The door caved in with a cloud of dust, and Keltonin rolled as splinters and rusted nails rained down on him. A dozen young female creatures, initiates of the unholy arts, surrounded him in the chamber, circling around their blue flames candlestands, baring their odd fish teeth, gaping at the adventurer with vicious, glazed over eyes that sparked an odd purple reflection from within. The prince noticed high above him the red vined, and blue petalled flowers pulsing in a silver glow to each surge of the monstrous women, who in turns took a step, flexed their taloned fingertips and retreated with a hiss.

Keltonin's blade Eiglif, blessed and cursed by the arts of his mother's homeland, came loose in the scabbard and stuck to it's master's palm, and through this touch the warrior felt the hunger for death and justice. The sweat on his skin, all across his skin and under his plate armor and chainmail, was like the air under a thundering sky, and his foes understood the storm he brought with him.

His eyes narrowed, his toes dug in, his breath quickened, his muscles paced to outrun and eat his way to the heart of a stag, and he grinned.

This was going to be a slaughter the likes any butcher would applause, with an skill and frolic any minstrel's wife could laugh and dance to. If Keltonin was going to live, or die, he was going to enjoy this next battle with a vim and vigor he shall never forget.

Some writing from my friend Tim. I've been encouraging him to get all his stories online for years, and I'm committed to prodding him until this takes place.

It's sad to me, in the age of self-publishing on the Internet, to have writing live only in the mind of the writer. Put it to paper. Share it. The world will be better for it. ::