This week Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge was to choose someone else's title and run with it. Last week folks came up with about 400 titles. Sleuthing through all the golden nuggets I came across one that spoke to me. JQ Davis's Showdown at Evermore. This story ended up short, being just under 400 words. Last challenge I felt like The Coralhound Queens had too much story packed into it, now I wonder if Showdown at Evermore doesn't have enough? I'm still trying to figure out the magic flash fiction formula. One day, I'll get it.
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Showdown at Evermore
Rognos crawled over the bodies of his companions. I have to find her. The Dreggs swung serrated swords and hurled obsidian spears. Their stony countenance and glowing sapphire eyes showed no emotion as they cut down human after human.
Rognos couldn’t feel his legs. He couldn’t feel his fingertips digging into the blood soiled earth.
Marda, he tried to call her name but had no voice. Marda where are you.
The Dreggs were constant in Evermore, coming from its center, never relenting. Endless. Rognos’s band had cut a swath deeper into the Dregg lines than any other. But it had earned them nothing.
A pikeman, Jora, thrust at a Dregg. The spear point bent on its stone chest. The Dregg groaned like a muffled whalesong and slammed its fist into the Jora's breastbone. Something snapped, and the pikeman fell to his knees gasping for air.
Rognos pulled himself past the scene. There was nothing he could do.
There, a shock of blond curls. They twirled and twisted. Marda fought on, her warhammer cracking the Dreggs stone flesh.
A blade thrust into her shoulder. She cried out. Her warhammer swung and the Dregg’s face scattered across the Evermore.
Rognos was almost there. He could see the panic behind her eyes, hear her calling for the soldiers to stand their ground.
He was rising, the earth growing distant, Marda shrunk and shrunk. The battlefield filled his visions.
Translucent hands gripped him beneath the arms. A valkyrie pulled him from the Evermore, carrying him to eternity.
No. He struggled, trying to break free of the valkyrie’s grip. I’m not leaving Marda. But her grip was ironclad.
Rognos drifted beyond the clouds, past the stars, and to a place of blinding light.
Something slipped away, and he felt weightless. Empty. The whiteness peeled from his vision to reveal a familiar sight. The Evermore. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the Dreggs, and as they marched forward he found himself walking in step with them.
This wasn’t possible, why would he…
Who was he? His memories were fading. Had he been looking for someone? It was…
Humans. He shifted his bulk, carried on stone legs, and marched for the cluster of humans.
Fight. Crush.
That one, with the golden hair. He raised his blade and lumbered forward.