Tag: Fantasy

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Flash Fiction: A Slayer To Come

Today’s story is inspired by Dragon Empress by Michelle Monique.

“You came all this way to see me?” She said. She called herself serpent queen, but she bore no dragon blood. I knew such things; I could sense it. Though she commanded the wyrms, they didn’t do so out of respect. The truth lied in the orb before her thorn.

She was a gile, something like a humanoid reptile. Her skin was scaled and horned, but she bore the features of mammals, with an armored bosom covered only by a leather corset and gown. The leather looked bovine, but I could see where strips of draconic skin had been used for seams and wyrm gut for stitching. Her attire was smart. I’ll give her that. The gut and skin would lend her power, but if the entire dress was made of the draconic flesh she would be their pawn instead. The throne she sat on was also covered in cow leather, although wyrm knuckles made up the arms and a pair of collar bones supported the back. The entire display was setup to channel dragon energy without it consuming her.

“Tell me, dragon-slayer. Are you here to kill me, or just my children?”

“Both,” I said. “Your dragons defile the land, and your will is the cause. But more than anything, I’m going to destroy that rock of yours.”

The orb was sitting on a pedestal the queen could reach by leaning forward enough in her chair. It rested on a velvet cushion, a red nearly identical to the tone of the underside of the queen’s gown. The orb wasn’t smooth or polished, but it was refined. Were it a perfected orb the fight to come would not likely go in my favor. These hearts were powerful and they lent energy to the dragons effected by them. The more it was perfected the better the results, but it took a skilled hand to smooth the stone without shattering it. This serpent queen did not have such a skilled craftsman, thankfully.

“You boast too much for my liking, slayer. But, I am generous. I know there are others like me out there in control of their own armies. To have an agent like you to assist me against them would be most beneficial, don’t you think?” She smiled, revealing two rows of razor sharp teeth. That was cosmetic. Gile have teeth like men, and while some are sharp, most are reasonable like in any animal. I hope it had hurt to do that to herself.

“Are you so blind?” I asked. “My presence alone is weakening your hold on your wyrms. Time enough and I’d drain your little stone and they’d try to consume us both.”

It was a bluff. The charms I wore were weakening the influence of the heart but never enough to break the hold she’d have. I needed her to attack me first though. That’s how my sword, Bitter, worked. It would act as a normal blade were I to attack someone first, but if someone else were to strike at me the blade hastened my movements against them. It was not a blade for someone who would sneak about.

The queen looked to her orb and the four young wyrms in the room with us. I could see her faith in the artifact fading. Now, if she just took the bait.

Her command to the wyrm might have been mental, but she nodded when she gave the command. The pressure changed around me as the large form tried to crash into where I had been standing. Bitter had already commanded me to unsheathe her, and by the time I realized she had me jump I was already coming down on the wyrm’s head. The strike was perfect, hitting between the bone just above the eye socket, where the optic nerve and the brain could be hit from a vertical attack. My blade severed the creature’s sight and its ability to breath in one stroke. I stepped off just as it’s bleeding brain screamed at its body to rise and try to gasp for air. Its head swept past my back as it moved back in a panic. The perfect blow. It would die in moments once it finished suffocating.

The queen looked terrified, and I could feel the emotions of the dragons around me wash the area with fear, confusion, and awe. I flicked the blood and brain matter from Bitter and pointed the blade at the orb.

“Now then, Serpent Queen, I must fulfill my oath.”

Not much to say about today’s fiction other than to point out how total bad-ass that photography is from the inspiration.

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Flash Fiction: Weaver Heads

This story is part of the archived and updated series of previous works.

“Here again. Did it bring food, or is it food?” it said. Anslem tried to pick out what tree the serpent spoke from but the swamp sounds distorted the source. The haruspex waded forward in the water holding the offering pouch at arm’s length.

“I have what you seek, serpent. Do you have what was promised?” As his words echoed through the murk and fog of the swamp he dropped the pouch. It barely made a splash in the water.

Something fell behind him. He spun and saw a piece of meat and bone half submerged. He stepped forward and lifted it from its hair. The man’s face staring at Anselm as he inspected it. Another splash behind him and he turned in time to see a long scaled tentacle pulling up the charm pouch. He could almost feel the heat of its breath as it looked at the trade.

When he started heard the sound of branches shift he asked, “How do I know this is a Weaver’s head and not some murdered fool?”

