Mercenary Wings 2

*removed*

The dust, swirling up from the road, reached for the man's face and eyes like a slow-moving, groping hand.

and his mouth and eyes were full of the thick, fine dust. [You repeat dust here. Maybe particles instead?]

Through the dust ahead, they could see the dim shapes of small houses, lining a cobbled road that abruptly cut the dust down to minimum.

The man was tall, with straight black hair shiny with sweat. [Would sound better as 'The man was tall, his straight black hair shiny with sewat.]

At his side was a heavy ax stuck through a leather loop, [Axe spelt with an 'e'?]

Brad closed his gray and black-flecked wings and whirled in the sky

but we've been flying almost non-stop for about a week.

falling head first through the bright cloud layer and towards the Earth.

He sat sipping quietly and looking around for someone he might be able to ask about their next job; the dragons.

On the counter was pinned many different scraps of paper from different people [Maybe 'Pinned on the counter were many different scraps... would sound better?]

It was signed and sealed by the king himself.

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I liked the advance in characterization in this extract and once again, it's imaginative and enjoyable. You tend to use the word 'dust' a lot which was slightly it=rritating but other than that I liked it. Feel free to notify me when you have the next part up and I'll be glad to give that a look too. Hope some of this helps,

Heather xx

Once again, kitty15 already found all of the typos.

Glad to see that you continued the story, now we're starting to get a bit more characterization and story problem. Still love the originality. Keep it up.

Thumbs up once again! This story is starting to form. I'm starting to get a picture of what is going on. War, mercenaries, and of course dragons (what is fantasy without them). This is a very good start! Now what will happen? Please write more so that I may know!

-The most un-indepth, Green one

P.S.: Once again please PM me if/when you write more!

Ooo! Dragons! Nothing is complete without them . Apart from the little typos it's really good!

~ Shadowsun

Very good! I read the first part of this, I think, but forgot about it. Now I see that this is really good! Carry on!

Wow, keep it up, these are really good! i cant believe i havnt found it in a bookstore yet!! you should try to get it published!

My favorite part had to be when the kitten sneezed. So cuuuute.

Your writing is, as usual, very exciting and well-paced. The only thing I really noticed was in the larger chunks of conversation -- I've never really been a fan of ellipses in dialogue, and I feel like they should be used sparsely, if at all. This happens particularly while Brad is talking, and while I understand why you use the ellipses, I think it could be better conveyed by some other kind of punctuation or syntax. In my opinion, having repeated ... breaks up the flow of the paragraph.

There was also one sentence that I thought might have sounded better had it been broken up:

He had been afraid that it would be noisy, and he hated noise, especially because his hearing was amplified beyond a normal human's hearing.

It's just that it's three different ideas presented at once, and I think it would sound more natural if you used a semicolon or split it up into at least two sentences.

I really love how you're building on the characters in this story, especially how you showed us a little more about each of the mercenaries by their respective choices of, erm, entertainment. There's also more conflict building here... tension, woo! And dragons. I hope they don't get distracted and go do something else that's not dragon related, that would make me sad... I wanna see dragons!

Near the beginning: 'on a mission of war' seems very vague. If there was a war going on, wouldn't he name it specifically? And why would the innkeeper hint about the king's service? I don't know why he's asking that. Surely he'd take anyone's money?

The draft notice seems more like a suggestion than an order. It would be more realistic to specify able-bodied men, and gave details over how the king was going to be enforcing this. Erik doesn't seem concerned with the notice-- he seems to dismiss it as an 'everyone else' sort of thing, and that amplifies the idea that you could get away with breaking the rules here.

Again, I really liked your composition. You have a nice, clean set-up, an easy-to-follow style, and you get straight to the point without sacrificing detail. The characters are interesting-- Valery seems a little snippy still, and Brad is mildly annoying, but Erik so far is intriging... Dominic doesn't come across as a villain, either... I'm not so sure what to think about him, but I want to see more. Oh, and the kitten is priceless.