Urdin vs. The Assassin Vine

Note: This story is another sword-and-sandal style snuff story in which a beefy hero fights a staple of erotic monsters: a vine/tentacle horror. It has no connection to any other story and can be enjoyed on its own.

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Urdin silently watched his prey, listening over the roar of a nearby waterfall. His targets, a pair of well-armed and well-built hobgoblin guards, stood watch over the entrance of the cave that served as their hideout. Urdin raked their bodies with his eyes, spotting and mapping every muscle and artery in the tan-skinned, hairy goblinoids. He knew every bone and sinew in a hobgoblin, and knew just where to strike to kill one; this knowledge had been beaten into his head ever since he was a child pretending to be a warrior. All he needed was an opportunity.

It was because of this specialized training that Urdin had been hired for the mission. The village of Waterford could not afford the tribute the hobgoblins demanded, and faced destruction at their hands. In exchange for what payment they did muster, Urdin agreed to end the threat. Though the death of their leader would be more than sufficient to break the hobgoblins’ hold on Waterford, the sturdy assassin couldn’t pass up the opportunity to remove a few more of his favorite enemy from the world.

“Hold on a second,” The slightly smaller, bald hobgoblin spoke. “I need to take a piss.” Urdin peered down from the rock face above the cave, and watched as one guard strolled away toward a boulder near the cave mouth. The hobgoblin concealed his lower half behind it with his back turned to his companion, and whistled a tune.

Urdin lept into action. He positioned himself above the remaining guard, gripped the cliff face, and lowered himself slowly. Despite being over two-hundred and fourty pounds of muscle with a round gut, Urdin had the controlled and precise movements of a predator. When he came close enough, he threw his meaty knees around the guard’s head. The muscular brute gasped reflexively and clutched Urdin’s calves, but before he could warn his ally, Urdin twisted his skull up and to the side. There was a pop, and the guard became dead weight: motionless, silent, and heavy.

Though the waterfall could muffle nearly any noise, Urdin took no chances. He held the hobgoblin’s limp body between his legs and, trebbling from exertion, lowered both the guard and himself quietly to the ground. The pissing hobgoblin was none the wiser. As soon as his iron-plated leather boots touched the ground, Urdin bounded towards his remaining target, crouched like a feline stalking his prey.

Urdin was shorter than the hobgoblins, standing only a little over five and a half feet tall, but he made up for it with sheer mass. Urdin’s iron helmet and close-cropped red beard gave the impression that he was one of Waterford’s militia, possibly a stout farmer, but the studded leather kilt, loincloth emblazened with a roaring bear, and his completely bare chest and back identified him as something else. The spikey S-shaped tattoo that cupped his right eye and cheek, as well as the downward pointing sword tattoo with its pommel at the base of his neck, its handguard stretched between his wide pecs, and its blade ending just above his navel were both blue, like those of the mountain barbarians.

“So what do you think about the new...” The hobgoblin began, and glanced over his shoulder. He jumped with fright and spun around when he spotted Urdin, mearly feet away, reaching toward him. The guard opened his mouth, but Urdin’s hand covered it before he could make a sound. Though he screamed and thrashed, calling for help, the iron-plated leather gauntlets smothered any intelligible words he tried to utter. Urdin’s size and aggression quickly toppled his victim, and the hobgoblin found himself pinned with a boulder to his right, a piss-soaked tree to his left, and his soon-to-be assassin sitting on his chest, pinning his arms.

Urdin didn’t even give the hobgoblin a chance to beg. he released the guard’s mouth, only to instantly wrap his fingers around the exposed windpipe of his victim. The goblinoid gagged, choking out the hobgoblin equivalent of “Fuck!” while his face contorted in agony. He violently resisted, kicking the air and clawing Urdin’s naked thighs, fearful that he would be slowly and painfully strangled. Unknown to the guard, Urdin had no plans to wait that long.

The metal-plated gauntlet flew fast and strong, impacting the hobgoblin’s skull with a thud and thrusting his head to the side. Urdin drew his arm up and delivered a second punch, followed by a third. Each hit delivered a knuckle to the guard’s temple. When he felt the skull soften and crack, Urdin knew he was finished. He glanced about, and when he saw he was alone, he rose and bounded once again back to the dead guard at the cave’s mouth.

Though the muscular guard was heavy and lifeless, Urdin quickled dragged him behind the boulder, and dropped his corpse with that of his companion. The brute’s head fell to the side at an unnatural angle, making the cause of his demise quite evident. Urdin was quite proud of his handywork, and amused that the larger thug’s hand had fallen on the smaller one’s crotch, where the guard’s flaccid dick still dangled out of his leather pants.

