"F" (Writers of Kern A-Z Blog Challenge)

Kehlee wanted to draw a baby aerial, so that's what we get for today's post, even though it has no relation to the topic.

We were circling the top spire the castle, trying to get a bird’s eye view of the battlefield and possibly spot a weak point in the attacking army’s positioning around our walls when my dragon roared in pain and began to spiral downwards, out of control. I clutched my knees to her neck and tried desperately to gather in her reins, to reorient ourselves as we fell, but she wasn’t responding to anything I said or did. We tumbled and bounced on the wind as her wings opened and closed without cause. Amidst the spinning, I was able to catch glimpses of the ground as it came rushing up towards us. I also saw men running and scrambling away from our would-be impact point. I couldn’t tell which side of the battle they fought for, or the colors of their shields. Everything was a blur, a whoosh of sound, and then we crashed, hard into the dirt and rocks. The impact knocked me from my mount, my head slammed into the dragon’s scales, and I blacked out before even hitting the ground.

I woke up to a cheering crowd of hundreds that surrounded me. Six men reached down, picked me up and lifted me into the air as if I had just won a jousting tournament. They bounced me up and down above them, which did wonders for my head, and I struggled not to vomit while they shouted and clapped.

“Launch him! Launch him! Launch him!” Were their joyous calls and I couldn’t quite figure out what they meant. I couldn’t even remember how I got here.

As the crowd parted for the men that were carrying me, I saw my dragon lying on the ground. The sight struck me with heart wrenching anger and I started to kick and struggle against the men.

“Hey! What are you doing to her? Let her go!” Her head was tied down by a rope that was lashed around her neck. Two other ropes held her feet in place. She still had use of her wings, but from that position, there wasn’t much she could do to move around. It looked painful to say the least.

“Launch him! Launch him! Launch him!”

“What the hell, man?” I shouted as I tried to get them to put me down, but their grips held fast and I couldn’t budge. “Let her go!”

Beside my dragon was a large trebuchet – a wooden catapult with a heavy counter weight on one end of a long beam, a basket at the other end, used to launch objects, usually stones into the air as weapons. Three guys from the crowd ran ahead and started cranking the arm down, preparing to fire.

Oh my god! They’re going to put her in the catapult! I thought. It wasn’t until we got closer that I realized they weren’t going to put my dragon in the trebuchet; they were going to put me in it!

Fear gripped my mind and my twisting and writhing excelled to new heights. Still, I was unable to break free of their grips. It was like they had vice-claws for hands and there was no escaping.

When my dragon heard my voice, she started to fight and strain against her bonds. She roared and bellowed from the crouched over position, struggling to break free of the ropes. But they too held fast. We were trapped and it wasn’t looking good.

The men threw me to the ground and pounced on me, rolling me onto my back where they tied my hands and feet together. From there, they hefted me up and positioned me in the trebuchet’s basket.

They were really going to do it! They were going to fire me from a catapult!

“Launch him! Launch him! Launch him!” The crowd cheered.

The lever was pulled and the g-forces that pressed into my back and side were tremendous, but they only lasted seconds.

I was fired into the air.

            The world spun. I saw ground and sky and castle wall and sky and wall and ground. I heard my dragon roar and then there was a sharp pain in my leg as I guessed my flight was over. Time must have slowed down in those final moments. I felt the pain in my leg from the initial impact spread over and expand into a wrenching agony on my shoulder. My head whipped around. My limbs flailed. But the wind in my ears never abated. I was still moving. But I was pretty sure I had already crashed. I couldn’t be still bouncing across the ground.

           I opened my eyes to see the large, white belly of my dragon. She held me in her talons and I hung loosely below her has she flapped her wings in flight.

           “Oh my god, I love you girl!” I breathed as recognition of what actually happened washed over me. She had somehow managed to escape her bonds, fly after my catapulted self, catch me in midair, and fly me to safety. I looked down at my leg, where the first bit of pain was when I thought I had hit the ground, and it was covered in dripping blood with visible bite wounds from her teeth where she caught me. From there she must have tossed me and caught me in her talons where I lie now.

           What a ride… I thought but as we flew back towards the castle. She set me down on one of the lower ramparts and I began to wonder: Who shot us from the sky? I looked up at the tallest tower and squinted through the wind, trying to see any movement up there. Who would even dare attack a member of the Aerials? And from our within our own castle? That’s insane. Something is wrong. There’s treachery afoot.

