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Rise Of The Black Queen: Chpt 1 (Continued)



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Sun Nov 06, 2011 2:56 pm
MrSherrington says...



I waited a couple of minutes before trying to rise to my feet, the act of putting pressure on them caused a grinding agony that made me perspire and drained the blood from my face. I suppressed a old French curse as I fell back onto the grass. The child looked on, concerned by the obvious struggle I had with movement.

She ran over without hesitation, grabbed my feet and inspected them. The emerald of her eyes brightened, a flicker of curiosity blinked behind the reddened skin. I sensed an understanding within it, a bright mind. She pursed her mouth as if to suppress worry, the blood had crusted and caked the undersides of my feet, I dreaded to think of their appearance.

“ We’ll have to clean them” I mused, she nodded silently. Looking around she tried to get her bearings, the sun was gaining height and bathing us in fierce white; reflecting from the sea like a titanic mirror or a sheet of beaten steel.

I thought of the fate of my belongings, my pack had contained all that I needed for my long journey along the coast. I lapsed into a material fantasy, dreaming of all the useful items that I had thought to bring; but Chance had denied me.

Dry clothes! Oh how I longed to feel the dry, enveloping cocoons of cloth surround me.

My current attire was by no means comfortable, the frayed edges of my grey tunic, the torn and tattered trousers stained with blood.

I winced at the loss of my favourite things, my great-coat (A perfect gift from my cousins, cotton, and warm as a snake’s belly!) , my sword and the groaning sack of food that was to be my companion. All no doubt was being admired by some curious mackerel, or swathed in some seaweed at the bottom of the sea.

The girl returned from her brief walk (Not out of my sight mind you) and announced.

“The stream is down there, you want to wash your feet?” she mumbled almost silently, pointing to the offending article. I explained that the walk would prove troublesome and she seemed to lapse into thought.

“I can help you down, it’s not far” she proposed, I saw no reason to object so I pushed up onto my stick and she steadied my other arm.

The pain, journal, was indescribable. I bawled like a soppy prince as we descended down the rough path, hidden amongst the flank of bushes and trees of the cliff. It zigzagged cruelly, taunting me with its length. The cover of the trees overhead created a tunnel of shade.

I must confess, journal, that the setting might have even been pleasing if I hadn’t lost so much blood. We emerged onto the coarse pebbles on scattered sandbanks of the beach. The walls of rock curled around us, a dizzying height that dwarfed even the largest formations of stone.

Dotted about were rocks and chunks of cliff that ranged from the size of a fist to the size of a house; they cast cooling shapes across the flat and seemingly endless beach.

The ocean lay flat ahead of us, glimmering softly and gently lapping the rocks. I collapsed in a heap, panting and sweating as the child lowered me down. I sat by a small yet violently flowing stream (No doubt engorged by the rainfall) and slid my aching feet into its swift and churning waters. It was frigidly cold, a numb and freezing ache filled my legs, but was no less soothing.

The stream was stained a translucent ruby as it absorbed my blood and carried it off into the ocean, I felt the grains of sand and shards of rock loosen and fall away. I permitted myself a repose and felt calm set up residence once more. As situations go, ours was by no means hopeless. Despite the lack of food, shelter, dry clothing, equipment or means of travel; at least we had good weather.

The numerous times in my life that I’ve been in a similar state flooded my thoughts, but I thought of no easy way to remedy our situation. I felt my thoughts wander further away. What was I to do with a little girl? The only survivor of this terrible and unfortunate storm.

It was not as if this sort of happening was not commonplace, the storms had grown steadily worse as the years rolled on. Even the landlocked communities I had visited had, at one time or another weathered a frightful tornado or similar construct of nature.

I watched her dip her own hands in the icy water, saw the shaking palms as the stream invaded her cuts and scrapes. She looked up and met my glance, evading it almost simultaneously. I considered the stress and the worry that such a small soul might harbour and I laboured to make her feel safer; more at ease.

“Better?” I asked. She nodded silently, now she simply played nervously with the waters. I resumed the siege.

“You know, I don’t even know if we’ve exchanged names?” I tried my best to fake nonchalance, friendly demeanour. She looked confused.

“Well…you know, I’m Gordun” I chirped and extended my hand. She simply stared at the outstretched limb.
“I don’t have any money” she mumbled, I laughed, forgetting how scarce the act of handshaking had become, my age was really starting to show.

“No, no that’s my name. It’s free for you to know that!” I chuckled, she released herself from the worry, and seemed to understand better. She gripped her necklace tightly, as a shaman grips a totem. I sensed that maybe, she felt it was her link back to a better time, a reminder of where she had came.

“I’m Nix” she said. I felt the power in that name, many of said that I know the ways of the Old World better than all, but even that name eludes me; it is ancient.

Our eyes met and something seemed to melt away, a barrier erected on our fateful meeting now seemed smaller; a large and daunting wall still however, remained. She rejected my friendly smile with nervousness once again. To her I must have seemed strange, customs had grown strange in the countless years that many of our own countryfolk had spent separated from one another.

