Here's part of a short story that I'm working on... This isn't the beginning or the end, but rather somewhere in the middle. Those Munchkins might be clever, but sometimes the beginning isn't the best place to start.
Her heavy boots bit into the sand as her path led down the dune into the Valley of the Fallen. Brilliant silver eyes peered out from under the cloth wrapped firmly around her face to keep out the wind thrust sands. She stepped down onto glass; it shattered under her foot. The sun was setting now behind her and the wind tugged hard against her cloak as if to warn her away from this place. A caravan of traders had taken her this far, but not even the bravest man or the stupidest beast would enter these lands. Here the ghosts of a thousands soldiers dwelled forever without rest.
Hundreds of years ago fire boiled up from the sands here. Here mortal men assaulted the gates of Hell themselves, led by the half god Rayne, and they where burned alive. That was a war of greed, and an attempt to wrest power from the jeweled demon Talin’Gagh. The glass at her feet radiated heat unnatural even to the sands of the dessert she pressed on to the center of the smooth class as the fiery sun rested on her shoulders for a moment before plummeting out of sight, and throwing the world into darkness. From her pack Heaven removed a torch and lit it with a whispered prayer crossing her lips. In the darkness the corpses of a thousand dishonored dead had gathered to feed on her living flesh. Holding the torch high above her with her left hand she threw back her cloak and revealed the naked of blade Seran-dal. The curved blade glimmered in the torch light, and Heaven stood her ground. The undead creatures howled out in one voice echoing hundred’s of years of sorrow. One by one they fell to their knees pitifully begging for merciful death.
Seran-dal was royal steel, and a thing that could kill even those beyond the boundaries of death. The corpses ahead of here slithered aside as if a strong wind had pushed them back, but at the moment the night air was deathly still. The corpse of Rayne the half god appeared before her. His mane wreathed in flames he appeared as he did in life: a vision of beauty and strength. His eyes however were empty sockets where maggots could be seen crawling, and then he blinked.
“Who dares come to the entrance of Hell!?” Rayne bellowed. His handsome features unscathed by time, sand, or even death.
“I am called Heaven, daughter of Jorn Prince of the Moon Chariot.” She replied calmly but with a voice that conveyed power. “And, you will step aside.”
“I am Rayne, son of thunder, brother of …”
“You are not a mystery to me dead god!” Heaven interrupted. Unsheathing Seran-dal, she stepped forward mere inches from the towering embodiment of strength.
“Know your place girl, or I will strike you down!” The dead half god said, and the sand beneath their feet shook from the strength of his voice.
She leapt into the air the sand at her feet kicked back into the warm night air as she was carried up as if by magic. The torch left her hand and fell towards the sand. Her boots planted on Rayne’s right knee, but she was already running up the length of his muscular body. His face twitched as she stopped on his shoulder, but that might have just been a trick of the light as the torch hit the ground and extinguished.
Moments later the torch ignited in her hands. The sands all around her were void of the undead corpses of the fallen, and Rayne lay dead at her feet. Ahead a hole in the glass vented hot steam into the cooling night air. Her silver eyes stared into that hole, and she smiled one last time before entering Hell.
