Tag Archives: #amwritingfantasy

Fierce Combat in Moose Valley

battling moose

Photo taken at Grand Teton National Forest – Found at Parkcamper.com

Stop! Don’t read this unless you’ve first read The Runaway Stuffed Rabbit and then The Battle for the Holy Grail Moose Milk.

Sam was dressed almost like a cowboy version of Batman without the cape and mask. The big, floppy hat, and flowing long coat made up the difference though. He was also heavily armed with about every medieval weapon and gadget he could carry. He’d need all of it, too. The battle between the Moosemen the Demons was raging just ahead of him.

He thought about yelling out a war cry and diving right in among the Moosemen, having caught a glimpse of his good friend Ha Shu Moose in the melee, but then, spying a large tree overhanging a portion of the battle, he got an idea. Swiftly climbing the trunk and then the hardy lower branches, he perched himself above the Moose Army so he had a clear field of fire of the Demons.

The Hell spawns were trapped between the Moose Castle and its warriors, and the Moosemen from the village, but they were still holding their own. Sam, the Demon Slayer readied his device, which was a cross between a belt-fed machine gun and a crossbow. He unwound the unwieldy belt from his backpack and set up the contraption. It could fire a hundred arrows a minute, which meant he’d be out of ammo in five, but with the Demons all crowded together, that meant he couldn’t miss.

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The Dragon’s Library

library

Image found at “Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie.” No image credit listed.

It was a dream come true. Somehow, along with all of the children, a library had been brought from her world into the dragon city in the trees. Nine-year-old Paris walked inside with a solemnness usually reserved for a holy place, like the synagogue her parents took her to in Prague when she was six.

The library had merged with the forest. Trees were growing inside and bursting through the ceiling, and grasses were taking over the floorboards. She wondered where and when it came from. The globe in the corner didn’t look modern, but most of the books she could see seemed recent.

Then she realized only some of them were in English, and about only half were written in any human language.

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The Battle for the Holy Grail Moose Milk

moosemilk

Image from the Moosecraft YouTube channel.

Stop! Don’t read this unless you’ve first read The Runaway Stuffed Rabbit!

Alfred the Rainbow Rabbit sitting on the back of Merlyn the Dragon shot up into the air over Ana’s backyard like a bullet.

The nine-year-old girl’s Mom witnessing the astonishing sight nearly fainted, and the Buddy the Ambrosial Dragon followed the pair a scant second later. As Ana ran outside after all of them, a sudden whirlwind picked her up, and she flew into the air after all three of the supernatural beings.

Her Mom screamed, terrifying Ana’s little brother as he stared at these amazing events from the family’s back patio.

“Buddy! What are you doing? What’s going on?”

The dragon didn’t seem to hear the girl as all four of them continued to soar skyward toward a strange, black cloud.

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Massacre

avenue

© Sue Vincent

“It’s Shay! She’s trapped! We’ve got to save her!”

Seven-year-old Jake woke up panicked and hyperventilating in the shadow of a dragon’s grave.

“Jake. Take it easy. It’s okay.” His sister Mandy had him by the shoulders. His eyes looked glazed, like he was still asleep. She hugged him close to her. “It’s okay. We’re all here with you.”

He started to calm down but was still trembling. “Mandy, you’ve got to believe me. I saw Shay. She’s been captured, I don’t know how long ago. We’ve got to find her. They’ll kill her if we don’t.”

Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. “You said you saw Shay in a dream?” It was Dani, the dragonrider. Her voice was calm, but her own experiences told her that dreams carried great and terrible messages.

The little boy pulled away from his sister and looked back. “Yes. She was in some dark place, a forest or a cave maybe. They had her tied up in chains. She looked awful, all cut up, bruised, and bleeding.”

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Scourge of the South China Sea

Ching Shih

YouTube/Wikimedia Commons/ATI Composite – Ching Shih

Sixteen-year-old Robin Burgess approached the waves on the shore a private island off Macau, the beach more pristine than even those of the big island of Hawaii. She moved with an exaggerated swagger, rather than a sensual movement to her hips. Her lithe cocoa skin was barely attired in her cream-colored bikini, though no man or boy was present to witness. On this summer vacation, she meant to conquer the sea, not merely swim in it, as she clutched her fins in one hand, and her mask and snorkel in the other.

Upon donning her undersea accessories, she plunged into the surf, finally achieving propinquity with shell and finned fish alike. One of her companions was a small Tiger Shark, but it seemed more curious than threatening.

Off shore some minutes later, she surfaced to investigate the appearance of a Chinese Junk, the name Nene emblazoned on her bow accompanied by a painting of a gray-brown goose.

