Google+ A Tangled Rope: Meeting Doom

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Meeting Doom


Sometimes there is not that much that can be done. Sometimes it is better to turn away and go back to how life used to be. Back before all this chaos, trouble and disaster up-ended itself over your head like someone emptying the night-soil pot from an upstairs window as you walk the street below.
Other times, though, walking away is not possible.

Especially when there is a fire-breathing dragon in the way.

Especially when there is a princess with such huge… eyes, pleading with you to save her.

Trouble was Stan was not, as he claimed, Sir Stanley, Knight of the Storms. He was just Stan a poor peasant from a town with a great many upstairs windows. He didn’t know how to walk in armour and doubted it would be much use against a dragon; he’d seen what happened to metal in contact with heat at a blacksmith’s forge. So, he didn’t want to be locked inside this semi-articulated can when the dragon turned that flame on him. He had no idea how to get it off though, not without help.

As for the lance, he’d turned it over in his hands, looking for some indication of how it should be used. It looked flimsy, too flimsy compared with the dragon. The lance looked as though it could only annoy the fire-breathing beast, kindling and stoking up an appetite for a nice lunch of hot tinned man.

But the princess was begging him to save her and she had those huge… pleading eyes. She also looked like the kind of girl who could be very grateful.

Stan took a firmer grip on the lance, checked his sword was there in the scabbard at his side. He had to admit that so far his had not been much of a life, so losing it would not be that much of a loss, but it was the only one he had.

But she had those huge….

Right, dragon!’ Stan yelled as he lowered his visor and hefted his flimsy lance. ‘Prepare to meet my… your doom!’



[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

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