26 April 2012
My muscles tensed, ready to throw the beast off me before I ended up looking at the insides of the reptile, but then a scaled forelimb clamped itself onto my arm. And then the other. Darn. This was how wyrms killed their prey, using their not-minor bulk to immobilise their prey before lowering their head and ripping the prey's throat out. Not a nice way to go, but at that point I wasn't frightened, but annoyed. Annoyed that I was going to die before a scrawny teenage human that moments earlier I had written off as being completely inept to take care of himself. Ironic.
So I resolved to stare death in the face and had locked eyes with what was to be my end when a blinding flash of blue light seared my eyeballs. As I screwed up my eyes in pain, I felt the crushing weight lifted suddenly from my chest and land somewhere away from me. I struggled to comprehend the situation, and was still puzzling when I heard a rush of air over me and a guttural roar that shook me to my very core. I felt the ground shake as the beast charged towards whoever it was that had created the blue light, yet whoever this was did not run. Instead, another blast of the same blue permeated through the thin film of my eyelids. Another roar sounded. Then silence.
I lay motionless on the ground, waiting for the next move in the battle. But none came. The battle had ended. I knew enough about magic to surmise that the wyrm was either a pile of ashes or smashed at the bottom of the gorge by now. I tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea hit me like a sledgehammer, and I had to lie down again. I had to look strong for whichever of the clan's mages had followed me, being the second-in-command, so this did nothing for my temper. I heard steps coming towards me. "Well don't just stand there! Help me up!" I demanded. Civility was not going to be my strong point for some time after this, and I was still blinded by the over-the-top magic that the mage had used. So overall, bad day so far. So imagine how I felt when I heard the words "MY grandmother could do better than that!"
A Fight • Opuss № I