Until the Game is Over

Cedric wiped the blood from his stiletto onto one of the few patches of his ragged cape not already caked with pixelated gore. He closed his eyes. It would be a couple of turns before the enemy reinforcements caught up with him.

“I’m still alive, you know,” said Kyra, huddled in the corner of the small, nondescript room.

“And you have, what, one point of health left? I’m all out of potions.”

“Step away from the door. I can still eliminate a few of them before she stops beating herself up for making a bad play and starts the game back up.”

Cedric laughed. “What’s the point? Even if they eliminate us both, she’s going to reset the game eventually, and maybe not the next time, but at some point she’s bound to get us through this chapter alive.”

“You know, she’ll win the game soon,” said Kyra, sighing. “There are only four chapters left. When we reach the end and get to live out our virtual lives in virtual peace, I don’t want to have to remember myself dying without a fight a billion more times.”

“How do you know you’ll even make it to the end?” Cedric said. He heard shouting from beyond the short hallway where his Lord unit had recently fallen, causing the “Game Over” for the player.

“She always resets when someone’s eliminated.”

“In Easy and Normal modes, yes. But this is Hard mode. She may not be so willing to reset the game from now on without Lady Rosa being taken down.”

“Do you really think she’ll quit after this round?” Kyra asked. “Last time, when she waited a month to start playing on Hard mode, I’d thought maybe, just maybe she’d let us be without coming back for the final challenge.”

Cedric shrugged his shoulders. “Look on the bright side, if she goes for round two and you’re lost during this playthrough, you’ll be revived.”

“True.” Kyra shuddered. “Have you ever talked to Barlo about what it was like, being gone—totally wiped from existence—until she switched game modes, after his sudden but inevitable betrayal?”

“Serves Barlo right, betraying us again and again.” Cedric tried to sound serious, but he couldn’t help but put up a half-smile. It wasn’t like Barlo could do anything about the game’s storyline. He had to betray them, every time.

“It’s scary, being slaves to the game, you know, Cedric?”

The duo’s pursuers dashed into view, unwieldy lances swinging. “We don’t want to kill you,” one said.

“Neither do I,” said Kyra. She frowned as she gripped her Electricity tome in one hand and forced its energy out of her other hand twice, reducing the first enemy soldier to three points of health.

Cedric drew a dagger and jabbed it into the weakened man’s chest. He disappeared.

The first of the surviving enemies stepped up and thrust his lance where Cedric’s lightly-armored torso had been just before he’d deftly leapt aside. He stabbed at the soldier in return a couple of times with his dagger. The other enemies stepped forward, waiting their turn to face off against the Level 7 Rogue.

“I should level up this time,” said Kyra. She switched out her Electricity tome for a Blaze tome and eliminated the wounded Level 15 soldier with a lofted fireball. “Yep.”

“What did you get?” asked Cedric. He switched his dagger out for his stiletto and hurled it at the enemy two squares away. It appeared back in his hand, virtually bloodied.

“Just Magic and Skill. I’m a little disappointed, but I won’t get to keep them anyway.”

The Voice of the Game boomed from on high: “Nope, sorry. But she just turned the game back on, so you might have a chance at better stat changes. You two appear in the first cut-scene in 3…2…1…”

Kyra and Cedric shook hands as the world faded to black.

Under Bendel's Sway

Unfortunately, I can't figure out a way to link directly to the story, but if you scroll through these comments a bit, you'll find my entry in the 80th iteration of the Microcosms flash fiction contest.  It's titled "Under Bendel's Sway," it's 300 words in length, and it can be variously labeled as thriller, horror, or fantasy. Find it here.

(Added Note: I got 2nd-place out of the 16 entries!)

Best in Town

(Note: This story was my entry in the 31st round of the Microcosms contest.  My prompts were: Ice Cream Vendor [character], Thunderstorm [setting], and Mystery [genre].)

            The sky octopi were doing their dirty work as the line began to form.  A few raindrops fell to the sidewalk beside my cart.

            I counted each of the women as they approached.  Ten.  Twenty.  Thirty.  They were all gorgeous, and almost all of them ordered vanilla ice cream in a waffle cone.

            Lightning split the skyline, but none of the customers bothered to look.  They kept their eyes locked on my face.  I shivered.  Crowds attract crowds, right? I thought.

When the storm opened up, I expected my line to rush away in a frenzy; instead, the women all pulled umbrellas from behind their backs, opened them, and resumed their staring.  I adjusted my waxed mustache.

            A few of the women ordered novelty items or chocolate cones, just frequently enough to keep me in stock of vanilla while my wife brought over two more tubs from our apartment down the block.

