The Land of Fear: A Short Story

By William Woodall

Short Story. When her village is about to be destroyed by an invading army that demands a mountain of gold before sunrise, Elisabeth decides to take it upon herself to get it for them. She enters a mysterious and forbidding forest in search of a rumored treasure, but what she finds there is completely different than what she expected. Short Story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Woodall
• Release date: Mar 11, 2009
• ISBN: 9781466039346

William Woodall

I've been writing stories almost since I was able to pick up a jumbo crayon and put words on paper. I love what I do and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to share these tales with my readers.My work is typically classified as young adult literature, if only because the stories are clean and most of the characters are young. There's more to it than that, though.Every book I've ever personally loved has been what I'd call ageless. That is, it contains something that can touch the heart of a child while he's still too young and raw to appreciate subtlety, but there's also something in it that he can still feed on when he's old and gray, although perhaps not the same things. It's my aspiration to write stories like that.In fact, the majority of my readers are adults who want to read something that will uplift them and make them feel glad to be alive that day. We all need beautiful stories, and without them we suffer.If you'd like to know more about me or my work, please visit my official author's website at www.williamwoodall.org

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The Land of Fear

A Short Story

By William Woodall

Smashwords Edition

© Copyright 2009 William Woodall

http://www.williamwoodall.org

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Wisdom is better than weapons of war.

- Ecclesiastes 9:18

Once there was a girl named Elisabeth, who had a most amazing adventure.

She lived in a cottage with her father and two sisters (Their names were Aline and Celeste), in the village of Brumbling, not far from the River of Fear. Now this was a terrible place where only the bravest or the most foolish people ever dared to go, for no one had ever returned.

All sorts of things were whispered about it by the people of Brumbling. Some believed that there must be a dragon, and others spoke of a terrible sorcerer in a tall black tower. A few told stories of things even more frightening. But everyone also agreed that there was a treasure so wonderful and amazing that it could not even be described.

Elisabeth had heard these things all her life long, and she burned with desire to know the real truth of the matter.

In those days a great war had come to Brumbling, and the village stood almost empty. Elisabeth was not old enough to help, and she had been left in the village with her older sisters to tend the fields and the house. Their father was an excellent bowman, and had gone away with the army for a little while. Elisabeth knew that it was necessary, but she still felt lonely without Father.

For one thing, Aline and Celeste were not very kind to her. They seemed to think that Elisabeth should do all the nasty, tedious