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'Arioch! Arioch! I give you blood and souls - only aid me now! This man I give you, mighty King of Hell - aid your servant, Elric of Melniboné!'
Three soldiers entered the room in a bunch. Elric struck at one and sheared off his face. The man screamed horribly.
'Arioch, Lord of the Darks - I give you blood and souls. Aid me, evil one!'
In the far corner of the gloomy room, a blacker mist began, slowly, to form. But the soldiers pressed closer and Elric was hard put to hold them back.
He was screaming the name of Arioch, Lord of the Higher Hell, incessantly, almost unconciously as he was pressed back by the weight of the warriors' numbers. Behind them Yyrkoon mouthed in rage and frustration, urging his men, still, to take Elric alive. This necessity gave Elric some small advantage - that and the runesword Stormbringerwhich was glowing with a strange black luminousness and the shrill howling it gave out was grating into the ears of those who heard it. Two more corpses now littered the carpeted floor of the chamber, their blood soaking into the fine fabric.
'Blood and souls, for my Lord Arioch!'
The dark mist heaved and began to take shape, Elric spared a look towards the corner and shuddered despite his inurement to hell-born horror. The warriors now had their back to the thing in the corner and Elric was by the window. The amporphous mass heaved again and Elric made out its intolerably alien shape. Bile flooded into his mouth and as he drove the soldiers towards towards the thing which was sinuously flooding forward he fought against madness.
Suddenly the soldiers seemed to sense that there was something behind them. They turned, four of them, and each screamed insanely as the black horror made one final rush to engulf them. Arioch crouched over them, sucking out their souls. Then, slowly their bones began to give and snap and still shrieking bestially the men flopped like obnoxious invertebrates on the floor; their spines broken, they still lived. Elric turned away , thankful for once that Cymoril still slept, and leapt to the window ledge.
from The Dreaming City by Michael Moorcock
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The wind whistled suddenly from between Baal-pteor's parted teeth. His face was growing purple. Fear flooded his eyes. His thews seemed ready to burst from his arms and shoulders, yet the muscles of the Cimmerian's thick neck did not give; they felt like masses of woven iron cords under his desperate fingers. But his own flesh was giving way under the iron fingers of the Cimmerian which ground deeper and deeper into yielding throat muscles, crushing them upon jugular and windpipe.
The statuesque immobility of the group gave way to sudden, frenzied motion, as the Kosalan began to wrench and heave, seeking to throw himself backward. He let go of Conan's throat and grasped his wrists, trying to tear away those inexorable fingers.
With a sudden lunge Conan bore him backward until the small of his back crashed against the table. And still farther over its edge Conan bent him, back and back, until his spine was ready to snap.
Conan's low laugh was merciless as the ring of steel.
"You fool!" he all but whispered. "I think you never saw a man from the West before. Did you deem yourself strong because you were able to twist the heads off civilised folk, poor weaklings with muscles like rotten string? Hell! Break the neck of a wild Cimmerian bull before you call yourself strong. I did that, before I was full-grown-man - like this!"
And with a savage wrench he twisted Ball-pteor's head around until the ghastly face leered over the left shoulder, and the vertebrae snapped like a rotten branch.
Conan hurled the flopping corpse to the floor, turned to the sword again, and gripped the hilt with both hands, bracing his feet against the floor. Blood trickled down the his broad breast from the wounds Baal-pteor's finger nails had torn in the skin of his neck. His black hair was damp, sweat ran down his face, and his chest heaved. For all his vocal scorn of Baal-pteor's strength, he had almost met his match in the inhuman Kosalan.
- from Shadows in Zamboula by Robert E Howard
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