The Intrepid Dwarf

One night, the inveterate Council of the Cities gathered to imbibe in their most pleasant pastime, discussing the fate of the egregious fire-emanating dragon who constantly terrorized and plundered the small dwarvish towns of the East. They all sat around a long, wooden table. The obvious Head of the Council was an elderly dwarf wearing a dark green cloak with gold trimming. A long white beard threatened to completely inundate his withered face.

 

This night, there was an undercurrent of tension and anxiety which mounted as an eyewitness described the destruction of the town of Damar. He had been out hunting, and from a distance saw Hram, the feared dragon, flying as a great bird and sending puffs of fiery breath into the thatched huts of the small farming village as the families were gathered for their evening meal.

 

At the end of his recital, the dwarves sat in stunned silence. Then, the Head rose and adjusted his cloak. He cleared his throat and spoke solemnly.

 

"It is an exigency that we extirpate this menance to society as expediently as possible." A chorus of 'yeah's' and 'amens' rose from the Council.

 

Suddenly a disturbance was noticed at one end of the table as an agitated dwarf stood to his feet. He was simply dressed in a brown woolen overcoat, but his very air spoke loudly of indignation.

 

"Excuse me, sir, but you said that exact same thing last meeting and the meeting before last, and before that and before even that one! Now, I ask you, the Council, what do we do? We cannot simply sit here in our meetings every other month and not decide on a course of action."

 

At this point, a fierce invective broke from the Head of the Table, but he was ignored. The Council's attention was riveted on Corin, the speaker.

 

"Now, who will come with me this night to plan a trap to incarcerate the dragon?"

 

The room was silent, then one dwarf shoved back hs seat and stood. He was followed by another and another until the entire group was standing, save the Head, who remained motionless in his place.

 

"Go then," he snarled. "But don't expect any emolument from the Treasury!"

 

"Come on then!" exclaimed Corin, and the room emptied as the intrepid dwarves tramped out to prepare for battle with the dragon, which is an entirely different story.

Author's Note

Date: 9/8/2002

that's right - I was going through all of my old high school papers and ran across this homework assignment. The point was to use the following vocabulary words: imbibe,egregious, inundate, emanate, inveterate, exigency, extirpate, expedient, invective, incarcerate, emolument and intrepid.

Reviews

[Sound]

Ahh word context helped me alot in this one. I must say, though, I really enjoyed the story. The ending was hilarious.

[M. Amphet Salt]

This really made me laugh for some reason. It is such a lively scene and I like how you ended it.

[[untitled]]

An interesting little scene, I think it has all the makings of a good story, it's got a good hook, and you seemed to use all of those vocabulary words quite nicely. lol.

I know that this was written a while ago, but I wanted to bring up one point, and that was the use of "amens" that the congregation was shouting, presumably drawing on a Christian tradition. In a fantasy setting, it's kind of hard to imagine there being a religious order from our own world within, so I would suggest, and it's only my opinion, that if you were to perhaps continue this story or keep it for publication that you omit the reference, or change it to an equivalent praise after a cult or religion that you make up for this world.

Overall, pretty cool. Dialogue and description flowed really nicely together, so there weren't any stumbling blocks for the reader. Great job. =)

[bluessadmood]

this is a nice story and i like stories,especially of dwarfs ,but i am sure you are driving at something else ,as you say at the end ..."Come on then!" exclaimed Corin, and the room emptied as the intrepid dwarves tramped out to prepare for battle with the dragon, which is an entirely different story... i just loved this as i loved all your works,they are all very creative