With both guards dead and their bodies hidden, Urdin entered the cave, crouching down and sticking close to the left wall. The cave tunnel was at least fifteen feet wide, but narrowed somewhat as it went on. Urdin detected the occasional scent of hobgoblin musk and cooking meat, but his sense of smell was mostly drowned in the odor of mud and mold. The assassin soon encountered a fork in the tunnel, with two smaller openings that branched apart. The left was dark, illuminated only by the dim light of the now-distant sun, while the right showed the dancing orange light of a torch or campfire and and the shadow of a mohawked hobgoblin’s head and shoulders.

Urdin decided to explore the left fork. He wasn’t certain how many hobgoblins there would be, and wondered if the dark tunnel would offer either a place to hide and await a patrol or allow him a better angle on guards further on. Though he suspected the hobgoblins found no use for the tunnel, he stepped from stone to stone to avoid leaving footprints just in case. As he delved deeper, he began to regret his decision. The tunnel became almost prohibitively dark, forcing Urdin to slow his trek to allow his eyes to adjust. Considering that hobgoblins require a quarter the light that a human needs to see, this arrangement did not please the burly behemoth.

Urdin’s fingers touched something cold and muddy on the wall. He peered at it, and found the edges of a large sheet: a sheet of burlap completely coated with fresh mud. Confused, he reached his hand behind it cautiously, but found only rock. It wasn’t hiding anything. He decided that it must be some kind of laundry or attempt at decoration, and crept onward.

Around the next bend, nestled in a man-sized crevice on the right wall, was something even more interesting than a muddy sheet: a skeleton clad in chainmail slumped in a seated position. Urdin glanced about cautiously, suspicious of traps or ambushes. Seeing the tunnel abandoned, he hurried over to the body. It was almost completely decomposed, but still had some rot left on its muddy bones. Urdin searched it, but found no weapons. He did find a scabbard, however, and decided the hobgoblins must have taken the sword that went in it.

The barbarian attempted to discern the cause of the man’s death, but found no clues. There were no broken bones, no scars or scrapes to indicate he was stabbed, and no apparent holes or major defects in the armor. Urdin surmized from the lack of wounds that the man must have been disarmed and then choked to death. Though the body made it clear that he was not the first to attempt an assassination, he felt confident that he would be the last. He would succeed where this nameless warrior failed. The size of the mail indicated that the dead man had not been nearly as large as Urdin, and the brute also imagined that he had not been as clever. Urdin had no weapons to be robbed of, after all, and was too strong to be overpowered by a hobgoblin with such a simple hold. He silently made a pact with himself; should he encounter a hobgoblin brawler, Urdin would prove himself by strangling him instead.

As if summoned by his thoughts, something cold and rough slid around Urdin’s thick neck. He gasped and jumped to his feet, snatching the garrote. It was almost two inches thick and covered in a papery bark like a grape vine, and already had a second coil wrapping around his throat. The big man thrashed and twisted about, attempting to throw off or trip up his attacker, but found the tunnel empty. As he stared in confusion, clawing at the vine which applied a third coil despite his struggles, he saw thin shapes dancing in the darkness: roots from the ceiling which moved of their own accord. Whatever killed that man, Urdin realized, was no hobgoblin.

The vine tugged on Urdin, pulling him like a collared slave away from the wall. He resisted, but his defiance only served to tighten the hold on his neck. He grabbed the vine’s body with both hands, as if playing tug-of-war, and yanked it, but it was embedded too firmly in the ceiling. It continued pulling him, and the bull of a man begin to slide toward the center of the tunnel.

Suddenly, a glint of metal caught Urdin’s eye, the tip of what he took as a sword pommel submerged almost completely in the wet earth. Desperate, Urdin threw himself at it, but the vine provided no slack. He clambered to the weapon on his hands and knees, and stretched his arm so far as to cause himself pain, but only the tips of his fingers could contact the cold metal. He felt fear welling up inside him. Urdin flailed one hand at the sword, sitting on his knees and tugging on the vine with his other hand. The harder he reached, the more frantic he became upon failing. Though his attacker could no longer pull on his neck, the vine continued to slide through itself like a snake, squeezing the brute’s airway. Urdin strained just to wheeze, and most attempts to inhale were stiffled as gags and snorts.

