The (Solo) Adventures of Solomon Kane

Kane dashed forward to the secret room, from whence the screams grew weaker. The inn keeper lies face down on the floor and on his back rides the shrieking skeleton of the sorcerer, its bones imbued with supernatural animation by a dread curse uttered even as its skull was cloven by the man it now enacts vengeance upon. Its bony fingers dig into the host’s neck, drawing blood as a short final squeal escapes his lips before he succumbs to the horror’s vengeance.

Kane leaps forward and strikes the brute off the host’s body with his rapier. The skeleton clatters against the wall and lands in a dry, rattling heap, a length of chain still attached to its ankle by a rusty shackle.  It rises and turns to face Kane and the icy fires of hell blaze in its empty sockets.

The fight begins in earnest. In the room the two combatants face each other. Kane draws on his last vestiges of faith and awaits the oncoming challenges with a stout heart.

Extending a skeletal finger, the remains of the sorcerer summons an orb of darkness.  For a moment it pulses with energy, before infusing the entire place with despair.

Armed with more than mere steel, Solomon’s faith saw his attack strike pure and true, and for a moment Kane swore he could here a bell ring.  The blow struck cleanly and the animated monstrosity stumbled momentarily, before regaining its footing. “One blow, with faith, the first of many”, thought Kane.

The demonic skeleton draws itself up and lunges at Kane without effect. Kane immediately reposts and with the last of his strength slices off the monstrosity’s head.

The final slash of his rapier passes true and level, an inch above the skeleton’s collar bone. With a hollow clatter, its cleft skull rolls back into the chamber whence it came and the rest of the bones tumble around Kane’s boots like a pile of macabre kindling. Kane checks on the landlord and finds him slumped against the wall of the secret room in a dark puddle of his own draining lifeblood, his face a terrible ashen blue.