Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #19 October 2015 | Page 64

stepped down the corridor leading to the grand hall
followed by Vulferam and other soldiers who stood
wall to wall, ready to fight if needed. Alaric began to
smell something burnt, like pork cooking over a fire
for too long. Then he smelled something else. Something more grisly. The scents of what lingered on a
battlefield after a campaign. The smells came from the
partially opened door of the grand hall. The head of
the Althaus opened the door, and the smell was almost
overpowering to even the battle-hardened men present. The grand hall was a scene of a hellish massacre
with blood pooling on the stone floor and staining the
wooden tables and benches. What the wood could
no longer absorb pooled on the surfaces, and plates,
bottles of mead, and trays of food were thrown about
the room as if the room itself had been turned upside
down numerous times.
The horror was not the mass amounts of blood
in the hall but the way the bodies were strewn about
without care as well as the condition of some of the
victims. Many corpses were twisted to the point that
the body would rip in twain if twisted any more. Some