"F is for Fired"

"E" (Writers of Kern A-Z Blog Challenge)

Sketches by Kehlee!

We arrived at the city of East Pau to open arms. There was a trumpeteer sounding our approach as we marched past. The livery of colors and the number of people on the street were astonishing, or they would be, if I was new to this, but I was a seasoned practitioner and I walked along the smooth cobblestone with grace and eloquence. Each of my four large feet padded carefully and lightly across the ground. I held my head up high. I could feel my Rider’s back held straight atop mine. He gripped the reins with assured determination and poise, as he always did, but even with that, I could feel a slight nervousness about his posture, as if he was forcing himself to sit still and dignified amongst these foreign lands and people.

We had followed the main, central street through the city. It was a wide open lane that was lined with people from the entrance all the way up to the palace gates, their eyes eager to catch a glimpse of our grand procession. For many of them, it was a once in a lifetime event. On the edge of the Chearson Desert, Pau was a difficult city to get to; to see the likes of me and my companions was a rarity and understandably, they were not going to miss it.

As we proceeded through the palace gates, armed guards in tall-plumed helmets of enameled purple and gold closed the enormous brass doors behind us, effectively quieting the pomp and cheer sounding from the city’s streets. We stood in an open courtyard before a grand flight of stairs that led up to the palace itself where we were greeted by George Mainland, Earl of Pau and the target of our visit. He wore lavish purple silks and a pointed beard. Beside him was a man dressed in tattered green and brown robes that wielded a staff and kept his eyes on the ground, his personal mage-guard I guessed.

“Sir Mainland, how nice of you to greet us.” My rider said.

“No, no. My pleasure.” His voice was harsh and strained. “What brings you to East Pau?”

“Why the King of course.”

“I guessed that,” his flippant tone made me tense up and my rider reached down to pat my neck, “but why would he send you?”

“I don’t understand your meaning, sir.”

“You! He practically sends an army to my door with your presence.” His arm sweeps over my companions and I. “He forces my reply in whatever matter he wishes.”

“I assure you, we come only seeking answers. There’s no fight on our lips.”

“No fight? Look what you’re riding!” He looked straight at me, into my eyes, and I saw the fear in his.

“Sir –”

“Why did he send you?” he interrupted. “I want you out of my city. Hurry it up.”

“The King hears word that you’ve had dealings with the southern Dwarves.”

“He what? How dare you make such a claim!” The man stiffed and his companion’s eyes lifted to look at my rider.

“Sir, please calm down, we’re only here for information.”

“Nonsense! You’re here for war! You bring the King’s Elephant Guard for God’s sake! I won’t stand for it!” He turned and began walking up the long flight of stairs that lead up to the palace. “Kill them! Kill them all, Rancor!” His companion took a battle stance and began what seemed to be chanting into his staff.

“Wait, sir! You can’t, we’re just emissaries! We mean no harm!”

The man stopped mid stride and turned to us. “My point exactly! You speak with the King’s name! His ambassadors! And you insult me? Threaten me? Oh, no, no, no! That is not okay! Rancor, guards; do not let them leave. I want their heads delivered to my desk by sundown!” He ran up the last few steps but fell short with a scream as Tronk’s rider, next to me, let loose an arrow that caught him in the leg.

There was a pull on my reins and a nudge behind my right ear. I backed up beginning to turn. “Let’s get out of here, boys!” my rider exclaimed. “We’re not welcome here!” I saw no immediate escape but I turned anyways at his request.

I could hear Wellet’s deep voice rumbling through the ground as he shouted to the rest of us. “Get ready ‘phants, we’re going to have to fight –” His words were suddenly garbled and disjointed as the ground began to shake under my feet. It felt like an earthquake and I looked back at the palace to see Rancor, the mage, dancing in place with one hand shaking wildly in the air above him, the other was firmly gripping his staff which was glowing with green energy. He seemed to be in a trance as he casted his spells.

My legs went wobbly on the quaking ground, but I swung my large head at a guard that ran up beside me with a long pike aimed at my rider. The man tumbled violently out of the way. A squeeze on my neck spurred me forwards towards the gate. I crashed into it with my forehead, denting the brass, but the gates remained closed and gave no purchase.

“Rawwrrr… watch out… Tronks!” I managed to pick out of the ground waves from Wellet’s direction. I turned to see the earth rupture and crack and split open and engulf Tronks and his rider into the ground.

“No!” I called and I felt my rider tumble sideways in his seat as I moved without his consent. When he realized what I saw, he urged me over to help.