            “What is going on?” my wife whispered to me, leaning in close.  She smiled at the growing tendril of patrons.

            “I really wish that I knew.”  I turned to my next customer.  “And what can I get for you today, ma’am?”

            The woman took a small brass statue out of her jacket and set it on my cart.  It was shaped like an ice cream cone.  “I would like to congratulate you.”

            Some of the tension left my shoulders.  “What is this?” I asked.

            “It’s an award,” said the woman.  “Your homemade vanilla ice cream has been voted the Best Ice Cream in Portland by the Portland Coven.”

            “By the Cov—”  I coughed.  Witches.  Huh.  “Thank you very much.”

            The witch set a second, smaller statue in front of me.  “And this one is for Best-Looking Cart Vendor.”  Fifty witches winked at me in unison.  I blushed.

The Rejuvenation Potion of Antioch

        The viscous green fluid in Cassandra’s cauldron flashed white as she dropped a pig’s ear into her brew.  Her hands trembled.  She groped the table behind her for a handful of newt eyes.  She didn’t turn.  There wasn’t time.
        Rat tail.  Molasses.  Three extra-large pepperoni pizzas—though anchovy would have been better.
        Cassandra wafted her potion, eyes watering.  Not right.  What was she missing?  She yanked the phone from her pocket.
        “Joey.  Urgent.  Last ingredient in the rejuvenation potion of Antioch?”
        “Of Antioch?  Well—”
        “Please, Joey.  My dog is about to keel over.”
        “The feather of a hawk.  It must be from the—”
        Cassandra knocked her supply table nearly clean.  Her right hand brushed a tiny stack of feathers.  She plucked a brown one up, tossed it in the pot, stirred her mixture, and dipped an ancient bucket down into it.  She plopped it down before her shepherd, then hoisted her head into the potion.
        Gulp.  Gulp.  Thud.
        Cassandra’s phone rang.  She let it ring.  “From the tail,” he was about to say.  A feather from anywhere else will make a poison.
        Her dog.  Poisoned.  Twice.  By her.

Four Years Two Days Ago

Into the Ravenous Maw had its fourth blogiversary on the 15th.  I was still a freshman in high school when I started this blog.  My writing skills have improved greatly over the last few years.  Though I won't denounce my early posts, I definitely feel that my more recent posts have been some of my best.

I'm still not back into any sort of regular pattern of blogging.  I'd like to post more often than I had been before April, and I have to time to do it until college starts back up at the end of August.  One post a week would suffice, I think.  I would like to focus on quality of posts over quantity, of course, but quantities hovering around zero have their weaknesses regardless of quality.  There may be some TV show reviews or analyses coming in the near future.  I've been spending a good bit of time watching shows on Netflix, time that I hope will both aid me as a writer and give me some blogging ideas.

My rate of writing is low as always.  I need to work on that.  I've been absorbing a good bit of writing lately though, which is great.  There's also some editing to do and stories that need to be sent out yet again.  I've had no luck in recent months besides the poems published in my college's literary magazine (and a win in the--sadly--final round--at least for the time being--of the Finish That Thought contest back in mid-January; you can read that story here).

All things considered, it's been a pretty good year.  I graduated from high school and slogged through two semesters of college (all with 4.0 GPAs) in the last blogging year.  I turned eighteen.  I wrote some good flash fiction and managed to pull off a few good poems.  I filled the pulpit at my church for three regular services and one contemporary service.  And so on.  The next year will prove even better, I pray.  I hope it goes well for all of you too.

Genre Hopping

Highbrow literary types annoy me.  Actually, they don't even need to be highbrow.  I suppose I'm a hypocrite in some ways with how I treat the literary form of prose, but if proponents of literary writing back off from dissing genre writing I'll be happy to do the same.  Their arguments are archaic and ignorant to what knowledge of the craft good genre fiction writers possess.  Excluding the classics, they don't even have sufficient readers to back them up.

I was thinking of an example to use in an argument supporting speculative fiction ideals and came up with "a wizard casts a spell on a tree."  Yes, that does place the ball in my court, doesn't it?  I still think the comparison can work though.

Here's my spec fic writer version:

Uleria deadpanned his chant, eyes glazing over the twisted network of willow branches.  The needles swayed under his power.  He closed his hand tight and hissed.  The whole of the tree blazed into a blue-hot inferno, brighter than the gray-blue sky of the evening.

