Scamp
Record of a wounded Roman soldier suffocating himself by putting his head in a hole and covering it with dirt or sand during the Battle of Cannae in 216BC.
An invisible darkness could be seen rising somewhere in the distance. It could be felt, a cold miasma. The moon was down but something was climbing.
The battle had begun, the sun shone bright. The trees were sparse around the field of battle, no protection whatsoever. He ran in full battle gear.
Large elephants, hidden in the morning mist, were now emerging. running towards the Romans, destroying entire wings of the Roman army with their trunks. Now and then, deadly darts flew around the soldier from unseen enemies, arrows rang like bells against armour. Romans were dying all around.
He heard the deafening roar of the elephants, the shouts of his dying comrades, arrows, howling, groaning of men dying. It got worse on sight. Something was amiss, the Romans fell back. More elephants poured into the chaos. He continued to run.
They broke his shield and pierced his helmet. They struck him in the neck, but he did not stop. As he ran, he felt himself covered in blood, it was all around him. He took his helmet off and saw that his neck had been cut open. The air was thick. He fell to the ground. He quickly dug a hole with his hands and abandoned weapons. He covered his head with dirt. He could only imagine what was happening around him.
Everything was shaking and quaking as an earthquake seemed to be swallowing everything around him. He could hear screaming, shouting, He buried his head deeper in the hole.
The pitch-black darkness had reached Caius Livius, blocking his view of sun.
“The lines are broken, the Battle is Lost” wrote Livy, describing the Battle of Cannae, fought in 216BC in Italy, the largest defeat, in terms of casualties, suffered by the Roman army until the battle of Teutoburg Forest, in 9AD.
Master
Demonhead
Wake up, go to bed.
Thus sayeth the Demonhead.
So, the man woke up.
Eat some food, you mortal fool.
So, brewed, Satan’s tool.
So, the man ate some food.
Go to work, do the work right or I’ll take you away
This was the Demonhead’s message for the day.
So, the man went to work.
See that park bench? That’s where you will be sitting.
Rest for a while, it’s what the Master sees fitting.
So, the man sat down.
There’s a girl living over there, knock on the door.
Tell her you like her, then call her a whore.
So, the man knocked.
Eat some more or we’ll have to keep talking.
This is how, the Demon kept balking.
So, the man ate some more.
Go back home, study. Go to bed.
Thus still sayeth the Demonhead.
So, the man returned home.
Tomorrow when you awake we’ll start at the beginning.
“Climb into bed” the Demon said, grinning.
“Yes sir”, said the man.
The Grand Worm
The pond in the forest gleams
At the end of a Solstice Dream
One thousand eggs will hatch
In years to come
The thousandth one
Waited out the sun
When it hatched, was a Grand Worm
In the dark days of a very late Fall
One thousand years a worm shall crawl
Strange diseases spread
When the last leaf falls to winter’s tread
The Grand Worm makes the hill its home
In the dim days of the midwinter moon
He will not end the blighted gloom
Shadowy figures will turn to see
That the worm still holds the key
Into sunlit doom
Nine cities lost to a flood
They searched the forest
And a thousand hills for blood
The Grand Worm crawled out of the hillside mud
And started to Dream
“One thousand years”
A white worm said
At dawn this world will surely end
In the last hours of Yule’s dawn
Have their final breath drawn
Until the world itself is gone.
Tempestuous Demon
Anguished cries of the solitary demon,
In the forest wrought with despair.
Black recollections of the moonlit night
When he meets a beautiful mare.
Brought rolling tears from the eyes of this demon.
Its heart was filled with the fury of a storm,
As it spoke in the language of man
“Are you not afraid of my hideous form?”