Flashback Friday: Enchanted Blasted Forest

 Flashback Friday is a monthly meme that takes place on the last Friday of the month.
The idea is to give a little more love to a post you’ve published on your blog before.  Maybe you just love it, maybe it’s appropriate for now, or maybe it just didn’t get the attention it deserved when you first published it.

Thanks to Michael d’Agostino, who started it all, there is a solution – join Flashback Friday! And thanks to Jemima Pett, who has kept it going--visit her blog to add your name to the list!

Just join in whenever you like, repost one of your own blog posts, including any copyright notices on text or media, on the last Friday of the month.

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I dug into the archives in search of something appropriate to the season and found this story. Not exactly a Halloween story, but there are monsters enough to satisfy, I hope. This one appears to have clocked in at exactly 1000 words, and I said this about it when I first published it in May of 2016:
Chuck Wendig gave us a new challenge this week: a series utterances from his preschooler, to be used somewhere in a story. As one might expect from Chuck's progeny, they were... interesting. I selected "there's a 3-headed flying werewolf in that tree," and the rest of the Enchanted Forest came into being.

The Enchanted Blasted Forest

The Enchanted Forest is a punishment post, but never mind what we did to get sent there. They have to man the post, and soldiers don’t last long there, so you don’t have to do much to end up there. About half of those sent never even arrive.

There were six of us, and when the road entered the blasted Forest we divided up the watch. Tomo watched left, Martin right, Jock ahead, Kora behind, Shea overhead, and I was back-up to them all, scanning every direction as thoroughly as I could.

The monsters weren’t bold. If Shea called out “harpy overhead!” we’d all raise our spears and the monster would sheer off. Or Tomo would yell, “there’s a 3-headed flying werewolf in that tree!” and we’d aim our bows that way and the thing would fly away.

We only had to fire once, when a flying monkey swooped in low and tried to grab Kora. She’s not very big, but tough as nails. Martin and I both loosed arrows, but they stuck in a dead monkey. Kora had already beheaded it. She’s fast with her sword.

We were still several hours distant from the outpost when we began to wonder something. In short, we started to ask ourselves if everyone who vanished on the way to Fort End had been carried off by monsters. Maybe there was a way to get out of a long hitch in the army. Joining up had seemed like a good idea when I first went in, but it didn’t take long to knock the stars from my eyes, and if a single night out on the town could get you in this much trouble, I wanted out.

There was a guard hut halfway, and we holed up there to enjoy our lunch without having to swat away monsters. That’s when Martin asked, “Why are we here, anyway?”

“We got taken up for drunk and disorderly on our last leave.” Dumb question.

“Yeah, but…”

“Martin’s right.” I looked at each of them. “We acted like soldiers on leave and for that they sent us where only half the troops survive to even reach the post? But maybe we don’t have to get hauled off by harpies to disappear.”

“Yeah,” Jock said. “We can get eaten by 3-headed werewolves instead.”

“Or,” I said, looking from one to another, “we can appear to have been eaten by 3-headed werewolves.”

Jock was the last to get it.  “You’re saying we could run off,” he said after we all looked at him for several minutes. “Desert.” We all turned that word over in our minds as he went on. “You know what they do to deserters.”

We knew. It was a great deal faster and more sure than a posting in the Enchanted blasted Forest, but they said it was painless, which this posting wasn’t likely to be.

We finished our lunch in silence, but when we left the hut, we took the wrong turning.

“That’s our story if anyone catches us up,” I said. “Just a bit of trouble navigating.” We were still nervous at the thought of being caught by a patrol, which was the wrong worry.

Our nerves lasted until the first harpy attack. After that we were too busy to worry about the army. It seemed the creatures of the forest were a lot less bashful about attacking travelers who strayed from the military road. I began to wonder how many of the disappeared had started as deserters, and ended as dead as they’d pretended to be.

It was farther to the edge of the forest this way than the way we’d come in, so we’d have to hurry. Trouble was, we were under such constant attack that we couldn’t hurry. By an hour or two after lunch, it was plain to all of us—even Jock—that we weren’t going to make the edge of the Forest before night.

“Now what?” Shea asked.  She would. Always expecting someone else to fix her problems, that one. We couldn’t take care of that right then. We were a team and we’d only make it if we stuck together.

“We find a place to hole up,” I said, just as Kora said, “We fight on through the night until we get out.”

Martin protested. “I heard there’s things out at night here that you really don’t want to me. Things that make harpies look like pet kittens.”

