love before closing the door within moments before she could grab his hand one final time. Beating on the door with her fist, she slid a hand over her mouth as she cried, locking the door and sliding to the floor in horror as her young child stood in her pajamas nearby.

The usual sound of splintering wood had paused, and instead heavy bootsteps could be heard moving slowly around the house from the front, as if they were aiming to make their way to the back door. It was then that the wife heard the sudden thud of a rock against her domicile which made her gasp, followed by the sound of her husband Ben’s voice:

“Hey, you slimy mutton-bag! You want some of this?” Ben held his hatchet high in the air, the same hatchet he had used to chop firewood and keep his family warm in winter.

Thud, thud, thud. The choked, strangled sounds of gutted speech grew ever closer until leering from the fog came the monster. Wearing a winged helm with a portly, stoic frame and dirt-stained maroon coloured locks of matted hair, wearing a moth-eaten checkerboard-patterned tunic of red and black while his powerful arms wielded two menacing silver battleaxes which appeared unusually pristine, Ben immediately recognized the figure. His confident smolder turned to a look of fear, remembering photos in the libraries, dining halls and political centers of Roderick Thunderbelly, the Fierce, who legendarily gutted a black dragon with no magic, but strength alone. Now his expired green skin revealed muscle beneath wet skin that had practically turned into a slimy mucus, and his eyes which had clearly been rotted away seemed hollow and haunting revealing the somewhat reddish colouration of the sockets beneath, housing nothing but peculiar and menacing yellow orbs of light where the former heroes eyes should be. And, seeing Ben stumble back, the undead Roderick once again began to stride forward with a smirk and a gurgling laugh building in his clogged, rotten throat.

Ben heard the distant, pained cry of a horse, followed by the trembling of the ground and hoof-beats coming closer. Trying to lure the monster into the woods, he suddenly became afraid, seeing a flash of light through the fog in the direction of the woods and another, much louder and more terrifying cry from the horse. He could hear dirt spray as the heavy animal made a ferocious turn around his home, and Ben believed then that he would die, for behind Roderick was a steed of terrifying stature whose main appeared to be wreathed in teal flame, while its rider, seemingly a knight covered head to toe in brush and moss which appeared to practically shroud the figure in a hood, held aloft an unbelievably massive sword shrieking with the same teal soul-fire. Ben fell to his knees, shaking uncontrollably as Roderick was now ready to approach him, laughing. Roderick tried to say something, which, although strenuous and mangled, Ben thought he could vaguely make out. Fear is your death, you are right to be afraid, and these Ben believed would be the final words he would ever heard. Not the love or pleading or the voice of his wife, only a solemn promise of death from a foe beyond his comprehension. Roderick let out a laugh, the horseman getting ever closer until he was within arm’s reach of the undead warrior who raised aloft an axe of his own —

—Only to be cut down.

The horseman’s blade caused a scream of great agony from the rotting cadaver that once was Roderick Thunderbelly, slicing clean through the corpse’s chest and spraying mucuous membranes all over Ben’s face, who spat and screamed in horror as the blade narrowly missed him, ducking his head. A cloud of dust added to the fog as the rider’s horse came to a halt, and the horseman glanced down at Ben, getting a good look with him under his lantern. Ben stayed on the ground, staying up at the rider in horror. He could truly see the green complexion from all the moss under the light of a lantern, rather than that of the fearsome fiery blade he wielded. The horse let out a puff of air from its nostrils and raised its head, causing a sense of unease in Ben, but the horseman curiously nodded at him.

He was tall. Tall enough that he could reach down and extend a moss-covered gauntlet to help Ben off the ground before resettling his position, seemingly towering over Ben as he sat upon his horse.

Yet Ben only had one question on his mind. Warily and quivering-lipped, he asked:

“Who are you?”

He caught a flash of green within the knight’s hood, beneath the grille of the knight’s helmet he wore underneath, not at all dissimilar from the lights that possessed Roderick the Fierce, and Ben again felt fearful. Yet, such was only the briefest of flashes, and, without answering, the towering, moss-covered knight sped away through the fog upon his flaming horse.

Pick up an issue of FlashFire Quarterly today.

P.S. Big things coming soon.

As always, Dwarfum Necumonum!