“The mage! Take out the mage!” my rider shouted to the small band we had. There was three elephants of the King’s Guard, me included, their riders, and several footmen that walked along beside us. The footmen wielded short swords and were currently fighting with the palace guards all around us. My rider’s commands caused Wellet’s rider to turn and aim his bow towards the palace dais where the mage was free casting down at us.

I reached the hole in the ground and saw that Tronks had fallen and his rider was screaming with a leg trapped underneath the large elephant.

“Tronks!” I shouted. He managed to stand and reached up towards me. Our arms grasped each other and I began to pull with all my might. But it was futile; there was no way I was going to pull him out of the hole. When we realized this, he let go, turned, picked up his rider in his arm and lifted him up to me. I grabbed him carefully and pulled him from the hole where I swung him around towards my back. My rider then pulled him up to sit at his backside. The man screamed in pain the whole way.

“We’ll… get… you… out!” I shouted, but I wasn’t sure how much of it would travel passed the continuing earthquake. Still, Tronks nodded and began ramming himself into the walls of the hole trying to break his way out.

“Greenwich, get Wellet to the wall! We need to break it down!” My rider shouted. There was a hard pat on my side and I launched forwards into a run across the writhing ground. I don’t know how I managed to stay standing, but I did, and with a jarring smash, I ran into the stone wall beside Wellet. He was already prying bricks from their mortar and my assault toppled a large section of the wall away from us where it crashed down amongst the screams of the city patrons on the other side.

Abruptly, the tremors stopped and I looked back to see the footmen storming up the stairs towards the mage. There were swords swinging left and right and the mage was casting green energy blasts into the men, trying to hold them back. But they overwhelmed him and I saw a gleaming swipe of metal sever the mage’s arm and another shatter his staff. With a rousing shout of fury, the men bested him.

“Damn, that was loud!” I heard Wellet say in response to the ground’s silencing.

Behind me there was a trumpeting and Tronks heaved with his trunk and pulled himself out of the ground, his legs kicking and trashing against the ground as he struggled to stand. I turned back to the wall and with my head began knocking pieces out of the way. The hole was getting bigger and soon we would be able to fit through it.

The footmen ran passed me and jumped up into the wall and out onto the street where they started forcing a path through the crowd. I knocked another section down and climbed through after them, followed by the other two elephants. Together, we rushed down the main street towards the exit. People had to dive out of the way to avoid being trampled by our stampede and we met no other resistance as we escaped from Pau out into the desert that surrounded the city.

"E is for Elephant Emissaries Escape from an Evil, Earth-weilding Ecomancer and his Employer, the Earl of East Pau"

(I was afraid the "e"lliteration used here would be apparent in the text, but I think I did a pretty good job of hiding it. I had fun with this one...)

"D" (Writers of Kern A-Z Blog Challenge)

Drawings by Kehlee the Troll of Nordrassil

          “Crasten, report!”

          “Yes, sir! The scouts saw Hammond’s cavalry circling around back to the south, about a thousand in all and I don’t know where they came from. General Jackson’s fallen and it looks like the Shix’ton found out. They’re gonna aim for the south flank next.”

          “And our numbers?”

          “Hard to say, sir. The south was scattered on the pull and without Jackson to lead a regroup before the cavalry gets there, they’re gonna have quite the battle without question.”

          “Anything else?”

          “They’ll need help if we’ve got it.”

          “What about you, Reems?”

          “I’ve lost about a fourth of the pike and two–”

          “Shields up, boys! Arrows above! Get ready!”

          “…fourth of the pike and two thirds sword, sir.”

          “What about the Shix’?”

          “At least double that. But the ghouls keep swarming out of the castle gates and reinforcing. Hell, some of them are jumping off the battlements and crashing down on us. It’s madness up there, sir!”

          “Do we know who’s summoning them?”

          “There’s wizards inside, we know that, but that’s a lot of power being put into this horde they’re creating; they’ve got to be draining by now.”

          “Sir!”

          “Sarah! My, it’s about time you got here! What can you tell me? What did you find out?”

          “There’s two wizards in all. I didn’t see either of them while I was scrying, but I could feel their power throughout the castle.”

          “Any word from the Aerials?”

          “The riders managed to get their dragons healed in Caer and they should be in the air by now, but I haven’t seen them on the skies.”