Here's my literary writer version:

Uleria cast his words flat as one might throw a discus.  His arcane energy bristled on his lips.  The tall willow tree before him threw up a dozen terrified arms.  Unable to flee, it danced, its shimmering akin to the rain of sequins on the dress of a gyrating woman.  Uleria clenched his worn ebony fist and hissed.  A blanket of blue-eyed flames enveloped the forsaken tree.  Beside it the evening sky was dull.

This post will inevitably fail to prove my point perfectly since I'm not all too learned in the literary ways.  It would probably do better if I were to ask someone who writes in the literary style to compose a paragraph based upon "a wizard casts a spell on a tree" and use that rather than my version.  But I'm actually writing a blog post and I want to try to make my point as best I can alone, right now, before I can delay it.

Every sentence from the original version has more than one purpose.  The first part of the first sentence establishes Uleria as a character and shows an action.  The second part gives away a tiny detail about the nature of what Uleria is doing and/or how he is doing it (thus character detail), and it gives a description of the tree that evokes a stark image in very few words.  The second sentence shows a consequence of Uleria's action with another image of the tree, emphasizing the cause to the effect.  It is shorter than the first sentence to give balance.  The third sentence reveals a pair of actions in an abrupt manner, both because they don't need to be embellished and because a second shorter sentence here compliments the flow of the paragraph as a whole.  The fourth sentence shows a further consequence to the action with precise language, giving a clear picture of not only the tree, but the sky as well.  The sentence also reveals the time of day of this event.  In this paragraph, point-of-view is emphasized.  The camera lens is focused on what Uleria is focused on.

The second version is thirty words longer than the first (seventy-four words vs. forty-four words) without actually revealing anything extra.  It brings a variety of images to mind with figurative language and may stimulate the senses more than the original version, but those images distract from the story.  The sentences are given a length based not so much on flow as on how long it takes to draw up an image.  In this paragraph, point-of-view is abandoned in favor of an artistic narrator.

Is there a place for literary writing?  Certainly.  If you like it, you like it.  But I simply don't understand how some people can feel there is no place for genre writing that doesn't try to emulate literary methods.  Maybe you have to learn from a genre writer to appreciate the art that is genre writing.  Maybe the two art forms aren't even siblings, but only cousins, only one of which the average reader may favor.  I cannot say for sure.

Some Contest Entry Stories

"Usually the Arsenic Works" (Contemporary Fantasy; Special Challenge Runner Up that week)
"Two For Hell" (Horror)
"Rivulets" (Christian)

Omniscience For a Day (Part 1/4)

It's not best for someone in this business to give up on a story, but for my purposes, it isn't exactly giving up to post a story on my blog for free rather than continuing to send it places after it's been rejected several times.  I could put it up on QuarterReads, but it's really not lucrative anyway.  What I'm getting at is that over the next several days, I shall be posting a story I wrote titled "Omniscience For a Day," broken down into four parts.  I've done serials on this blog a few times before and have serialized short stories as well.  They shouldn't be too hard to find (though I really should change the labels on them to be more distinct).  If you're interested and don't feel like searching, leave a comment and I'll be happy to point you toward all such posts.  Anyway, without further adieu, the first part of "Omniscience For a Day":

Martha tripped down her favorite spiral staircase.  Her head struck the first landing with a resounding thud, the sound almost drowning out her piercing scream.  The world flickered and died in her blood-shrouded vision.

Through a thick haze, Martha detected three orbs of colored light.  As she blinked they gained some solidarity, but a halo of dazzling light remained.

"Lady Martha of the Cornerland?" a voice boomed.  The leftmost orb, ringed in blue, seemed to vibrate with the words.

Martha tried to speak, but fluid filled her throat.  She coughed and sputtered.  "Yes.  Where?  How?"

The rightmost, orange orb began to buzz.  "You have been granted by the Council of the Second-Life a third chance at life.  Your second-life was not pleasing to the Council of the Afterlife, yet the Council of the First-Life is adamant that you be granted Paradise."

"First-life?" Martha gurgled.

"Never mind," communicated the green, middle orb. "In any case, we, the Councilmen of the Second-Life, have sentenced you to one day of omniscience, followed by the resumption of your second-life on a trial basis.  If after this period this council deems you worthy, you shall be allowed to finish your second-life as you wish."

Martha threw herself down to the cold marble floor.  The last of the muck in her head drained away as she tottered in a cross-legged position, glaring at the three talking orbs.  She retched.  A thick clump of coagulating blood pooled before her slippered feet.  The feeling of helplessness in her lungs subsided.

The orange orb shone in a way that may have synonymized smiling.  “Now that you have refreshed your Life Court form, we shall send you on your way,” it said.

