Miniature Vampires
Posted by Meg
The contest entries keep flowing in! Here is an account of small but painful coreling created by Alex.
Hey Peat!
Got the idea for this while overhearing a conversation about leeches at school (as you do) and thought it could be a quite cool coreling! Was so excited, I couldn’t wait until I got home and am now currently typing this up in my business class, but shushhhh 😀 Who needs A levels right?
Massive fan of your work, with your books earning a prized place on my bookshelf 🙂 Looking forward to reading the next entries into what is a fantastic series 🙂
Coreling Entry:
It was the darkest of nights, but Arlen could see all. The magical smoke that extended from the core looked almost beautiful in the moonlight. He had set camp and was now out of his circle, Twilight Dancer waiting patiently for his return while he replenished his herb supply, with the knowledge that he would need them soon.
As he reached down to gather a small patch of hogroot, a small sound caught his ear and Arlen whipped round, fury dancing in his eyes. He saw nothing, but his enhanced hearing could still hear the sound of a coreling’s guttural grunts. A movement on the ground caught his eyes and Arlen looked down at the almost pitiful monster.
Almost a foot in length, the pitch black snakelike demon jerked itself forward as it struggled to reach Arlen. Arlen had never even read about this type of coreling before, but he was not impressed. Arlen smirked at the creature’s pathetic squirming that moved the demon ever closer to his flesh. With a deep laugh at the embarrassing coreling, Arlen extended his foot, intending to kick the worm flying over the trees. As his foot connected with the creature, pain suddenly flared within him as the razor sharp miniature fangs sank itself into the small, unwarded section Arlen’s foot.
With a loud curse, Arlen’s eyes flashed with annoyance and then mild panic as the coreling started to swell with his own lifeblood. The creature, in a few short seconds, had almost doubled in size with the contents of Arlen’s blood. With another curse, Arlen reached down and sank his warded fingers into the corelings flesh, watching it part beneath his fingers and the curse of magic drain from its small hateful red eyes.
Despite the creature now sent back Nie’s abyss, the creature remained embedded in Arlen’s skin; Arlen’s own blood leaking out of the hole he had made. Arlen face grew taunt as he reached down and ripped the coreling out of his skin, including a sizeable chunk of his own flesh with it. As he watched, his stored coreling magic started to knit his own skin back together, the pain decreasing with every second. Arlen reached into his herb pouch for a cautionary piece of hogroot he had just gathered and with his other hand, lifted the small coreling in level with his eyes, smoke trailing as his the wards on his hands corroded the dead corelings flesh. He examined it for a moment with a new found respect for the danger such a small creature could possess, his trained eyes surveying and memorising the creature. With a annoyed sigh, Arlen flicked it off into the woods.
A curse followed shortly after. “Fuck, you’re annoying.”
Thank you to Alex for sending in that inventive story! I love the inspiration (I didn’t know leeches were so talked about at school) and the story that grew out of it. The leech demons remind me of little vampires (afraid of the sunlit, love to suck blood). Maybe a garlic-inspired ward would do the trick?
Want to let us know what your most annoying coreling is? Don’t forget to submit to the Create Your Own Coreling Contest by 11:59pm on May 18, 2012. For more details, check out the rules here.
There are some truly fantastic prizes being offered. The grand prize is a copy of the Graphic Audio version of The Warded Man complete with a T-shirt and signed poster featuring Lauren Cannon’s beautiful picture of Renna. The first part of The Desert Spear will be released by Graphic Audio on May 16th, so check back soon for more details.