11/7/2023 0 Comments Fantasy forest story dracoI gave the young soldier-dandy that it was a nice day. It's not a wonderful life, but it's the only one I know. An itinerant apothecary is welcome almost anywhere, and can even turn bandits civil. Some idea of doctoring grew up with me, though nothing great or grand. She said he was a camp physician and maybe that was so. My father was with the Romans, in fact he was probably the last Roman of all, one foot on the ship to go home, the rest of him with my mother up against the barnyard wall. Most people can tell my trade from that, and the aroma of drugs and herbs. Then again, I had my box of stuff alongside. It wasn't he thought I was harmless, just that he thought he could handle me if I tried something. He stayed relaxed as he said it, and somehow you knew from that he really could look after himself. I wondered what he'd do when he looked up from his daydream and saw me, tough, dark and sour as a twist of old rope, clopping down on him on my swarthy little horse, ugly as sin, that I love like a daughter. He was also younger than me, and a great deal prettier, but the last isn't too difficult. But he had a sharp grey sword, an army sword, so maybe he could defend himself. He was crazy, too, because there was gold on his wrists and in oneĮar. He was smart and very clean for someone in the wilds, and he had the South all over him, towns and baths and money. I was coming from the North back into the South, to civilisation as you may say, when I saw him, sitting by the roadside. On the other hand, I once travelled in company with a fellow who got the name of "dragon-slayer." There's no swordsman living ever killed a dragon, though a few swordsmen dead that tried. You'll have heard stories, sometimes, of men who have fought and slain dragons. Her most recent books are the novel The Blood of Roses and the collection The Forests of the Night. Her short story "Elle Est Trois (La Mort)" won a World Fantasy Award in 1984 and her brilliant collection of retold folk tales, Red As Blood, was also a finalist that year, in the Best Collection category. Tanith Lee is one of the best-known and most prolific of modern fantasists, with over forty books to her credit, including (among many others) The Birth Grave, Drinking Sapphire Wine, Don't Bite the Sun, Night's Master, The Storm Lord, Sung in Shadow, Volkhavaar, Anackire, Night Sorceries, and the collections Tamastara, The Gorgon, and Dreams of Dark and Light. Here, in keeping with long tradition, we get to watch a battle between a hero and a ferocious dragon of the genuine old-fashioned maiden-eating variety-but keep your eyes open, for in the compelling, tricky, and bitterly ironic story that follows, nothing is quite what it seems.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |