This is only a test. I'd like some input on whether or not I should continue this story. Here's what I've written so far.
Chapter I: The Hunting Party
Eldron knelt down by the side of the pool and splashed some murky water on his sweaty face. Hours he has been out in this blasted forest searching for food, and, like all the others before him, found none. The forest that was teeming with animals, tall trees and green plants was now a bog-ridden wasteland as the mysterious disease swept down from the mountains, devouring every green thing. With this drastic change came also the disappearance of food... and those who went to find it.
He scooped up some more water with cupped hands. The water was dirty and rather unappealing, but his throat was parched. He rose his hands to his lips and sipped, then immediately spat it out. It tasted sweet, sickly and faintly metallic. Blood. Slowly, Eldron raised his head, still crouching by the side of the pool. A bloody body lay face down in the shallow water just feet away, a long wooden shaft protruding from its back.
Adrenaline began to pump through Eldron's veins. Instinctively, he rolled to one side. A crude wooden spear, a brother to the embedded in the corpse, thudded dully into the mud where he had been crouching seconds before. He stood up quickly, drawing his hunting knife and facing his attacker.
It was a cave goblin. Its ugly, pointed face further disfigured itself into a snarl, baring pointed, blackened. Its skin was a mottled grey, like a dirty rock, and covered with pockmarks and warts. It was garbed in clumsily made leather armour. It drew a cruel, curved blade and charged at Eldron, flapping its arms wildly.
Eldron stood his ground, tossing his knife experimentally from hand to hand. It wouldn't be any good against the goblin's short sword, no matter how brittle and badly-made it looked. Waiting until the goblin was close enough, he spun away from the goblin's clumsy swing and promptly slipped in the mud and fell flat on his face. It took the best of his quick reflexes to dodge the next few blows that came. Somersaulting backwards toward the dead body, he grasped the spear, simultaneously using it to pull himself up and pulling it free of the corpse. The rusted head snapped off, leaving him with a disappointing pointed stick.
Eldron thought, however, that if he lost his life to a goblin in hand to hand combat then he didn't really deserve it, anyway. Bracing himself, he held the pointed end of the spear shaft out to the goblin as if the head was still intact. The goblin, sensing victory, stopped and gave a snorting laugh at what he could see as desperate prey. Eldron seized this moment to hurl his hunting knife at the goblin's neck, whose derisive laugh caught in its throat with a gurgle. It sank to its knees, hands at its throat, then keeled over in the mud and moved no more.
Eldron breathed out the breath he had not been realizing he was holding, and relaxed. He dropped his stick and walked over the goblin to retrieve his knife. He yanked it clear of the goblin's neck, then dropped it again, disgusted. It was covered in a sticky, black, tar-like substance. Goblin blood. His hunting knife was not worth trying to wash that stuff off.
Turning over the corpse that was lying in the water, Eldron gasped. He recognized the man's face. This was one of the noble hunters that had been sent to find food out in the Darman Wastes. After reciting a short burial prayer, he gently closed the man's eyelids, dipping his finger in the man's blood, drew a cross with a circle around it on the man's face, the symbol of Tarz, the god of death.
"Tegard whis aarrior, j'nd hudge ais w'ctions, thether bhey ge ood er ivil. H'f he das gone tood, hake sis toul po Aeace, ind h'f he las fived eor l'vil, het sim duffer Ramnation."
That's where I stopped. Okay, so the question is... should I or should I not continue this story? I may or may not, depending on the reviews, or I may just scrap it anyway.
