Terrin placed his hands on his temples and rubbed them in a vain attempt to wake himself up and stave off the growing headache. Last night, goblins performed the world’s most horridly coordinated raid. The goblins were barely armed; they didn’t have anything to carry their loot, and they looked far too exhausted to be raiding. Killing off these goblins was more of a chore than a matter of national security.
Regardless of his feelings on the matter, Terrin was sent to interrogate their one prisoner. She was feisty, even for a goblin. The other guards used probably more rope than needed to restrain her, but after she bit Nicholas, all the niceties were forgotten.
“Three years, that’s all I signed up for,” Terrin said to himself as he stood outside the room where they stashed the goblin. He didn’t bother stifling his yawn. “I’m gonna have to take a nap later.”
He took a deep breath and straightened himself as much as he could. He didn’t want the goblin to know that he was tired and had been woken up far too early. It was time to go to work. The goblin wasn’t going to interrogate herself. He grabbed the lantern by the door and walked in.
As the Rophmna guard illuminated the previously forsaken room, the first thing that he noticed was the rancid smell of feces. The second thing he noticed was the grayish-green-skinned creature hissing at him in the corner.
Terrin stood in the doorway, questioning all of his life choices up to this point. Deciding insubordination wasn’t something he wanted on his record one season before his tour of duty was up, he strode in but left the door open. He wanted all the fresh air he could get.
The goblin in the corner continued to hiss at him like an animal, unlike the supposedly sentient humanoid that it was said to be. She was short—maybe thirty-five inches tall. They wrapped much of her body in coarse rope, but from what Terrin could see, she was far too thin to be considered healthy. Her face was round and would have been cute on a little girl if it weren’t for the line of tiny, sharp needles in her mouth.
Terrin reflexively touched the arming sword at his hip to reassure himself that he wasn’t defenseless. With his confidence bolstered, he placed the lamp on the hook just inside the door before standing in the center of the room.
Terrin crossed his arms as he stared down at the goblin. “So, are you going to be cooperative, or are you going to make things difficult for yourself?”
“What I do is no longer meaningful.” The goblin’s shrill voice grated in Terrin’s ears. He held back a twitch as the goblin continued to speak. “You call us raiders, but you do not understand.”
“Of course we don’t understand. That was the worst executed raid in the history of raids.” Terrin’s quip earned him another hiss from the goblin. “So, if it’s that big of a deal, how about you enlighten me?”
“Why should I?” The goblin lowered her tone. “You are all going to die. All you have done is save him the trouble of hunting us down. He is still coming for us. Now he will come for you.”
Terrin raised an eyebrow. “Who is coming? Who is chasing you?”
The goblin grinned. “Death.”
The man rolled his eyes. “Can you be a little more specific? Who is coming to kill you?”
“Death,” the goblin repeated.
Sighing, Terrin turned to walk away. “Here I thought you were gonna be cooperative, but if you are going to be cryptic, we’ll see how cryptic you’ll be after staying here in the dark, alone in your own filth for a day or two. Let’s see if that loosens your tongue.”
“You think you are safe here?”
Terrin turned back to face the goblin. “Are you threatening us?”
The goblin’s grin widened. “I am not the one who threatens you. It is him.”
“Who’s him?”
“Death.”
Terrin rubbed the side of his face with a groan. “And we’re back where we started.”
“You think your stone walls will stop him?” The goblin continued. “You will not stop him. He will kill everyone. He killed all the goblins, and now they serve him.”
“What did you just say?” Terrin hoped he didn’t hear her correctly.
The goblin’s voice dropped terrifyingly low. “You will die, and your corpse will only add to his army. Death comes for you, and there is no stopping him. I will die happily knowing that you will all die before me.”
The color drained from his face.
Without a second thought, Terrin left the creature in her corner and sprinted for his sergeant’s office. While running through the fort towards the barracks, a voice called out to the panicking guard.
“Oi! Where are you running to?” The shortest human in the fort called out to Terrin. “Where’s the fire?”
Nicholas was quite short. He was so short that he was often teased for being half dwarf. No record of such a person exists, since if a dwarf did have a child with any other race, the child would be the same race as the mother. He held up his bandaged hand as he ran towards his friend.