          “Alright boys, we’re up against a wall. We need to get through those gates, and now! Reems, those ghouls have got to stop coming at some time; two wizards can’t keep up that level of channeling for much longer. Try to batter them down; get as close as you can get to the gates in preparation for the Aerials when they get here. Sarah, get word to their riders that I want another hole torn through that god-dammed castle wall. Have them do it right next to the gate, out of reach of the ghouls but still close enough to our forces. Reems, as soon as you see that wall open up, I want you to peel off the main gate and charge the opening. Crasten, you and I are going to go save the south flank. Grab Charles’ pikeman and whatever swords you can find along the way. Go around the left, I’ll take the right with half of our main and we’ll meet up on the other side, hopefully right as Hammond attacks. We’ll flank him and end it once and for all. The rest of the main are with you Reems, get inside those walls! Let’s go!”

"D is for Dialogue"

(And sort of for dragons 'cause they're cool.)

"C" (Writers of Kern A-Z Blog Challenge)

Drawings by my girlfriend who wishes to stay anonymous, even though she's awesome.

The imp danced rather than walked across the dark plains of Krashen. But it wasn’t a traditional dance. He jumped on exposed tree roots. He flipped and tumbled through puddles. He moved with the wind and the roll of the ground below. The sounds of the world were his only music and they spurred him ever forward, exploring the land and the fun it provided.

He pulled the tail of a four-legged grouper and ducked between its legs as the beast turned to attack whatever touched him. From underneath, he tickled its belly and gripped on to its fur. It flinched in surprised and jumped and kicked, trying to get the imp to let go. All the while, the imp laughed at the sheer fun and thrill of the ride.

A short while later, he shot a blue blast of fire up into the air with his left pinky finger. It flew up, straight up, and he danced about waiting for it to fall. When it did, the fire splashed around him like rain and he loved every second of it.

The realm of Krashen was, by all logical description, evil. Its trees were dead and gnarled ghosts of their former selves. Its bushes grew poisonous, purple fruits and had limbs of blackened wood, almost as the life was burned out of them. The sky swirled with dark energy and the creatures that inhabited the lands were only those found in fairy tales. But, to the little imp, it was home, and he loved it.

Today, his dance brought him farther than he normally would have traveled. He was halfway up a spiky tree when he saw it. In the distance, about a mile away, was a small, speck of yellow. It was a strange color to see in this drab place and it captured the imp’s attention immediately. He tumbled from the tree at once and ran as fast as he could towards the oddity.

When he got there, he saw that it was a tiny, yellow flower – its stem, a bright contrasting green against the black ground. The dirt where it sprouted was cracked and streaked with white lines that radiated out like lightning bolts away from the flower.

The imp was mesmerized. He had never seen anything like it before. It was strange, and colorful, and scary. There were rumors floating around from the other implings back home, but it’s hard to believe something so wild and outlandish without seeing it for yourself. And now he saw it.

Carefully, he crouched and reached his hand out to touch one of the petals. But before he could grasp it, there was a familiar tug on the back of his mind. It was an insistent pull that he couldn’t resist. And no matter how hard he tried to fight it, to stay and touch the flower, the magical tether was too strong. It dragged him backwards, across the ground, through a portal that appeared behind him and out of Krashen all together.

“Master! Master! The world! You won’t believe what I just seen!” The imp sang as he bounced around the bright room and crashed into his master’s robes and feet. “I saw it! I saw it! I saw it!”

“Whoa! Wait, Zubilee! Stop! What are you doing?”

“I saw it! I saw it! I saw it!” the imp continued.

The man managed to grasp the imp’s tail as he ran by and he pulled him to a stop. “What did you see, Zub?” he said sternly.

“I was walking around like normal, like I always do, and I saw it!”

“Saw what?”

“I was up on this tree, trying to break off the tippy top branch so I could have a new sword to play with, and there it was! It was there!”

“There what was?”

“And I jumped down from the tree-“

“Zubilee!” the man shouted. The imp looked up at him. “What did you see?”

The imp’s voice was suddenly quiet and terrified and he looked up at his master with wide, distant eyes. “I saw… the corruption.”

The man frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I saw it, a flower, in Krashen.”

The man stiffened and sucked in a hard breath of air.

“It was yellow, and tiny, and cute, and beautiful, and alive, and we’re all going to die!” The imp resumed his wild dancing around the room, shouting at the top of his lungs. “And die! And die! And die!”

“Oh, dear god.” The man whispered. He fell backwards into a chair to consider the information he had just received. Chilling thoughts filled his mind. A flower in Krashen? he thought and he knew it was a terrible omen, for sure.

  

"C is for Corruption"