We thought about that. It might be lies told to keep soldiers from deserting the fort.

It might all be true.

We had no choice but to find out. There was no safe place to hole up for the night. No more huts, and any natural hole would surely be inhabited by orcs or dragons or ten-headed hydras.

It was nearly dark before we knew the extent of our folly.

“Keep fighting, move as fast as we can, and stick together.” It wasn’t a good plan, but it was the only thing we could do, and we all knew it, so I got no argument. We were too busy.

By dark every one of us was bleeding somewhere, and the attacks picked up. I put our chances of survival at less than 50%. Meaning I didn’t expect more than three of us to live, and I’d already picked out which three.

One of the flying werewolves got Shea before midnight. There was nothing we could do. We kept moving, and enjoyed the respite the feasting gave us.

The forest started thinning about the second hour after midnight, and I thought the rest of us might make it.

The harpies had other ideas. They attacked in force, with the flying monkeys darting between them wherever our guard was incomplete.

Martin went down under the assault, but he wasn’t enough. We broke into a full run, speed more important than battle.

We’d none of us have made it if I hadn’t tripped Tomo.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass 2016

Flash Fiction Friday: Create Your Own Monster

Today's Flash Fiction is in response to a challenge to create an all-new monster. Chuck Wendig posed the challenge, so you follow the link to see all the other responses, if you're in the mood for fear and loathing! Or just read on. Chuck gave us 1500 words; I used 1239 of them.

The End of All Delight

Archibald D. Jones, to the Royal Geographic Society, July 16, ----
Sirs:
The Delighter, named not for giving light, but for removing it, appears to be a unique monster, not part of a species or clan of delighters. For this blessing we should all be grateful. I have examined the victims of this creature, and the effect gave me great sorrow, despite my years in the field and my necessary anthropologist’s distance. That my eyes watered during this time was no doubt due to the incense being used in an attempt to cure the victims. One witness to an attack, who was himself spared, claimed that I wept because of the residual effects of the attack, but this is ridiculous, as I am not subject to emotional reactions to research subjects.

Those most directly attacked by the Delighter were generally unresponsive, unable or unwilling to address my questions. They prefer to sit in a dim room and generally weep, unable to force themselves to any action or exertion. As the creature attacked single victims, there were witnesses who, though greatly sobered by the experience, were yet able to tell me what they had seen. From those accounts I pieced together the following description of the monster.

When it comes forth to hunt—villagers believe it lives underground, though none could point to any entrance to its lair—the Delighter is a deep black in color. One woman, who wept all the while she spoke of the attack on her husband, said the Delighter was not black, but rather that it is a deep shadow, an area utterly lacking light.

Others, who witnessed it only after it fed on the soul and joy of the unfortunate man, said it seemed to them then to be streaked with ever-changing patterns of light in many colors, though predominantly an odd shade of orange. Whereas the victim’s wife reported that the creature moved in a sluggish, flowing fashion; after it fed, it moved quickly and lightly.

I proceeded to visit several nearby villages where the monster had likewise attacked, and was given similar reports of its behavior. Several also reported that they attempted to shoot the Delighter with firearms and also—as a form of experimentation—with bow and arrow. Neither type of projectile appeared to harm it. From these reports, I began to draw conclusions regarding the habits and purpose of the Delighter.

From the change in the Delighter’s movements and appearance after feeding, it is apparent that the life and joy that are drawn from the victim are the sole source of such feelings for the creature. That it preys upon humans despite the mixture of joy and sorrow that is the ordinary human condition, suggests that the Delighter is both unable to generate such feelings within itself, and that it requires them for some reason yet to be determined.

The monster’s apparent insensitivity to weapons suggests to me that it has an essential, rather than corporeal, existence. It will be necessary to learn more of this in order to devise a plan to stop its depredations.

I believe that it may be necessary to discover the creature’s lair in order to learn more. At this time, I am uncertain whether the Delighter feeds only upon human emotion, or if it also requires some more tangible form of nourishment. Nor has sufficient time elapsed to learn if the victims of the monster will recover. To date, approximately two months since the first attack, none of the victims has been able to throw off his lethargy to discuss the experience.


Archibald D. Jones, to the Royal Geographic Society, July 25, ----
Sirs:
I am determined to enter the lair of the Delighter, if it can be discovered. Another attack has left a number of children in a state of constant weeping and despair. Like the adult victims, they have to be restrained to prevent them doing harm to themselves. The villagers fear that the Delighter will return to attack the schools repeatedly, having once discovered the happy nature of the very young. The future of the region is in danger.