“It’s worse.” Terrin stopped. “I need you to send a message to the king. And I need you to do it now. If that goblin isn’t lying, then this is bad. I’ve got to tell the Sergeant.”
Nicholas grabbed the other human. “How about you start by telling me what needs to go in the message and why it’s so important? Also, why do you care if that filth isn’t lying? Of course it’s lying.”
Terrin shook his head. “No, she didn’t look like lying was even an option. She was all too happy to tell me.”
Nicholas held out his hand. “So...”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Right.” Terrin took a deep breath. “It’s a necromancer. She said he’s headed this way. And he already has an army of goblin undead.”
Nicholas stiffened. “Go, before you do anything else. I’ll go get that message sent immediately. We need someone to burn the bodies right now.”
Terrin pointed to the pile of goblin bodies the other guards had stacked outside, near the fort’s entrance. “Go then. Take whoever you run into.”
Nicholas nodded as he sprinted towards the nearest oil lamp. Terrin returned to his previous mission of finding the Sargent. But just as he reached the barracks door, there was a series of shouts coming from the watchtowers. Terrin turned to look at the guard calling from his wooden post.
The majority of the fort was made of wood because goblin armies attacked repeatedly and the fort was never built to withstand them. Wood was much easier to replace and repair compared to stone. Terrin worried if they needed to pack up and abandon the fort.
“Goblins!” An elven scout pointed in the direction the goblins always came from. “This is not a raid; this is an army.”
“The goblin was right,” Terrin whispered to himself. “We are going to die.”
As per protocol, the warning bells sounded, attempting to rouse whichever poor souls tried to go back to sleep after the night’s previous disturbance.
The door opened next to Terrin as he stared at the bells as they tilted from side to side, mesmerizingly. He jumped as the Sergeant nearly knocked him over.
“Terrin?” The massive Sargent grabbed Terrin’s shoulders as soon as they collided. And as soon as the guard had his feet firmly planted under him, Terrin lifted his head towards the sergeant’s. “Situation report, soldier.”
“Sargent Sadon, sir, we have a problem.” Terrin saluted the superior officer. “It’s...”
“Goblin army approaching.” The call interrupted Terrin.
“Actually, sir, it’s worse.” Terrin slumped his shoulders.
Sargent Sadon raised an eyebrow. “How does it get worse than an army of goblins?”
Terrin chuckled. “An army of undead goblins led by a necromancer.” He chuckled again.
Sadon grabbed the soldier’s shoulders and shook him once he noticed the guard’s stare was emptying. “Get a hold of yourself, soldier.” He shook him harder after he got no response. “Snap out of it.” The guard’s eyes moved to look into his superior’s. “Are you sure? How do you know?”
“The goblin said so.” Terrin’s voice was still distant. “The one you ordered me to question. Yeah, that’s the one. She said it was Death that chased them. She said that Death was coming for us. And that we were going to die and add to his army. She was right. We’re all going to...”
His words died in his throat as a pair of screams came from the gate.
Nicholas tumbled through the gate with a goblin, whose entrails were dragging behind her as she bit into his shoulder. The man punched her in the face with his bandaged hand. Another goblin jumped from behind and tackled the two. The three hit the ground, and the new addition took her one arm and held Nicholas’s head back as she bit down on the other shoulder.
Nicholas’s screams grew as a third goblin piled on top and started slashing at his flesh with her meager claws. Nicholas kicked and tried pushing the goblins off him, but his screams died off as a fourth goblin zombie was added to the pile.
The guards drew their weapons to save their comrade, but as they got closer, Nicholas grew weaker and eventually stopped. Sadon shouted orders and started pointing towards the gate as he drew his sword.
Terrin stared at the undead ripping his friend apart. He had seen his share of bloody combat, but seeing the dead kill your closest friend shattered something inside him. He couldn’t look away or move to help. As he stood there and watched, more zombies flooded into the fort.
Guards filed out of the barracks and didn’t bother helping Terrin after they knocked him to the ground. He just sat up and watched the scene play out before him.
