Fantasy Short Story

Passage

Part One

Image by Matt Payne

Rippling waves of translucent violet light erupted around him, causing him to raise his hands over his head and stoop low. At the same time, a strange sound like strident bells clangorously chiming combined with a heavy, monotonous drone seemed to spin around him and disoriented him in an instant. Beneath his feet, the earth lurched sideways without warning and he tumbled to the ground in a heap. Before he could orient himself, the oscillating sound was replaced by the unmistakable clashing of metal upon metal.

Looking around from beneath the protection of his raised arms, he found himself in the middle of a violent battle! Warriors dressed in strange green and silver armor grappled against others wearing robes of deep scarlet red. Thousands of men and hundreds of massive, six-hooved beasts surged around him in a chaos of noise and calamity and he barely had time to avoid being trampled in the melee before the thunderous sound of hooves rushed up behind him. Rolling away instinctively as one of the six-hooved beasts trampled past, he bumped against something solid and, at the contact, the images blurred and began to spin.

A lot like his stomach.

Gritting his teeth against the rush of sickness swelling inside him, he pressed backward against the opposing force he could not see and…