Draken Slayer (Shadows of Illyria: Tales from the Realm)

Brief Description

Draken Slayer is a dark fantasy fiction short story, part of the Shadows of Illyria: Tales from the Realm Series. Written by author JM VanZuiden, the Shadows of Illyria Series is a unique twist on fantasy fiction, incorporating his real-world combat experience into the characters and events of an epic fantasy world. Draken Slayer is told a flashback suffered by the main character of the Shadows of Illyria series of novels, Aldric. In his nightmare, he relives his a life-changing event from the past where his unit was tasked hunting a pack of dangerous Draken (dragons), and experience the inglorious thrill and devastation of real combat, and the loss that comes with it.

Context of This Tale

The Draken Slayer is taken from my full-length fantasy novel; Shadows of Illyria: Phantoms of War, being published June 5, 2017. Within this novel, the following story exists as a single chapter in the manuscript (Over 450 pages).
In the novel, one of the lead characters is a grizzled veteran of war and currently a Captain in the Imperial Legion. Throughout the book, events happening in the present, trigger flashbacks told as short dreams. The dreams not only weave a tale and are relevant to the events happening in this fantasy world, but also express the very real and dark feelings that combat vets suffer from in the real world. Draken Slayer is by far the longest of those dreams, also taking place farther back in his memory than the others. It is a critical event in his life, being the first time Aldric experiences the loss of a friend in combat, and entirely unique from the other nightmares, making it a fitting candidate as a short story on its own merit.