“Where am I going?”  Violent force tugged at Martha’s stomach as a phantom gale ripped her from the realm.

Just Your Average Berserking Family Man

And here it is, my new blog background, courtesy of my cousin Zachary Shenal (you can find his info at the bottom of the blog page), along with the story I have written to accompany it.  If you like the photo, please visit Zach's current Indiegogo campaign page.

            Edward stooped down to the cool, wet grass and examined the patch of fungi his elder son had run home to tell him about.  They appeared to be the correct shape: thin stalk, tall head with a moderate brim.  The regal purple of the heads looked poised against the glowing white of the stalks.  Not the most potent, Edward decided, but they would work.

            He placed the mushrooms in a sack and jogged back toward his home.  When he returned, his sons were already putting on their armor.  He smiled.

            “The water is boiling,” said Edward’s wife from inside the house.

            Edward dumped the mushrooms into the pot straight from his sack.  “How long?” he asked his daughter, who was sharpening his sword.

            “A quarter hour,” she replied.  She handed him his padded leather gloves.

            “Thank you, Mara.”  He slipped them on and flexed his fingers.

            Jonathan, the elder son, stepped through the threshold.  “Father, Michael is a little nervous.  He can’t hold his axe steady.”

            “I will talk to him, thank you.  I know you just honed it, but give your sword a few extra swipes with the whetstone.”  Edward strode out the door and put a hand on the shoulder of his shaking younger son.

            “What if they kill you, Father?”

            Edward chuckled.  “Oh, is that your worry, boy?”

            “There are ten of them and only three of us.  And you aren’t even wearing armor.”

            “You’re old enough now, I suppose.”

            “For what?”

            Edward opened his shirt to show his chest.  A dozen long, thick scars covered the surface.

            “Father…”  Michael went pale.  “Are you an Unbreakable?”

            “A more ancient Order, son.  My father wanted me to be an Unbreakable when I was a lad, but Unbreakables cannot have children.  I am an Ironheart, the last in this hill country.  That is why they have come to kill me.  The foreigners fear the Orders more than anything else.”

            “Will they fight me, father?”

            “Don’t you worry, son.  Hold your axe firm, but do not be afraid.  This battle is mine.  And if I am slain, it is your brother’s.”

            “I love you, Father.”  Michael wrapped his powerful young arms around his father’s blessed chest.

            “I love you too, son.”

            Edward’s wife handed him a wooden bowl.  “Fight hard.”

            Edward gave his wife a kiss.  Then he turned away and drank.  A party of men crested a hill near the old tree stump where he had gathered his shrooms.

            The world became blood and Edward’s heart became iron.  He growled and his sons joined him in battle.

What is a Drabble and How Do You Craft One?

It's nearly impossible to write a drabble.  Why?  Well, a drabble is a story built from exactly 100 words.  Crafting a drabble is therefore difficult, but altogether doable.  Trying to write a drabble is a lot more difficult.  Allow me to explain.

If you'd like to experiment with the literary form that is the drabble, my first advice to you is to not try to write a drabble.  Taking an idea and drafting it in exactly 100 words is a highly restrictive task that compromises the fabric of the story you are trying to tell.  The first step in crafting a drabble is to find an idea that you believe can terminate in 100 words.  This may take some practice.  If you aren't familiar with writing flash fiction, you may find yourself taking your story idea and turning it into something many times longer than a drabble.  That's perfectly fine, if your goal is simply to write a story and to have fun doing so.  Coming up with a drabble idea is quite difficult and not fully predictable.

The second step in crafting a drabble is to write a story based upon your idea.  If you want to make an outline you can, but for something this small, an outline only compresses the freedom of your writing.  It doesn't matter how long your first draft ends up, though any longer than 200 words and you'll have your work cut out for you.

After you have your first draft of your story, which probably isn't a drabble, but could be, the next step is to add or cut words until the story is within a few words of your goal of 100.  So far as I remember, I've only actually finished a story in less than 100 words while attempting to craft a drabble on a single occasion.  Normally, you will end up with more than 100 words and have to cut.  For the rest of this post, I will use my story "One Test Remains" as an example.

I wrote "One Test Remains" at a musical practice one day, with a pencil in a notebook.  It finished out at 124 words, not all that bad.  The same notebook contains the first drafts to two of my other stories, "Once and For All" and "An Ancient Beverage."  Those stories finished at 139 words and 127 words respectively.  When I went to type up "One Test Remains," I tried to get it as close to 100 words with basic cuts as possible.  (For "An Ancient Beverage," I actually rewrote the story to 106 words directly in my notebook.)

