Magic and Melee: Short Stories of Rich Feitelberg

By Rich Feitelberg

Magic and Melee collects fantasy stories. Here's a sample of what you'll find:

 

Last of Her Kind: Asbith is the only dragon left and the humans continue to test themselves by engaging her in combat.

 

Knight Training: Shard, a half-orc, has had to fight hatred and bigotry all his life. But now the the training yard of the Michaeline order, he learns a most devastating truth. One which will change his life forever.

 

Chamomile Flowers: Laura comes to the village of Abbots Grove to observe a local festival. Her natural curiosity leads her to discover she is to be sacrificed at the end of celebration.

 

The Horn of Horundring: Merchant Wilson Kray has come to Breezy Bluff to purchase the Horn of Horundring from the air spirit that owns it, the trickster spirit, Twex Oolung.

 

The Cloax: James, an apprentice sage, wants to be a bard, but his father disapproves. So he runs away to his grandmother's home, halfway across the kingdom, only to discover something that will change his life forever.

 

Second Chances: Johar, a convicted criminal, is thrown into a magic pit, which gives him a chance to relive the point in his life where he went wrong. Can he manage not to repeat the error of his ways or is he doomed to repeat the same mistake again?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rich Feitelberg
• Release date: Sep 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781476357591

Rich Feitelberg

Rich Feitelberg is a poet and novelist, author of the fantasy series, the Aglaril Cycle. He also has collections of short stories and poetry available too. Rich is an avid map collector, and student of popular culture. Growing up on a steady diet of comic books, science fiction, and fairy tales of all kinds, Rich soon began weaving his own tales at a young age. These activities continue to this day, as Rich is working on many new projects, and writing more poems and stories.

Book preview

Magic and Melee

Rich Feitelberg

Second Edition

ManaSoft Books

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

PRINTING HISTORY

The Last of Her Kind originally published June, 2012

Knight Training originally published August, 2012

Chamomile Flowers originally published March, 2013

The Horn of Horundring originally published October, 2013

Curses originally published April, 2013

The Cloax originally published August, 2014

First Collected Edition: September, 2014

Second Edition: January, 2016

Revised: April, 2018

Copyright © 2012-18 by Rich Feitelberg

Visit http://feitelberg.net

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/aglarilcycle

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may not be reproduced or transmitted in whole or part in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission by the author.

ISBN 13:  978-1-4763-5759-1

To my brother Alan,

Who also likes to tell stories

The Last of Her Kind

Waking up in my dark cave, I exhale and a plume of fire from my mouth briefly illuminates the area around me. The pile of gold and gems I lay on catches the light, glistens, and then grows dark. Smoke rises from my nostrils and stains the stone ceiling black.

I inhale, tasting the cool, dank cavern air. It feels good against my tongue and teeth. I smell the gold and the jewels. It mixes with the odor of the granite and feldspar from the cave walls.

I relish the blackness of the cave. It lets me move unseen. I am the goddess of the night. Dark, swift, menacing, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. The puny bags of bones know this and they appease me with sacrifices so that I leave them alone. But they have short memories and need constant reminders, reminders that only I can give.

Sniffing the air outside through a slit in the roof of my lair, I sense a cool wind is blowing. The sun is down. My time is at hand.

Slowly I crawl to my secret exit and go out into the night. It is hard to move because I am old and the space is cramped. The coins I crawl over clink against each other as I make my way outside.

Once free of my confines, I crane my neck and stretch my wings. I stand up on my legs and leap into the air. I flap my wings a few times and soon I am in the air soaring into the sky.

I am happy. It is not often that I feel so carefree anymore, having lived through hundreds of summers. But the simple joy of flying never fails to lift my spirits. I am like a hatchling again.

Once, when my kind filled the sky, several of us would fly together, sparring, testing each other, vying for position. Now I soar over farms and settlements alone, cursing these puny bags of bones and their encroachment on my territory. But puny or no, they have slain hundreds of my kind and scores of my children and think themselves clever for doing it. But they have only earned my contempt, my anger, and my disdain. If I were younger by a few hundred summers, they would all be dead. But I am not young anymore so I let them worship me. At least they have learned to show me the proper respect.

Exhaling, I light up the sky. I can hear the villagers below scurry in fear at my approach. I let them be. Fear will do my work for now and they know better than to cross me. I have torched enough of their puny homes and towns in anger and they have learned I am the power in these hills.

My stomach rumbles. I am hungry. In a pasture, I smell several cows. I swoop down and snatch two, one in each claw and fly off. I land and feast on the raw beef of each heifer. Later, when I am satiated, I lap my claws to clean them and then launch myself back into the air passed the vultures that have gathered while I fed. I return to the feeble settlements made by the puny bags of bones. One belch to ignite the sky again serves my purpose before I return to my lair to sleep off my meal.

* * *

Hours later, I hear movement outside my cave growing closer. I sniff the air outside; it is hot and putrid with the stench of the puny bags of bones.

Some of the intruders are approaching. The thought registers and then fades away.

I can hear the rattle of the chains they carry and the squeak of the wagon wheels. The wagon bears the sacrifice the bags of bones will leave.

I am satisfied; I frightened them last night and now they have remembered to pay me homage, as they should. I am their goddess.

I hear them shuffle to the metal post outside the mouth of my cave and chain the sacrifice to it. They call out.

Hear us, O, great Asbith. Accept this offering as a tribute to your great power.

Then they scurry away, afraid that I will appear too soon and eat them all. But I am patient and sleepy, still resting after my meal from the night before. I wait until the squeaking wheels retreat and for the sun to set. By dusk, the thin bony creature chained to the metal post is dozing having been left there for hours alone.

I exit my cave and fly over the entrance silently. I land amid the dust and rock and old bones from past meals.

I roar.

The female bag of bones wakes and screams. That pleases me. Her kind has killed so many of my children. I see the face of each child that is dead and I name each one to myself. Smoke. Jade. Onyx. Amber. Ruby. Crystal. Opal ... The list goes on and on. And with each name my anger intensifies.

I stand up on my hind legs and roar again, savoring the power and control that is mine. I want revenge for the deaths of all my children, for hunting them until they were no more. I want them all dead. But I feel my age even