“The legends are true and she’s here right on time.”

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Police Pursuit

steampunk city

Steampunk wallpaper – Found at 1zoom.me

Some people don’t believe in heroes, but they haven’t met my Grandpa. –Anonymous

Keisha sat frozen in the pilot’s seat of the airship Graceful Delight as the image of her Grandpa, forty years younger than the day he died, stood like a living apparition just ten feet in front of her.

“Did you hear me? Let me take the controls, quickly!”

“Oh, yeah.” She stood up just as the Delight pitched to port and she sailed to the floor.

“Grab the netting and hang on.” Isaiah Covington immediately took the chair she had just vacated and began to work the controls. “I apologize for my lack of chivalry and social grace, but I’m afraid saving our lives must take precedence.”

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Ana Gets a New Friend

alfred

© James Pyles

“Well, I, Greigen the Shadow Dragon have found you. Not sure yet whether I shall tell the others. I rather fancy having this little hunting ground all to myself. Besides, you’re well off the proverbial beaten path, so it’s not like there’s a freeway leading to your door.”

“Yeah, well put up your dukes and let’s see who’s tough!” The bunny in the bow tie stood on his hind legs and raised his paws in his best boxer stance, but even Ana could tell he was quaking with fear.

“Oh, come now, bunny. You want to be eaten first, is that it? Fine, you shall be an appetizer, and your child friend will be a slightly larger appetizer.”

“You’ll have to get through me to get to her.”

Even though Ana was terrified almost senseless, some part of her felt amazed that the rabbit, who couldn’t wait to get rid of her, was now defending her to the death.

“Easily done.” The Shadow Dragon flicked a claw and sent the hare flying out of sight.

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Duel at Orholt

waiting

© Sue Vincent

There was the clatter of two pieces of wood rapidly striking each other, occasionally punctuated by a boy’s voice crying, “Ow!”

It was after another day of hiking, another day in the wilderness, climbing steadily up from the seashore into low hills, heading back toward the Dark Hills which were in fact mountains.

It was after another meal cooked by campfire, and young bellies now accustomed to wild game were satisfied (except for little Zooey who insisted on only fruits and vegetables similar to what a mouse or rabbit might consume). A nearby stream provided fresh water to slake thirst and for much needed, if chilly, bathing.

By the light of the fire and the stars, the Davidson children sat watching the two combatants earnestly plying their trade, or trying anyway.

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Behind the Eternity Door

collage

Found at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie

There was only one way for Adriene McKnight to follow Douglas Adams’s advice and that was to step out of the timestream. She’d never done it completely, of course, because then she’d lose all recognizable references and never get back, but she could exit the local stream far enough to let her see several others connected to her own.

Opa’s study. He had everything packed up to leave for England. It’s 1934 and the Nazis have made Hamburg an administrative Gau. He wasn’t her Opa then, only a young physician of 23, unmarried, and unwilling to become a pawn of the fascists.

The bust of Oma. She was so beautiful. Opa commissioned it as a wedding gift, only one of twelve female busts made by the famous Erik Van Aar. The sculptor died a year later making the bust worth a fortune. Opa wouldn’t sell it, even when he needed money to go to America in 1940.

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Sojourn in Direhaven

entrance

© Sue Vincent

Shay, the spectacular golden dragon, alighted in a wooded valley an hour after dawn. The dragonrider Dani along with the five Davidson children, were clinging to her back still shivering from their hasty flight in the frigid heights above the clouds. After their escape from the Hall of the Mountain Kings, pursued by the deadly spectres of the past, the dragon arrived just in time as the Great Gray God, mortal foe of the Kings, attacked. Vast destructive forces both of nature and magic were released and as the High Citadel crumbled into tons of rubble at the God’s feet, Shay soared far above the carnage in a desperate effort to save her children.

At last they were on the ground again at the promised place of safety, but where were they?

“I know this is difficult my children, but you can rest soon. Dani, help them onto the ground.”

The teenage girl slipped off the dragon’s neck with practiced ease, ignoring the chill in her bones and her profound fatigue, and reached up for Zooey. The kindergartner slid into the older girl’s arms and let herself be lowered to the ground. Mandy, the oldest of the Davidson’s, managed to get down on her own and Zooey ran over and clutched onto one of her legs, resting her head on her side.

Nine-year-old Taylor was next and while Dani was helping his twin sister Paris down, the boy grabbed his seven-year-old brother Jake and helped him off of the dragon.

“Where are we, Shay?” The Davidsons clustered around Dani.

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