Archibald D. Jones, to the Royal Geographic Society, July 30, ----
Sirs:
I have begun explorations to discover the entrance to the lair of the Delighter. The villagers want to locate and seal the opening, but I believe that in the interests of science I must enter and confront the beast myself. It is my belief that a scientific turn of mind may offer some protection from the creature’s attack, as tending to leave me, as I have heard some colleagues claim, “dull as dishwater.” If the monster cannot find an adequate source of that which it seeks, it may leave me alone.


Archibald D. Jones, to the Royal Geographic Society, August 2, ---- Sirs:
I have discovered the entrance to the lair of the Delighter and am preparing to enter, laying forth all possible precautions. The creature comes and goes via a cave on the hillside between the two villages that have suffered the most.

I watched the cave for two days, and at last witnessed the egress and ingress of the monster. I believe my hypothesis about my scientific mind protecting me are correct, as the monster did not appear to be aware of my presence nearby. My observations confirmed the reports of the radical change in appearance of the Delighter after feeding. Indeed, I might almost have said it danced as it returned to its lair. I shall take great pleasure in discovering its manner of living between attacks.

All being prepared, I shall enter the cave two days hence. This, by my calculations, should put it midway in the feeding cycle, a time at which I believe its interest in humans may be at a minimum, thus maximizing my safety in this expedition.


Headwoman, Village of Kufu, to the Royal Geographic Society, August 20, ----
Dear Sirs,
It is my sad duty to inform you that your explorer, Mr. Archibald D. Jones, has been incapacitated in his quest to better understand the monster which haunts our village and has been called the Delighter, or, more accurately, the De-lighter. Despite our advice to the contrary, on August 4 he entered the cave into which the monster retreats after preying on our villages. He was convinced that his own nature would offer protection, and I confess that I had never met a drier and less empathetic man, who seemed to express little pleasure beyond an academic satisfaction in his work.

It appears that even so simple a pleasure as that is a meal to the De-lighter, and on August 10, Mr. Jones crawled from the cave and collapsed near our village. We have taken him in and are feeding him, but he does not stop weeping, and cannot utter any sense. The only words we have been able to make out from all his weeping are the cryptic comment, “I didn’t know it would be like this.”

We are unable to continue to support and nurse your explorer indefinitely, and humbly request that you send a rescue party to remove him. Perhaps with adequate care he may eventually recover. I am pleased to report that the first victim in our village, the husband of our excellent midwife, has begun to work once more, though he remains morose and silent.

Yours,
Kala Ma’anua, Headwoman of Kufu

The entrance to the cave of the Delighter? Hard to say.

This may be a photo of the monster after feeding. Or not.

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2017
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

Friday Flash: Some Heroics Required

Chuck Wendig gave us a sub-genre mashup this week, and the dice gave me "creature feature" and "sword & sorcery." That's almost too easy a fit, but I was pressed for time, so that was a good thing. In 998 words, I give you:

Some Heroics Required

“You have to, Eeyla. You’re our last hope.”

The knight shifted uncomfortably. She was the last hope? To go after a monster that had destroyed how many knights?

“It’s defeated every other knight in the realm?”

“Well, no.” Lord Altain looked uncomfortable in his turn. “But you have what none of them do. You have magic.”

Eeyla sighed. She might have known. “So some fool of a wizard created a golem that’s run out of control. Why me? Let him fix his own mess.”

The Lord Chancellor grimaced. “The monster ate him for breakfast, minutes after it was created. It had most of the village for elevenses.”

It was the knight’s turn to grimace. It didn’t look like there was any way out. With a small groan for the joints that had been sprained too often, she rose and began gathering her weapons. “Where will I find this...creature?”

Lord Altain gave her an incredulous look, but refrained from comment. “Just follow the trail of death and devastation.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. She hoped the reports of destruction were exaggerated.

#
Two hours later, Eeyla was forced to admit that the reports were, if anything, an understatement. She rode her light mount, keeping to a canter as she approached the village where the creature was last reported. Her heavy warhorse followed on a lead rein. He’d be needed soon enough, and needed as fresh as could be, too. She drew up at the edge of the village.

She could only tell it had been a village by the bodies strewn about. Every structure had been reduced to rubble—kindling and gravel, she thought, looking at the ruins of the wattle-and-daub buildings. The dead had been flung about, many missing limbs.