Here is what the first draft of "One Test Remains" looked like:

     Phillip dropped to his knees.  The iron head of a throwing ax arced over his skull, rending a patch of thin grey hair from his scalp.

     “Good work,” Commander Jean said.  He strode past Phillip and pulled his ax from the grass.

    “Am I a sage yet?” Phillip asked.  His wrinkled cheeks rippled.

     Jean consulted a long sheet of oiled calfskin.  “One test remains.”

     “And that is?”

     An ancient man, his skin dripping from bony limbs, hobbled onto the green from the barrack.  A green orb was etched below his right eye.

     “Him,” Jean said.  He frowned.  “You must kill the Elder in order to become a sage.”

     Phillip’s mouth went arid.  “Father.”  A sphere of blue flame erupted from his palm.  “Forgive me.”

It's a pretty tight first draft.  However, when you write a drabble, you have to cut everything that can be assumed and every adjective that doesn't matter to the story.

This is what the final draft looks like:

     A throwing ax arced over Phillip’s skull, rending a patch of thin hair from his scalp.

     “Good dodgery,” Commander Jean said.  He strode to his ax.

    Phillip’s weathered cheeks rippled.  “Am I a sage yet?”

     Jean consulted a sheet of oiled parchment.  “One test remains.”

     “And that is?”

     An ancient man, skin dripping from bony limbs, hobbled onto the green from the barrack.  An orb was etched below his right eye.

     Jean frowned.  “You must kill the Elder in order to become a sage.”

     Phillip’s mouth went arid.  “Father.”  A sphere of blue flame erupted from his palm.  “Forgive me.”

As you can see, they're quite similar, the second one just has as few descriptive words as possible.  You get all of the story and its associated flavor but almost nothing else.  That's what drabbles are for.  They allow you to infer a huge story through the reading of a microscopic story.  Most adjectives can be deleted.  An action can be replaced by a change in dialogue.  Any word that isn't required by the story can be removed.

I don't have an intermediate step to show, but often when writing a drabble one round of editing won't get the story to exactly 100 words.  In that case, give the story a second pass and really focus on exactly what the story is trying to do.  Often, the essence of the story is at the very end, for drabbles.  In this case, it's the reveal that to become a sage, Phillip must kill his father and that he is willing to do so.  This implies a larger story, one set in a world in which patricide is not nearly as taboo as it is in ours.  It also allows readers to wonder what sort of person Phillip is.  The 84 words leading up to the final paragraph allow the final 16 words to have an impact.

Crafting drabbles isn't easy and crafting good drabbles is even harder.  I've written about nineteen drabbles, three of which I expanded beyond 100 words (such as "Thought He Looked Familiar").  Of the sixteen stories that remain drabbles, I only consider nine of them to be good, as compared to my full pool of work.  Three of them were published by SpeckLit.com, where I was paid the minimum professional rate of the time.  If you'd like to read some drabbles before you attempt to craft them, I definitely recommend reading some of those to be found at SpeckLit.com.

Once and For All

     Darkness swallowed the horizon in one ravenous gulp.  Swathes of firmament submitted to the torrent of premature night.

     Mathos shivered.  His heart was a lump of ice.  Bile rose in his throat, sludgy as the blackness above.

     “Mathos,” cried Elle.  “You see that?”  Her voice quavered.

     A staff appeared in Mathos’ fist.  His eyes burned.  “Yes, my wife.  This time I must vanquish the Dark One once and for all.”

     Elle leapt at him, a silent scream on her lips.  Her fingers sunk in a pool of light.

     Mathos soared, bearing the shape of a dove, and entered the darkness.

The Spirit of the Typhoon

My latest flash fic, a fantasy story I entered in Vol 2-42 of the Flash! Friday contest: "The Spirit of the Typhoon."

Lost Love and Nightprowlers (Part 3)

     Wasp dropped his dagger.  Oaths spewed from his mouth as he spun to bolt.  He barely made it a pace before the nemu struck him across the back, tossing him to the ground.  His footing returned long enough to stare at the massive form of the beast.  Three slits marred Wasp’s leather tunic, the cuts deep enough to show the full thickness of his flesh.  Blood pulsed from the wounds.  He dropped down to one knee and cried out in pain.

     Rowan sidestepped.  He saw the nemu’s jaw open, strings of saliva sparkling in the light of a moonbeam.  Its eyes blazed red like fire above a set of white canines.  He looked away as they crunched down on his companion.  Shrieks droned from the carriage.  They sounded like Sarah’s, just before she joined the eternal darkness.

