This 8 sentence blog hop is hosted by The Weekend Writing Warriors. (Click the link for the list of participants, or rules if you want to join!)
Shield of Namarr is a sword-and-sorcerer type fantasy WIP, set in a kingdom that suffers from magically-created, vicious creatures. Three friends bought a finding-things-lost potion, and set out to track down a stolen magical stone–they’ve found a river, ride across one at a time, with a rope around their waist in case of daggerfish attack, and Auber, crossing last, is attacked, ends up in the river, and is pulled to safety.
I skipped over Reagan rushing to the rescue, first-aid kit in hand.
“I’m fine,” Auber brushed away Regan’s reaching hands, stood, and swayed, nearly falling.
“You’re not,” Reagan argued, but Auber waved the healer away, wobbling toward the river, stopped with feet wide for stability, and whistled.
Nemesis whickered, head turning towards his rider.
Auber whistled again.
Shan jogged closer to the river several feet away from Nemesis, and chucked a few rocks into the water. A daggerfish leapt from the disturbed area, snapping its jaws. A long, muscular, sharp-toothed fish, with tough scales like armor, and a row of spikes running along its spine from nose to tail, a daggerfish could draw blood just by brushing past a swimmer, and this one seemed especially angry.
Shan threw more pebbles as the daggerfish continue to jump out of the river heading back to the gelding, hitting the fish once with a lucky throw and slowing it just long enough for Nemesis, no longer under attack, to surge out of the river.
* * *
Originally, Shield of Namarr was intended to be a very short snippet, but some things I wrote at the end raised some questions–which led to more story. I’m currently working on some world-building and character development so I can figure out where the story goes next.
Shan, Auber, and Reagan visit a Stonespeller, a mage who works mostly in animated stone, to buy a potion that will help them recover a lost stone, the Shield of Namarr, which powers a shield that keeps magically-created, dangerous creatures from entering the city they live in. Failure to return the Shield quickly will have deadly consequences for their friend, Jamie, whose life-force is currently powering the shield-spell.
caitlinsternwrites 
Do I love this? Yes I do. The whole scene is written so well, I’m on the shore hoping one big rock smashes the dagger fish so Nemesis escapes. Wonderful, Caitlin.
Thanks! They might have planned a little for the attack, but no one thought to pile up some rocks as ammunition, which would have been smart.
Hey, lovely to see you in another blog hop. 🙂
Hope your projects are still going well
It’s amazing what you can find aimlessly wandering the blogs. Thanks, you too!
Those daggerfish aren’t things to be messed around with!
If you’re going to magically create a super-fish, might as well go all out!
Shan is a smart one—and Auber clearly remains Auber. Oh, well. 🙂
Daggerfish are well named and well described, too, caitlin. Yeesh!
There’s a reason Shan’s the leader. And as for Auber… can you imagine how the other two horses would have done under attack?
Yep, they’re not exactly cuddly little monsters. But they were perfect in some mage’s moat, I bet.
Yay, Nemesis made it!!! Lol, I am glad Auber appears to be okay as well, but it was Nemesis I worried about;). Fabulous and vivid description.
Hey, Nemesis is an awesome horse. I’d be worried too, if I didn’t already know the end. 😉
I have to ditto Tina’s comment- I always worry about the animals first- people can mostly take care of themselves! Awesome evil fish creature, BTW.
Nemesis took care of himself pretty well, too. 🙂
The chimera are inspired in part by bad monster movies where scientists combine shark and octopus, alligator and dinosaur, snake and scorpion, etc. Because that always ends well…
Phew, thank goodness for that! Tense and exciting!
One obstacle overcome, many more to go! 🙂
Whew! Looks like Nemesis is going to make it. This whole scene is just wonderfully intense.
Like some people in the comments, I have a soft spot for animals, too. Less for the dangerous chimera, though!
Thank you for rescuing the horse! Those daggerfish are imposing all right (the way you write them!) – terrific snippet yet again.
I took some of the scariest fish I’d seen on the Discover channel and combined them. I’d never go swimming in this world’s rivers!
Not my genre, but you still got me interested.
There’s a genre for everyone, right?
I read pretty widely, but I’m drawn to writing fantasy. Probably from how many hours I spent as a kid wishing I had magic powers. 🙂
Really lovely writing, love the flow and descriptions. Great 8!!
Thanks! 🙂
So glad that Nemesis made it out of the water – great thinking by Shan to throw the rocks. Auber is “safe”, just hoping he’s okay. He seems a bit worse for the attack. Aside from drawing blood, do these daggerfish have any toxins? Tense scene, very well done.
I thought about giving them toxins, but I decided to save it for a different chimera. But the accounting of injuries will be in the next snippet.
I seriously have nightmares about these daggerfish of yours. They sound absolutely terrifying. So glad that they’ve all managed to get out of the water. Hopefully none are too badly injured. Well done! 🙂
Nightmares, huh? Sorry! It’s a good thing I didn’t make them capable of walking on land, like lungfish…
You have created great tension around the daggerfish….
They’re not something I’d get into the water with, that’s for sure. The bigger problem is the stretch of plains they still have to ride over, which has plenty of other chimera roaming around. 😉