“Playing with its food,” Eeyla muttered. The creature, sated, continued to kill. Lord Altain was right. She had to do this, and she needed to move fast. How many more villages had it devastated in the hours since leaving this one?

It didn’t take long to get an answer to that question. The trail of destruction required no wood-craft to follow. Eeyla rode through the remains of three villages, and found half a dozen crofts or small farms that had suffered likewise.

She had drawn up to listen more closely to the distant sounds of battle when the first man ran past her, fleeing back up the trail of destruction. Terror contorted his face, and he didn’t seem to notice the knight and two horses in his path.

He wasn’t the only villager to flee, only the fastest. Others soon followed in a thickening stream, most too focused on their flight to respond to Eeyla’s presence. A few called to her to turn back, to fly while she could.

Eeyla didn’t turn back. She set her spear, loosened her sword in its sheath, and ran through all the spells she could think of that might be of use. She didn’t think the thing would listen to a command to, “Begone, fiend!” Instead, she concentrated on spells that would give her weapons greater force and accuracy. Which knights had been killed? Yes, at least one was stronger and faster than she was. She would need her magic.

Maybe she could combine the double-force spell with some lightning.

When screams and crashing told her she was very close, Eeyla switched mounts. She could do it while in motion, not in full armor, but in the leather and chainmail she wore for this battle. Armor would be more protection, but she thought the speed and agility of the lighter garb would be more needed. She turned loose the lighter horse.

Eeyla rounded a final bend in the road and took in the scene at a glance. This village might recover, if she stopped the creature soon enough. There were a lot of dead, but more had somehow escaped alive.

A moment later she saw how. A dozen men had attacked the creature—a giant, almost featureless golem—with pikes and ropes, and their efforts slowed the thing enough to allow the people to flee.

She was planning her attack when she saw the children cowering behind a chicken coop almost at the monster’s feet. If she drove it back, it might well crush them. She had to draw it forward, away from them.

The creature knew what a knight was. It lunged toward her, tearing the ropes from the grips of the villages.

“Fly!” Eeyla commanded.

They fled. One man chanced a dash behind the monster, swept up the children, and escaped by crashing right through the fence that had trapped the children. Eeyla was left alone to face the monster.

She didn’t waste her breath with taunts, threats, or entreaties for the creature to just stop. She lowered her spear, shouted the words of the empowerment spell, and charged.

The spear shattered. The creature seemed to have a hide of steel. It stumbled toward her, clumsy but deadly, and Eeyla pulled her sword from the sheath. Her mount, terrified though it was, held its ground, and the added height put Eeyla on a level with the creature’s chest. What on earth had the wizard been thinking, to make something so huge? She had time for just the one thought before her sword met leathery flesh.

The golem used its own arm as a shield, deflecting the blow, and reached for the knight with the other arm. Eeyla was saved only by her horse dancing back out of reach. The creature screamed rage.

Enough. As she swung the heavy sword again, Eeyla spoke the words of the lightning spell. Power poured through her, and from her. A bolt from the clear sky met lightning from the sword in the middle of the golem.

Bits of the creature flew everywhere. Eeyla was knocked from the saddle by either a piece of monster or her own magical power, she didn’t know which.

It didn’t matter. Her battle was won.

###

 ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2016
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

If you like your fantasy adventure with a touch more humor, check out Halitor the Hero,  on sale this month for just 99 cents.

Or purchase in the format of your choice from Smashwords.

Friday Flash: Enchanted Blasted Forest

Chuck  Wendig gave us a new challenge this week: a series utterances from his preschooler, to be used somewhere in a story. As one might expect from Chuck's progeny, they were...interesting. I selected "there's a 3-headed flying werewolf in that tree," and the rest of the Enchanted Forest came into being.

Enchanted Blasted Forest

The Enchanted Forest is a punishment post, but never mind what we did to get sent there. They have to man the post, and soldiers don’t last long there, so you don’t have to do much to end up there. About half of those sent never even arrive.

There were six of us, and when the road entered the blasted Forest we divided up the watch.  Tomo watched left, Martin right, Jock ahead, Kora behind, Shea overhead, and I was back-up to them all, scanning every direction as thoroughly as I could.

The monsters weren’t bold. If Shea called out “harpy overhead!” we’d all raise our spears and the monster would sheer off. Or Tomo would yell, “there’s a 3-headed flying werewolf in that tree!” and we’d aim our bows that way and the thing would fly away.