“How does it know you are not giving it a cursed charm? Doubt again and it will take your head for trade! It is an augur, Lucian named. A serpent hunter. Slayer with God’s Charms. Did come to slay. Many rose and slayed him. It is lucky to have the entire head.” The creature left then, and Anselm didn’t say a word or move until he was sure it was gone. When he was certain it was outside of its great listening range he sighed in relief.

He started his trek out of the swamp, but stopped to examine the head again. It was not the type of weaver he expected the snake to bring him, but then the snake worked in its own way. An augur’s mysticism would still work for the divining he needed. He just hoped whatever demons the snake had dealt with hadn’t damaged the brain of this Augur Lucian too much.

Originally written back in 2010, Weaver Heads is one of those stories I keep coming back to. This new revision will likely be the last of my attempts at smoothing out the story at this length, but I still have thoughts of lengthening the work. Original publish date April 27, 2010.

The audio version of this story can be found here.

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Flash Fiction: Birth of Death

Today’s story is inspired by Shadows of Death by Andreale Garcia.

She guided her horse through the ashen field. The fire was consuming the forest, charring ancient oaks and fresh saplings alike. The sounds of the waking world were muted to her with the sound of the fire, the falling giants, all like distant thunder. Only the soft clomps of the horse’s obsidian shoes on the dirt, the sound of her leather armor, and the dull whispers of the skulls at her side reached her ears. The skulls were fresh, three woodsman caught in the blaze. The flowers wrapped around them were from Arbre De Grand-pere, the five century old oak that once dominated the heart of the woods. The horse was beginning to be covered in other similar flowers, the tiny spirits of the plants. The human skulls were beginning to find company from the bones of rodents, rabbits, a deer, a trio of doves. The skulls and flowers of the young tried to shout in their quiet voices, begging, pleading for this to be a nightmare. Arbre De Grand-pere was quiet.

“You do not beg,” she said. The horse was in the heart of the forest now, and she felt her reaping extend further east. The fire had jumped the river. Perhaps she would make two trips this day.

“What is there to say?” His voice, despite the youthful body he had been reduced to, sounded ancient and old. She recalled her mentor and nodded to herself at the similarity.

“All beg, even those resolved in life. Some of these flowers belong to many near your age. Even this man,” she said, pointing to one skull, “was calm and resolved in his dying. He begs now, if only in whisper.”

There was that silence of movement as she guided the horse to the river.

“Do you not hear them?” Arbre said. “What they beg for? What he asks of you?”

“Salvation, peace, to be brought to their comfortable resting place.” She said it with absolution, so jaded to the words of the dead in these long millennia.

“No, not this man,” The spirit of the old tree said. “Listen. Listen as only one such as you can.”

She halted the horse and listened. The sound of the fire grew quieter, and the many voices of the dead now filling her saddle rose to her ears.

“What is this?” she started when a single voice spoke out above the rest.

“Please accept my sacrifice. Please death. Accept it so this may stop. Please, oh why don’t you stop?”

“Your sacrifice?” She said. Her hands wrapped around the skull and brought it before her. Around the bone she could make out the shadow that once was the man. His eyes beckoned towards her. “What sacrifice do you perform?”

“These woods, this blaze. We set it so that Marilina may live. A great sacrifice.”

“Plant and animals so a human may live,” Arbre said. He sounded disgusted.

She found herself chuckling. It was a hollow empty thing, dry and crumbling in her long dead lungs.

“Oh, mortal. You think death will restore life? Sacrifice to restore the lost? No, no we reap all death, and we are greedy. But as you have been so giving to us today, we will reward you. We will grant you something greater. A memento to your gift.”

The old man’s skull screamed but she smiled at him. She would finish her reaping here, and return to the underworld. There, all would be deposited, ignorant of what they have become after the ride.

“What holds for him?” Arbre asked.

“He will retain his knowledge of death, and in doing so will experience it again and again until the last sun sets.”

She could feel Arbre De Grand-Pere shudder, then try to whisper something that did not meet her ears.

“Speak, ancient oak. Speak. I would hear your consol.”

“I would, I would like to bear witness to this. For the sake of my forest.”

She frowned. This was not what she expected.

“You would suffer too. You would experience your death endlessly. It would not bring you joy.”

“It would bring me closure.”

“These are not the concepts of your kind. Only animals that think know of the true passing of time. I would not see a soul like yours corrupted by beasts.”

