Friday Fictioneers – Attack

~ neilmacdon
saltaire-sarah-ann-hall
Photo Prompt © Sarah Ann Hall

They were drawn up like an army on the heights, standing tall in silent challenge. Mist swaddled them and a pale moon shone through their ranks.

My opponent’s bishop rushed me, and the daring caused the watchers to gasp.

A shake of my head to clear it, and a hand run over tired eyes. These were only vases, a collection on my sideboard. Just ornaments.

The bishop’s mitre scythed over my head and I saw moonlight glint on keen steel.

Confronting mortal threat makes philosophical speculations about reality fade. I hefted the broadsword that formed in my hands.

 

Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here.

Fancy sharpening your skill with writing exercises? The Scrivener’s Forge offers a new exercise every month to hone one aspect of your craft. Take a look at this month’s exercise on point of view.

 

63 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers – Attack”

  11. I like the imaginative take on the prompt, and the way you transform ornaments to chess pieces and hence to actual warriors, thereby gaining richness. As always, your descriptive writing is lovely. And, as you have a broadsword in your hands, I’m glad I’m not the bishop!
    😉

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    1. What I had in mind was a psychotic episode. I’m writing a novel at the moment in which the main character gradually cracks up, so expect lots of forays into psychosis over the coming months

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  15. I enjoyed the change in size in your piece: from what I envisioned as a huge army, transformed to chess pieces, then fairly large (or what I imagine as fairly large) vases on a mantel. Meanwhile, there is an underlayment of threat in the words army, scythed and broadsword

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  29. I thought of chess pieces too, those jardiniere do look a little like the massed ranks of pieces, or indeed, soldiers. Is this a flash back to a previous life, or a sidestep into a parallel world? Intriguing story Neil

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