     “A real monster,” Valter said, moving to get a better view.  “I’ve always wanted to test my hand on a nightprowler.”  He charged, sword to the side of his raised buckler.  The blade plunged into the nemu.

     Black ichor spilled from the beast’s gnarled, bony neck.  It reared and struck out with a jointed limb below Valter’s shield.  He took a step back, groaning.  Covering all he could with his buckler, Valter lashed out again.  The nemu licked the new gash to the thin sinew of his flank.  Valter took the opportunity to slash again, severing its spiny tongue.  Teeth slammed down onto the sword, breaking off its tip.

     “Valter,” Rowan shouted.  His boots refused to lift from where they were planted.  He leered into the pupils of the nemu.

     “Loot the blasted carriage, Rowan.  I’ll handle the nightprowler.”  Valter drove his sword hilt down on the nemu’s pointed nose.  It toppled backward.  A battle cry poured out from Valter’s lips.  He leaped onto the nemu.

     Rowan’s heart pounded in his chest.  He turned his head toward where Wolf had been last he’d noticed.  The wily man was on his knees, hands folded.  Rowan had to force his mouth shut.  He took a step toward the carriage.  “I should aid them, not snatch their silver.  How would my Sarah think of me now?”

     A shrill, goat-like bleat tore through the night behind Rowan.  Darkness shrouded its owner.  Rowan drew his dagger from its scabbard.

     Valter snarled.  “Another one?” he bellowed.  His breathing was heavy.

     “Female,” Rowan said.  He twisted to look at Valter crouching over the still corpse of the nemu.  The armor over his torso hung in tatters.

     “I fear my sword shan’t steal another, not tonight,” Valter said.  Rowan strained to hear the words.  “Not if I am to see the morrow.”

     Rowan nodded.  “Return to the cave.  I’ll see this one to its grave or me to mine.  That I vow.  For Sarah.”  He had to stop himself from tossing his dagger between Valter’s rolling eyes.

     A similar creature trotted into view.  Curved horns rose from her skull.  Skin formed a pouch on her underbelly, stretched as if recently emptied.  Rowan’s eyes lined up with the appendage.

     “God, spare me,” Wolf said aloud, still on his knees.  The nemu shifted to look at him.

     Rowan took a step forward.  He whirled his dagger once in a circle, scattering moonlight.  His whole body shook.

     The nemu sped to a gallop.  She struck Wolf on the head.  The cracking of bone was audible.  Wolf howled, clutching at his skull.  “Rowan,” he cried.

     Rowan ran up to the beast and stabbed into her nearer hind leg.  Ichor poured out over his weapon, onto his hands.  She threw back her wounded leg, striking Rowan in the shin.

     Rowan’s face hit the dirt.  His head spun.  Two blue specks seemed to skim across the black hide of the nemu.  He put his weight on his good leg and widened the wound he had made.  This time, Rowan twisted away from the retaliating blow.

     Wolf scrambled toward the carriage in Rowan’s peripheral vision.  A dagger wobbled in his hand, then soared toward the nemu, hitting it in the eye.  The beast made a sound like a horn and lashed out with both front limbs.  Wolf toppled back in a heap.

     Rowan jumped under the nemu.  Its ribs were sunken, gaunt.  He slit the length of one bone, releasing a torrent of fluid.  The beast shuffled her hooves.  Rowan’s free hand crumbled under one stomp.  He recoiled, biting back a scream.

     The nemu backpedaled.  Her horns glistened.  Drool fell from her lips, falling on Rowan’s boots.  The smell burned his nostrils.  She tossed her head, nipping his stomach.  Wolf’s dagger slipped from her eye, doused in ichor.  It fell with a clatter beside Rowan’s crippled hand.

     Rowan forced his cracked fingers open and gripped the dagger.  With both raised, he propelled himself to one side, forcing them deep into the nemu’s working eye.

     A deep croak emitted from her throat in spite of her usual cry.  She thrashed, sending Rowan sprawling.  He cried out between haggard breaths, “I will protect them, if my life is the cost.”

     Rowan drew back one dagger.  He shot his arm forward, delivering a hard blow to the Nemu’s gaping ribcage.  Breath streamed from his lips in shallow huffs.  Both legs strained to allow him to stand.  He laid a final blow to the nemu’s heart.  The dagger slipped from his grasp.

     Someone wrapped her arms around his shoulder.  A cold tear touched his neck.

     Rowan looked up into the deep brown eyes of a young girl.  Her ebony hair brushed the scrapes on his cheeks.  “Sarah,” he said.  “I saved them.”

