Untitled
an excerpt

Chapter 1 (Four people from our world find themselves transported to another)

A forest.
Or, rather, a clearing in a forest.
Surrounded by tall, spindly trees with fan-shaped leaves spreading in a spiral pattern along trunks and branches. A ridge of white rock juts from the dark earth and fat blades of grass at one end of the clearing. Water rushes over the edge, feeding a stream below. Tarah, Katie, Ryan and John lie in the grass, surrounded by eight armored men with swords. But the men aren't facing them. They're looking outward, defensively. Dark shapes clash with these eight, as with horsed men in the clearing. The dark ones have wiry black hair and wear goggles of smoked glass. They're trying to fight their way through the defensive circle.
As they hammer away at the defenders, Tarah opens her eyes.
She sits.
She screams.

The sense of chaos is immediate. A heavy, rumbling disorientation that wells up from the ground, takes a jaw-grinding ride through Tarah's bones, and culminates in her temple. The sounds of battle mask her cry, its sights paralyze her thoughts - flashes of steel, ringing clash of blades, tunics of green trimmed in yellow swirling in and out of her vision, armored figures stumbling into a rough circle around her, heavy boots sinking into the soft mud.
The air is sharp with iron. A thick humidity, heavy with the smell of earth, lingers beneath the scent of blood.
The clearing around Tarah is a mess, tall, thin men on horseback kicking up dirt as they run down smaller, dark-skinned creatures who frantically dodge and strike blows with their own long blades when they can. The horsemen's swords rise and fall, grinding the dark creatures beneath razored steel. A rider is unhorsed, run through, but the battle is one-sided. The dark creatures are losing.
Tarah watches, slack-jawed, until a single thought penetrates the thinning fog of her mind.
Katie.
Tarah scrambles to her feet, pushing against thick blades of grass as she rises. The body is a few feet away, unmoving.
Oh, God.
Tarah dashes to her sister's side, knees digging furrows into the ground as she slides to a stop. A hand on Katie's chest. Rise and fall. Tarah is dizzy with relief.
"Get up, Katie." Tarah's voice is a hiss forced through clenched teeth. Despite the raucous sound of battle, she feels a need to be quiet.
"Katie..."
Tarah's stomach clenches into a tight, painful knot. The sounds of battle fade in to the distance, leaving only a ringing in her ears.
Come on, Katie. Wake up.
Katie groans, pulls her knees to her chest. Tarah is stuck by how little her sister is - tiny wrists, a waist so small Tarah can almost wrap her hands around it. Small face haloed in an explosion of blonde hair.
So fragile. How come I forget that?
"Tarah?" Katie sits, eyes wide. "Where are we?"
Tarah shakes her head as the full alienness of the situation hammers its way through. The battle. Swords. The dark creatures.
"I don't know, Katie. I just don't know. Stay by me and don't move."
Katie nods. For once there is no argument.
Heavy movement from behind. Tarah whirls, heart pounding. Ryan and John are rising, both looking around and wiping the seat of their pants. She hadn't seen them there in the tall grass. Around them the fight continues, the rough circle changing shape, widening, contracting as needed to keep the dark creatures away from...away from them?
Ryan reaches Tarah in three long strides, motioning John to follow. Tarah imagines the expression of stark surprise on his face mirrors her own.