We only had to fire once, when a flying monkey swooped in low and tried to grab Kora. She’s not very big, but tough as nails. Martin and I both loosed arrows, but they stuck in a dead monkey. Kora had already beheaded it. She’s fast with her sword.

We were still several hours distant from the outpost when we began to wonder something. In short, we started to ask ourselves if everyone who vanished on the way to Fort End had been carried off by monsters. Maybe there was a way to get out of a long hitch in the army. Joining up had seemed like a good idea when I first went in, but it didn’t take long to knock the stars from my eyes, and if a single night out on the town could get you in this much trouble, I wanted out.

There was a guard hut halfway, and we holed up there to enjoy our lunch without having to swat away monsters. That’s when Martin asked, “Why are we here, anyway?”

“We got taken up for drunk and disorderly on our last leave.” Dumb question.

“Yeah, but…”

“Martin’s right.” I looked at each of them. “We acted like soldiers on leave and for that they sent us where only half the troops survive to even reach the post? But maybe we don’t have to get hauled off by harpies to disappear.”

“Yeah,” Jock said. “We can get eaten by 3-headed werewolves instead.”

“Or,” I said, looking from one to another, “we can appear to have been eaten by 3-headed werewolves.”

Jock was the last to get it.  “You’re saying we could run off,” he said after we all looked at him for several minutes. “Desert.” We all turned that word over in our minds as he went on. “You know what they do to deserters.”

We knew. It was a great deal faster and more sure than a posting in the Enchanted blasted Forest, but they said it was painless, which this posting wasn’t likely to be.

We finished our lunch in silence, but when we left the hut, we took the wrong turning.

“That’s our story if anyone catches us up,” I said. “Just a bit of trouble navigating.” We were still nervous at the thought of being caught by a patrol, which was the wrong worry.

Our nerves lasted until the first harpy attack. After that we were too busy to worry about the army. It seemed the creatures of the forest were a lot less bashful about attacking travelers who strayed from the military road. I began to wonder how many of the disappeared had started as deserters, and ended as dead as they’d pretended to be.

It was farther to the edge of the forest this way than the way we’d come in, so we’d have to hurry. Trouble was, we were under such constant attack that we couldn’t hurry. By an hour or two after lunch, it was plain to all of us—even Jock—that we weren’t going to make the edge of the Forest before night.

“Now what?” Shea asked.  She would. Always expecting someone else to fix her problems, that one. We couldn’t take care of that right then. We were a team and we’d only make it if we stuck together.

“We find a place to hole up,” I said, just as Kora said, “We fight on through the night until we get out.”

Martin protested. “I heard there’s things out at night here that you really don’t want to me. Things that make harpies look like pet kittens.”

We thought about that. It might be lies told to keep soldiers from deserting the fort.

It might all be true.

We had no choice but to find out. There was no safe place to hole up for the night. No more huts, and any natural hole would surely be inhabited by orcs or dragons or ten-headed hydras.

It was nearly dark before we knew the extent of our folly.

“Keep fighting, move as fast as we can, and stick together.” It wasn’t a good plan, but it was the only thing we could do, and we all knew it, so I got no argument. We were too busy.

By dark every one of us was bleeding somewhere, and the attacks picked up. I put our chances of survival at less than 50%. Meaning I didn’t expect more than three of us to live, and I’d already picked out which three.

One of the flying werewolves got Shea before midnight. There was nothing we could do. We kept moving, and enjoyed the respite the feasting gave us.

The forest started thinning about the second hour after midnight, and I thought the rest of us might make it.

The harpies had other ideas. They attacked in force, with the flying monkeys darting between them wherever our guard was incomplete.

Martin went down under the assault, but he wasn’t enough. We broke into a full run, speed more important than battle.

We’d none of us have made it if I hadn’t tripped Tomo.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass 2016

Flash Fiction Friday--I Am Going to Miss You

This week's Wendig challenge was another random title quest, but a little different.  We were directed to go to Pandora or whatever and pick a song title at random (I assume those places can do that for you).  Since I don't use any of those sites, I went to my collection of CDs, closed my eyes, and reached out and grabbed a disk.  Then I closed them again and pointed at the list on the back, and there was my title.  Not as random as it might have been, but it did the job.  I got "I Am Going to Miss You" by Laura Love, from the album "Fourteen Days." I did NOT look at the liner notes to see what the story of the song might be, and I've never listened to it enough to remember.  Though now that I've written the story I might put it on.

The title at first made me think horror, but everyone at Terrible Minds is doing that, and it's really not my thing.  So here's another bit of mostly light fantasy.