Lost Love and Nightprowlers (Part 2)

     A brook burbled amid the oaks of the Fairwood.  Thickets and shrubs grew randomly, choking out the short emerald grass that spotted the landscape.  The thieves’ cave camouflaged amongst the greenery.  Tinges of red and orange were only beginning to betray its stealth. 

     Flattened undergrowth formed a path under Rowan’s feet.  A light crunch emitted with each step.  Above, the air smelled of light decay, a sort of sweet, subtle aroma.

     The Triplet Moons shone in a cloudless sky.  Melanie, the brightest, hung far to the west on the horizon.  Rowan guided his band in its direction, traversing some thousand paces.

     The bustle of an ox-pulled wagon revealed Count Lungren’s Highway long before it came into view.  By the time they could see the packed dirt and drainage channels of the Highway, the cart was too far off to make out in the blackness.

     “Lay low,” Rowan whispered.  The other men nodded. 

     With those words, Rowan’s thoughts turned back to his fallen Sarah.  Memory flashed before his eyes.  She had told him to lay low, to apologize if he had to.  It wasn’t worth getting into another fight over.  He didn’t listen, couldn’t listen over the lust for blood pounding in his temples.  The drunkard returned Rowan’s sloppy hook with an ales mug to Sarah’s head.  He stood there, gaping, as the brute sent her to the tavern floor in a crumpled heap.  By the time he found the sense to knock him off his stool, she was gone.  Rowan coughed back a sob.

     Melanie arched a full finger’s length in the sky before the clop of horseshoes became loud enough to hear.  Two tall, dun horses emerged from the shadows.  Their forms wavered, backlit by two torches affixed to a carriage.  The driver sat on a velvet pad atop a high-seat.  He glanced in the thieves’ direction and crinkled his brow.

     “Release,” Rowan said, just above a whisper.  Wolf shot out from behind a bush, his dagger stuck out in front of him.  Valter raised an iron-rimmed buckler and followed.  Lock pick in hand, Wasp crept toward the covered body of the carriage.

     The driver’s drooping eyes flew open.  His hand crawled to the knife scabbard at his belt.  Wrapping the reins around one wrist, he scrambled to his feet and swore.  Wolf drove an elbow into his leg, knocking him back onto his seat.  A flick of the driver’s knife came within a hair-breadth of Wolf’s throat.  Wolf’s manner lit up, turning even smugger.  He plucked the knife from where it had imbedded into one of the poles supporting a canopy and somersaulted backward from the high-seat.

     A sword gleamed in the low light from above Valter’s fist.  Its hue tinted red, oozing, as Valter jabbed it clear into the driver’s ribcage and withdrew in one smooth motion.  Crimson dripped across his lips, spread by a sputtering cough.  The driver’s body spasmed, then slumped in the seat, lifeless.

     Rowan sprinted off to settle the horses as Wasp and Wolf ran to keep up with the vehicle.  He tore the reins from the driver’s failing grasp and whistled in a low-pitched whine.  The equines slowed.

     Inside the carriage the screaming had only just begun.  Wasp tinkered with his pick on the door’s entry-lock.  He mumbled as he worked, “Right, up, quarter-turn…”  The door slamming into his face stopped him short.

     A feminine voice called out, “I plead to you highwaymen, take all you can carry, but spare my daughter and me.”

     “We don’t kill maids, milady,” choked Wasp from the drainage channel.  He sounded hurt.

      A new cry flew through the black.  It brought all four looters to a martial stance, Wolf with his own howl and Valter a heavy grunt.  Rowan cut the reins before the horses could jerk the carriage away in their fearful frenzy.

     As Rowan glanced toward Wasp’s paralyzed form, his worst fears felt confirmed.  He couldn’t make anything out yet, but he had heard too many horrific tales to doubt the beast’s name.  A foul nemu stalked the night before them.  

Lost Love and Nightprowlers (Part 1)

     The sun was setting, Rowan could feel it.  It was time to go to work.  He brushed moist earth from his silk smallclothes and stood.  Creeping forward, he felt along rugged, rocky walls until his fingertips brushed against the glass of a lantern.  With a hard swipe of his dagger and a hunk of flint, a fire erupted inside it, bathing the cave in a haze of yellowish light.

     Two simultaneous groans rang out from the floor.  One was followed by a curse.  Its owner turned over on his makeshift bed of moss and linen strips.  The other man got to his feet, his amber eyes blinking hard.

     “Wolf,” Rowan said, turning up one corner of his mouth.  “Rest well?”