Arbre bristled.

“Then maybe we can come to a bargain,” he said. “Allow me to witness it but once, then I can travel with you. A sprig of once living nature in your helm until the last sunset.”

She nodded.

“Very well, ancient oak. A glimpse of righteous, then an eternity of reaping.”

She didn’t like this agreement, but it was what she had made millennia ago when she too was an ancient wooden giant. He sounded like her mentor, but she would take that role for him. In time, the ancient oak would be a reaper too. In time, he would forget the man who burned the woods. A nameless soul in a sea of the entropy of the world.

The figure of death as a lone dark skeletal form riding on a pale horse, the reaper with their scythe, or a punky dressed teen hanging out before a mob scene. Death has appeared in many forms in media over the years, and it’s always a stirring squirming thought in our heads.

I also find fascination with stories that talk about deals with the devil. When they involve death, don’t those deals require a certain bit of a more direct supernatural advocate? Today’s story was a combination of those two concepts, and with the additional notion that even the spirits plants need to be reaped you end up with a very busy reaper during a tragedy.

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Flash Fiction: Under The Crown

Today’s story is inspired by Manticore, by Lucas Graciano.

“You want me to spare you?” The beast sounded furious. Its claws racked at the rocks, reached for me. “After all you’ve done?”

I caught my breath. He couldn’t get in the small rocky hollow I had found in the hill. This had been my plan D, the worst case scenario. Plan A was to have the arrow in the manitcore’s side be between his eyes. He had dodged at the last moment. Plan B was the nets the creature’s spiny tail had shredded. Plan C was running before he spotted me, but I had failed to realize how well the creature could see at night. Plan D was to hide in the rock until he got bored.

It had been nine hours and he still wasn’t bored.

“Mistakes were made,” I said. “You were the wrong creature I was slated to find.”

“Lies!” The beast screamed at me. “I know of the bounty the river men have on my mane. I know because you are not the first hunter. Nor will you be the last.”

It clawed at a loose rock again. It had been working that one for a few hours. I pushed my sword out and trust it again at the paw, nearly hitting it this time.

“Stop that. I won’t let you in.” I honestly didn’t know if moving that rock might help the manticore further into the cave, but he was convinced now I thought it was important to keep him away from the stone. It kept him from noticing the real entrance.

“I will eat you, most of you. Then I will parade your carcass over the crown as a warning to the next hunter. Your bones will bleach in burning sun.”

“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?”

He roared.

“So then what happened to the last hunter?” I asked.

“I ate him, and put the remains on the crown.” He reached for the stone again but pulled his paw back before I even raised my blade.

“I didn’t see him. Not a good warning if the next hunter doesn’t see it.”

The beast paused.

“No, It, it wasn’t. You are still here. I will not eat you! I will just kill you and leave your carcass on the crown!”

“For the crows? And why are you so obsessed about the crown? What crown are you talking about?”

“Here, above us!”

“Above these rocks? I can’t see up there. And no hunter’s going to try and get up there if they’re just going to shot at you.”

“I can easily see it,” he said.

“Well, go over by the pond, down there. That’s where I approached. See if you can see it from there.”

The manticore paused, then left the entrance of the cave. I didn’t budge as I listened to his large leathery wings striking the air.

“Yes, you’re right,” I heard his voice in the distance. “I cannot see it from here. I will eat you and leave your carcass here at the river bed as a warning to the next hunter.”

“Good luck to him,” I thought. I considered leaving, but thought better of it as the large wings came back.

“I will eat you and leave your body at the river” He said as he approached. He scratched at the entrance and then stopped. “Are you still in there?”

I could hear his claws scrapping at the ground outside the cave as if he was pacing or moving back and forth. He then reached his claw in again towards the rock, but I didn’t poke him with the blade. The rock fell with ease and the entrance opened just a little wider. I prayed to the forest this would work.

“You’re gone! A trick! A trick to get me to leave the cave!” His voice grew louder as his anger grew, and then I heard those large wings again.

I poked my head out of the cave and saw him heading towards the river town I had come from. They could keep their gold. This hunt wasn’t worth it any more. I headed the opposite direction as quickly as I could.

Nothing wrong with a fun romp through the world of fantasy, hunting monsters, and trying to not be dinner. On a side note when I read this story out loud during editing, I found myself rather painfully speaking deep for the manticore’s voice. If this one ever comes out in audio, know I suffered for the art.