I Am Going to Miss You

Lady Knight Farinia thought about the mission she faced, as she saddled her destrier and buckled on sword and shield.  She let her squire stow her lance in the boot by her stirrup.

Once a week for a year Farinia had ridden forth from the castle to meet Biter in single combat—if combat with something that had three heads and two tails could ever be called “single.”  That Farinia was still alive was a testament to her skill as a knight.  That Biter was still alive was proof of the near-impossibility of the task she had been set, for no better knight graced the kingdom.  Every time she went out to try the monster, usually soon after her third cup of coffee on Monday morning, she expected it to be her last.  She spent the weekends griping to the other knights about it—why did she have to go, how come no one else got sent, and what difference did any of it make anyway?  Couldn’t they just leave the creature alone?

But on those Monday mornings, she knew she was alive as she did at no other time.  Only those who were alive could be so certain that they were about to become dead.

Farinia ran a last weapons check.  Sword: honed to a perfect edge.  Shield: polished.  Lance: newly-tipped.  And last, something new.  A little bag of powder hung at her belt, a potion guaranteed to give her a few minutes of redoubled strength, perhaps enough to finally finish the job.  Everything was in place.

Farinia took a deep breath, mounted up with a boost from her squire—even chain mail was heavy and flexed poorly, making mounting a chore—and accepted a bow and quiver from the armorer.

“Right, then, Lady Knight!  Return with your shield or on it!”

“Do be quiet, Sedwick,” Farinia rebuked the over-eager squire.  “If I am defeated, I won’t come back on my shield.  I’ll come back as a little pile of monster dung, and you know it.”

Sedwick dug a toe in the dust.  “Yeah, I know, Lady Knight.  But that doesn’t sound so encouraging.  ‘Come back victor or monster dung!’ just doesn’t have the right ring.”

Farinia couldn’t help herself.  She laughed, and armed with laughter and the potion at her belt, she felt this might be the time.  “Biter, you’re mine, you evil beast!”

In the darkest part of the forest, the monster known as Biter stirred in its sleep.  She was coming.  It could feel her.   Biter stood, and stretched, and prepared for battle.  With this knight, there was always the chance that the battle could be their last. 

They always met in the same spot, a clearing not far from Biter’s cave.  Years of combats with a series of knights had gradually enlarged and smoothed the open ground until it was as large and perfect as the jousting yard at the palace.

Farinia drew up in the middle of the clearing and whistled shrilly.  Then she called out, “Biter!  Come forth and meet your doom!”  Her hand drifted down toward the pouch at her belt, then away.  Not yet.  It felt like cheating, that magic potion.  Her own strength and skill had kept her alive so many times, even if they hadn’t yet sufficed to slay the beast.  Perhaps this would be the time.  If not, the magic was always there.

Biter emerged from its cave, nodding all three heads and swishing both tails menacingly from side to side.  “We meet again, Lady Knight.”  The creature had a surprisingly high, cultured voice.  Farinia always felt it would be more fitting if it bellowed in a deep, coarse tone, or even stuck with savage, bestial growls.  Instead, Biter spoke in a voice that reminded her painfully of the etiquette teacher who had taught all the pages to bow to ladies and wait at table.  The sound of that voice had driven her into a frenzy as a page, and did so now as a grown knight.

Battle was joined.  The fight raged about the clearing for two hours, while the sun rose high and hot, and Farinia began to wish she hadn’t drunk that third cup of coffee.  At last, as deep down she’d known she would, she reached for the pouch at her belt.  Her right hand pulled it free and loosened the drawstrings, while her left continued to make her sword sing a deadly song of war and destruction, keeping the monster at bay.

Farinia tipped the contents of the pouch into her mouth. . .

. . . And began to cough.  The powder wouldn’t be swallowed, but dusted everything from eyeballs to lungs in a choking cloud.  In a panic, she dropped her sword and groped for her flask.  Clumsy fingers knocked it from her saddle.

Biter watched for a moment until, her eyes streaming and coughs unabated, Farinia tried to turn her horse and run.  Then Biter reached out and took her from her mount with a single blow of the left tail.  Placing a huge paw on the heaving chest, it stood until the coughing, and all motion, had ceased.  Then it took the first bite.  Savoring the always-delectable mixture of human and steel, Biter paused.  No other knight for centuries had been such fun.

“I’m going to miss you.”  The words were muffled as it took a second mouthful.  Farinia’s shield lay nearby, waiting.