     “About as well as Charlie after he tried to snatch from that druid in the Elderwood,” Wolf replied.  “Doth thou besmirch my deified pockets?” he mimicked.  “May night be your bane, foul brigand, for under the moon you shall perish.”

     Rowan hooked his lips into a full grin.  “How did that bloke end up passing?”

     “Last I heard he was still scouring the High Road.  Only at first light, mind ye.  He’s still too afraid to leave his cave in the dark.”  Wolf gave a name-sake howl and dropped to his knees, rocking in his laughter.

     Rowan scanned around for his boots.  He found a sturdy fox-hide pair a few feet from his goose-down pillow.  A matching hide vest, covered in metal scales, lay beside it.  “He was quite a snatcher, that Charlie.  Never saw a lock he couldn’t pick.”

     “Much better than Wasp, for sure.”  Wolf patted the head of the still-sleeping man.

     “I heard that,” Wasp said.  “You two mongrels woke me from a wonderful dream.  I was pick-pocketing the King while he sat on a gilded throne.”

     Wolf snickered.  “You and your dreams.  The guards would have your head on a pike before you could cross the bailey.”

     Wasp turned, a scowl plain on his face.  “As if you could get past the gate with that hair of yours.  They’re likely to think you truly are canine.”

     “The Queen has more hair on her chin than you have on the full of your face, Wasp.  How will you ever dream yourself a wife for lack of whiskers?” Wolf taunted.  He stroked his thick beard.

     “What do you know of women, Wolf?”  He put up one bony fist.

     Wolf shoved Wasp against the wall, howling.  “I was promised back in Riermont when I came of age.  A plump maid, that Molly.”  He looked over at Rowan.

     Rowan grunted.  “Her name was Mary and she was my sister, if you recall.  A gentle, pious girl, two things you’ll never be.”

     Wolf bared his teeth.  He swapped his smallclothes for a pale green tunic, layered beneath a thick leather shirt. “She was pretty too, enough to bear the praying.  Yet not as pretty as Rowan’s lass.”       

     Rowan’s heart sunk.  His eyes darted to the cave mouth.  A large man stood guard there.  He turned around and gave a short bob of his head.  “It’s time to scour.”

     Wasp hauled himself up and began switching clothes.  “You never told me about this lass.”

     “She died,” Rowan said.  He strode toward the faint moonlight ahead, beckoning the others to follow.  Moisture welled up in his eyes.  He forced back the tears.  “And I was to fault,” he added, under a shaky breath.

     Wasp shivered.  “Oh.”

     “Cold, Wasp?  Or are ye scared of old Rowan?”

     “We’ll be snatching wool soon, Wolf.  If you haven’t noticed, it’s nearly Frosttime.”

     “No need to lie to us.  Rowan is quite scary when he wants to be.”

     Rowan nodded, paces from the exit.  “Yet a coward in the worst of moments,” he muttered.  In a higher voice, he called out, “Valter.”

     The burly guardsman took a step toward him.  There was nothing but stone in his grey eyes and weathered face.  A white line ran from his right cheekbone to the edge of his chin.  “Ready?”

     “Aye, Valter, a snatching we shall go.”  The party left the cavern in silence.

My First Two SpeckLit Drabbles

My first two drabbles published by SpeckLit.com can be found here and here.  The first is straight-up fantasy and the second is dark fantasy/horror.

The Last Page

      Mai swore.  She ran a finger along the jagged edge of a piece of oiled parchment.  The leather back of her tome mocked her.

     “It’s okay, Mai,” she muttered.  “I’ve performed the Ritual a thousand times.  I don’t need that page.”

     Mai’s breathing slowed.  “No, it can’t be coming this fast.”  Her heart crashed against her ribs for several beats.  Then its pumping went soft.  The setting sun, image shimmering through stained glass, dissolved—along with Mai’s vision.  She gurgled.

     The maid’s bright laughter echoed behind her.  Mai heard parchment crumble.

     Her other senses bled away, one at a time.

I'd Rather Fight the Zombie

"I'd Rather Fight the Zombie" is the 360-word fantasy flash fic I entered in the 27th round of the Flash Frenzy contest.  Results are pending.

Fallen But Not Forgotten

My fantasy flash fic "Fallen But Not Forgotten" was one of a few runners-up in the 26th round of the Flash Frenzy competition.  The judge had some nice comments for it.

Don't Mix Magics

"Don't Mix Magics" is a fantasy flash fic filled with faulty spellcasting, a bit of humor, and a speculative theme.  It did not win the 49th Finish That Thought contest, but it's still a decent tale.