He couldn’t endure it any longer. Urdin’s leather-clad fingers tore at the vine, digging between the bark and his skin to ease the pressure. As if it had been waiting, the vine immediately resumed its pull, jerking Urdin backwards. The barbarian’s wide, muscled back hit the dirt with a subdued and earthy splash. The roots, far stronger than their two-inch diameter would indicate, began to drag Urdin’s bulk along the soggy ground. He kicked and wrestled with it, trying in vain to stand, but he could do nothing but watch as the sword became more and more distant.

To Urdin’s horror, the plant lifted him, putting his own impressive mass to work against him. Waterford’s hero hurriedly clamped his hands around the root and heaved himself to his feet with a grunt. For a moment, the pressure subsided, and Urdin took the chance to fight back. He punched the vine, wrung it in his meaty hands, and even threw himself against its pull in a fruitless attempt to rip it from the ceiling. He managed to dislodge only a few rocks and a cloud of dirt, which clanged and rattled against his helmet.

The bark of a second root scraped against Urdin’s naked, mud-glazed back, exploring the valley between his bulging and powerful shoulders. He swore and tried to duck away, but a third vine caressed his elbow. Urdin began to panic, fighting for every rapid, shallow breath; he still battled against the first vine, and yet he could see over a dozen in the darkness reaching toward him, each one alien and murderous. He avoided them as long as he could, but the fingers of the monstrous plant soon found him in its snare. They stroked him lightly, seemingly unsure of him. Urdin froze, not daring to move, hoping silently that the vine would release his throat.

In an instant, the central vine rose sharply, viciously wrenching its prey into the air. Urdin’s heart skipped a beat when his airway closed, then pounded like a wardrum when his boots rose off the ground, leaving his bull neck to support all two-hundred and fourty pounds of his meat. The weight of his own heroic bulk was simply too much; Aside from the piercing agony of his crushed and stretched windpipe, the pressure in his skull threatened to burst his eyeballs while his vision and thoughts blurred and swam with dizziness.

All concepts of tactics and coordination drowned in the primal panic of Urdin’s hanging. He swung his powerful arms through the air, grasping for a rock or ledge to which he could cling, but he found as many handholds as his kicking feet found footholds. His pained and bearded face became flushed and red, and his frantically searching eyes turned bloodshot. When his leatherbound palms slapped and clutched the bark-covered tendril above him, Urdin, merely moments away from unconsciousness, poured all of his strength into his thick and bulging arms. The barbarian hoisted himself up, relieving the pressure from his neck. He immediately began coughing and gagging loudly and gutterally, each breath hindered by the coils of the vine. The thought of being discovered never crossed his mind; he was simply happy to breathe.

The abrasive touch of the other tendrils made Urdin gasp. He tried swatting them away, but found that he couldn’t fight them off and hold himself up at the same time. He grimaced and winced as they slid along his exposed skin. The first began prodding his back, but slid to the side. It looped silently through his red-haired armpit and across his chest before exploring the valley between his barrel-like pecs. It descended over the sweat-slick mound of his farmer’s gut, undulating left and right like a snake. A second one traced a similar path between his mud-caked shoulderblades and down the small of his back.

Urdin could do nothing but cling to the main root, guessing and fearing what might happen next. A pair of smaller vines, only a half-inch in thickness, snaked down his arms. They slid gently along the grooves between Urdin’s ox-like muscles, like the fingers of a woman admiring his body. They soon encountered his flexed and trembling biceps. They began to coil like a tiny constrictor snake and though the tendrils were thin and weak, they wound themselves tightly, crushing his mountainous upper arms in a mass of woody vines. Urdin gritted his teeth, but endured the pain; his life depended on it.

Urdin’s hope began to sink as the plant sent more and more tendrils. Some explored his thighs, others strangled his calves and boots. It was everywhere. It moved along his skin and groped him like a slaveowner inspecting his newest purchase, as if it owned him. To resist would be to hang, and the more Urdin’s arms ached and burned, the more he realized he was out of options. He stared upwards into the darkness as the first tendril slid down his gut and beneath his loincloth. He bit his lip as its cold, scratchy skin scraped around the base of his cock. He cried out in despair as it tightened. The vine behind him followed his spine down to his round, muscular ass and slid silently beneath his kilt. He could feel it snaking between his cheeks, and he wanted desperately to stop it, for he feared he knew where it was headed. He clenched his glutes, but the vine was persistent. As it worked its way to his hole, past his last defense, the rugged and leather-clad muscleman broke into quiet tears.