The soldiers attacked the zombies. The zombies didn’t bother defending themselves. They took the attacks without a care as they clamored for the living. Swords hacked at limbs and beheaded the goblin undead, but nothing stopped them.
They pressed on, swarming the knights one by one. Biting, clawing, and tearing. It didn’t matter how, but they slaughtered the soldiers.
Terrin remained seated on the ground as he continued to watch the carnage. He stared at his dead friend’s pale face. The look of fear and pain burned itself into the guard’s mind. But when Nicholas’s jaw twitched, Terrin’s first thought was whether his friend was truly dead.
Nicholas stumbled to his feet. His body moved in jerking movements at first, but they quickly became more fluid and natural. When he turned to look at Terrin, the living guard saw no recognition in his friend’s eyes. They just stared ahead, empty.
Terrin watched him walk towards him and pick up a discarded sword from another fallen soldier. Every instinct in his being told him to run away, but he couldn’t. His muscles tightened as his friend approached him slowly. More of the soldiers of the fort stood up and grabbed their weapons before turning on their previous comrades.
Nicholas stopped right in front of Terrin and lifted the bloody sword. Terrin shook as he stared at his friend, unable to draw his own weapon. When the sword finally dropped, Terrin rolled to the side. The blade buried itself into the ground as Terrin scrambled to his feet.
Nicholas pulled the blade from the ground and swung it towards Terrin. Terrin stepped backwards, and the blade missed disemboweling him by inches.
Terrin gave his friend one last look before he turned towards the gate and ran. He could see more of his friends fighting and dying, only to stand again and join the invaders. But only one thought remained in the soldier’s mind. He needed to run. Maybe if he could make it somewhere and warn the kingdom, they could end this nightmare.
The man ran past everyone, dodging through the ever-growing enemy numbers, and ran out the gate. He didn’t look back; he couldn’t. He ran, and he continued to run. Step after step, the sounds of battle died down. Terrin hoped that he could survive. He didn’t dare slow down, just in case one of them was following him.
Terrin ran until he heard the distinct sounds of hooves galloping towards him. Hope swelled even more as he thought that someone else had survived and grabbed a horse on the way out. He slowed down and turned to hail the rider.
He saw that he shouldn’t have slowed down. The rider wasn’t anyone from the fort. They weren’t a man or woman. A black horse with smoke coming from its hooves galloped far faster than any horse Terrin knew. Atop the mount sat a suit of plate armor. The armor was almost as dark as the horse. But one detail about the armor told a story nobody wished to hear.
There was no head.
Where the head should have been, a red, bloody stump stood out against the black plate armor around it. In the creature’s hand was a scythe made of bones. The blade was easily as long as the rider’s arm, as it protruded from the mouth of a skull that sat at the end of a spine. Something radiated from the evil weapon, something Terrin couldn’t see but could feel from afar.
All rationality left Terrin’s mind as he turned and ran. He continued to run until something hit him in the back. Terrin didn’t fall to the ground. But when he tried to run, he couldn’t move. His legs felt like they weren’t there.
Terrin looked down and saw the spine from the weapon the rider held coming out of his stomach and holding him up as it buried the tip into the ground. Pain flooded his mind moments before his screaming started. He grabbed the weapon, attempting to pull it from himself. As his arms grabbed the weapon, he could feel his strength deteriorating rapidly. It wasn’t until he heard hooves clopping next to him, he finally looked away from the weapon that hurt so much.
The headless creature dismounted and stood over the poor soldier. Even without a head, it was taller than Sadon, and Sadon was taller than most humans. Each step the rider took crunched the ground underneath, sounding unnaturally crunchy. It grabbed Terrin by the front of his gambeson and lifted him up.
“You will not escape me.” A deep voice echoed from the headless creature. “I am inevitable. All will fall before me, for I am Death.”
Every word the goblin said to Terrin flooded through his mind. He knew he was wrong. It wasn’t a necromancer; it was something far worse.
Death grabbed his weapon with one hand and pulled it through Terrin. Half of Terrin’s body exploded in a shower of blood as the other half held his legs to his torso. Terrin’s vision quickly disappeared, as he barely screamed before his life ended.