I missed the deadline for this week's Fiction Writers Group prompt, but I decided to post it here, anyway. "Suesrep and Asudem" is a 300-word epic fantasy with some battlefield violence. Here's the prompt:
Suesrep and Asudem
The evil sorcerer Asudem held sway over the Lower Kingdom for two generations, remaining unchallenged because his sorcerer’s eyes could, if you looked upon them, turn man or beast to stone. The exiled Duke Suesrep, though, devised a plan to defeat Asudem. He had a hinged visor made of two polished steel plates, each tilted just so, mounted to his helm so that, when lowered, the visor formed a periscope of sorts. Thus prepared, he launched his attack with strict orders to his army to keep their eyes on the enemy in front of them and leave Asudem to him.
The ultimate confrontation lasted but a few seconds. Suesrep fought his way to Asudem’s tent, where he flipped down his visor and strode up to the sorcerer. As planned, the brightly polished plates of his visor reflected Asudem’s visage with no ill effects. Asudem was so stunned by his inability to lapidify Suesrep that he simply stood gaping while Suesrep lopped off his head. Unfortunately, his visor so limited his peripheral vision, that as Suesrep turned and raised his sword in victory, he never saw the one that lifted the visor from his head and his head from his body.
With the heads of both leaders lying in the mud, the battle raged on across the countryside for another two days until only the wounded and their fragmentary memories remained alive. It was those fragments of memories that, months later, led Suesrep’s daughter, Enopho, to the lifeless battlefield. Though there were many disembodied skulls to choose from, she at last found her father’s helm with its fateful visor and the two skulls that lay nearby.
Kneeling before the skull closest to the Duke’s helm, she bowed her head in sorrow and looked into the vacant sockets of Asudem’s eyes -- forever.