The bull roared in pain as the plant violated him. The two-inch thick bark-covered tendril penetrated his ass, sliding and scraping deeper into Urdin’s body. He could feel it exploring him, twisting and turning inside his narrow passages, plugging his hole completely. Despite the threat of death and the agony of a pain he had never felt before, Urdin’s dick tingled and swelled. The crushing hold of the plant made his experience extremely painful, but after a few moments the behemoth was sporting an eight-inch erection.

A pair of thin vines, much like those crushing Urdin’s biceps, descended and coiled around his forearms. They began to retract, tugging on his wrists. He held on with all his might, his arms squeezed and his body violated, but the bull had his limits. The vine tore his hands away, and Urdin found himself once again suspended by his neck. He thrashed and squirmed like a bronco, but the multitude of vines maintained their hold. He sputtered and choked, reaching for something to save him. His eyes bulged and his vision blurred. His face turned deep purple, and his struggles weakened and became disorganized. After less than fifteen seconds strangling on his own massive physique, Waterford’s hero began to slip into a hypoxic sleep.

Urdin jolted awake suddenly, spurred by his feral instincts. “I’m not dying,” he told himself. “Not now.” He fought and kicked with renewed vigor, a second wind, ignoring the pain of the crushing vines. Every muscle and fiber of his being worked toward one goal: air. He flexed his biceps with all his might, as if attempting to impress the woman of his dreams. After a few seconds of vein-bulging strain and a gurgled roar, Urdin snapped the tiny vines around his meaty peaks. First one coil, then a second, then more. Urdin became a monster of rage and muscle, powered only by his will to live. He ripped his upper arms free, and yanked and jerked violently at the roots holding his wrists.

After a few moments, Urdin’s gauntleted fists came free, and immediately took hold of the central tendril. He tried to pull himself up, trembling from effort, but his bruised biceps had nothing left. His once rock-solid muscles had been squeezed and pushed to uselessness; breaking free exhausted his reserves of strength. Still choking, Urdin switched tactics. He twisted and warped the vine, but it was pulled too taught to bend. He tried punching it, but each strike only pulled it tighter around his throat. The burning need for air became a tangible pain, and Urdin’s second wind began to crumble into a feral panic.

Urdin clawed and groped at his attacker, madly search for a weakness. Within moments he was flailing and swinging his arms, silently gasping like a fish out of water. He could no longer think or feel. The tendril raping his asshole no longer mattered. The vine wrapped tightly around his swollen and now-blue testicles no longer mattered. His mission no longer mattered. The only thing Urdin could think about was air. His bloodshot eyes rolled to the back of his head, which was now a deep, purplish blue, and his face relaxed into a nearly emotionless, tattooed mask. All he could muster was a weak sneer, overshadowed by a purple tongue that hung limply from his mouth and a river of foamy drool that dribbled down his chin and onto his broad pecs as if he were an overworked farm animal.

Urdin’s fingers scraped and picked at the coils embedded in his muscular neck, tearing chunks of bark away, but the root remained tight. Finally, his muddy fingers slowly stopped clawing, then slid down his chest to dangle at his sides. The brute’s gargantuan muscles twitched and seized, causing his iron-clad boots to knock and clang. After a few moments, his herculean form relaxed. His lungs no longer struggled to breathe, and his heart no longer pounded out his warrior’s rhythm. The fight was at an end.

A hobgoblin soldier, covered by a cold, muddy sheet to hide him from the vine’s heat sensing tendrils, was the first to discover the intruder. He found the dead behemoth dangling by his neck, toes merely three inches from the ground, with broad shoulders, a barrel chest, and arms befitting a man who overpowered two of their best guards. His report quickly drew several other curious soldiers, who formed a small crowd around the executed muscleman. They laughed and gawked at his strangled manhood, and the vine penetrating his asshole. They had never seen their sentry do such a thing, and wondered if it would do that to any man in a loincloth, or if it happened to “like” Urdin.

Ultimately, they left his body hanging. The plant would deposit him nearby, they knew, and it deserved the fertilizer for catching and neutralizing the intruder. Though they left him, they did not forget about him; Urdin became the center of many jokes in the hobgoblin clan. The fact that he was a powerful man only made his humiliating death that much more amusing to them.

In nine days, the hobgoblins came to the city of Waterford, led by their powerful leader. He and his soldiers quickly crushed Waterford’s militia, and took its people as slaves, food, and sex toys. The townsfolk never learned what happened to their musclebound hero. Some believed that he fled, while most believed that he had been butchered and eaten by the hobgoblins. Urdin’s name soon fell into the past, forgotten by the slaves he failed. The cave became his grave, and his killer returned to the darkness, waiting patiently for another strong neck.

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