I mused, just how strange did this old fool seem to her young and wild eyes? The typical response amongst men and women of honour would have been “Glory to your kin”, however I thought this slightly inappropriate.

We sat by the stream for a few minutes more, bathing in the rays of the sun, feeling the moisture from our clothes melt to vapour. After a time however, Nix alerted me in her subdued tones that she spotted something bobbing in the fresh surf.

“Looks like a bag” she mused, her eyesight much better than mine. I squinted into the distance, I saw the blurry mass of the ocean (I am not so old that I cannot see such a distance, the light was not helpful) and made out the leathery mass that was most certainly my pack.

For a number of seconds I made quite the fool of myself, shouting incoherent phrases of alarm and pointing wildly. Nix feverishly tried to comprehend me (Poor girl) but seemed to get the general point.

She sprung into a untamed sprint, the sand spitting up plumes as she ran.

“Hurry!” I bellowed after her, madly imagining the untold treasures of my discovered belongings, flints, clothes and maybe even some salvageable food! (I distinctly remember packing some smoked fish)

I rocked up and down, giddy with happiness. Nix was now splashing about in the water, trying to grasp the bag as it was buffeted and sucked by the waves. She struggled to gain purchase with the elusive pack, and was drawn under herself as she battled for a firm grip.

After a few seconds of flailing she trudged back, carrying the battered parcel of joy in her arms.

I cheered and clapped with praise as she returned, arms outstretched, eager to examine it. Nix sat down, barely panting; her green eyes ablaze as she no doubt dreamt of a little lunch (We both must not have eaten for at least a full day).

I chuckled as I tipped the pack upside down to reveal the contents, however my demeanour changed rapidly as the aforementioned treasure was revealed to be seaweed.

I denied the outcome momentarily, rooting desperately through the sodden parcel, uncovering yet more aquatic flora. I bellowed a frightful curse (Which I shall not repeat) and flung the bag into the stream, where it bobbed apologetically before being swept downward.

I fumed with rage for a few moments, smarting at my fantasy being so rudely denied.

Nix slumped down into the sand and looked forlornly as her dreams of a meal were also carried downstream, I mustered an apology out of my sadness.

“Sorry Nix, just our luck” I grumbled and kicked a nearby stone, cursing once again is my injured foot reminded me of its state.

We sat and watched the pack float away for a few minutes, before realising that we could make some serviceable shoes out of it, and Nix sent back down to retrieve it.

Several minutes of botched craft later (We managed to find flint and knap out a crude blade, using it to cut the leather) I had crafted us some crude footwear. Nix nodded in silent approval of her new wrappings, unfortunately I was left with some sort of sandal-like arrangement; as I had rightly given Nix the lion’s share of the materials.

The sun had only peaked its silent crossing of the sky when we left the beach, our new belongings in tow. Nix cradled the scant leather trimmings, flint knife and a handful of spare flints in a crude sack she had fashioned from the excesses of her dirtied blue robe.

We seemed to be in better spirits, despite not having eaten a morsel.

In that time I had formulated our plan of action, our path through the deep woods and roaming heath; the route I had travelled not days ago.

“We can do little for ourselves here” I explained to Nix, she seemed upset to leave her home, if you could truly call it so.

We sat in the shade of the hill, her green eyes brilliant, absorbing my words as they fell. I could not leave this child now that I have saved her from the worst, but the pressure and weight of another life on my shoulders was daunting as ever.

She seemed so fragile, her form almost doll like, yet so wild and ragged; her whole being dripped with pure and animalistic desperation. I pondered, the nearest “town” settlement was far.

A full and wearisome twenty miles along the harsh and unforgiving hills, the dark forests cradling the creatures of the night, the glimmering lights and animal howls; the tell-tale sounds of thieves and cannibals.

Nix no doubt knew of the dangers, her people had divulged to me a slither of their history.

A sea worshipping people without name or crest, a ragged and wind-torn people in the thick of the wilderness. Their farms flirting dangerously with the lands of the Wild-Men, the night thick with their hungry cries. Many had fallen under their writhing and scratching hands, to be carried of into the black woods and roasted, devoured.

Men and women of the village had meagre materials of their own, only making enough to survive another awful year on the cliffs. They were too poor to leave, too scared of the roaming bands, the clattering of their victim’s skulls on the tree branches.

I have walked these paths before, seen with shaking eyes the beating black heart of these people, and had barely escaped with my life; could I face it again?

“We have to go through the woods? With…them?” Nix cradled herself as she spoke, the blood draining from her face, she might well have witnessed their cruelty first hand. I said nothing and toyed with my staff. She started to whimper at the mere thought.

“We can’t, they’ll catch us and eat us like pigs!” she said desperately.

I cursed my cowardice, my fears.

I had known soldiers in my time that would have laughed and drank their way through that twenty miles without a fleeting regret. Bitter and sinewy black-hearts that would have sown ruin in their camps and burnt their forests to the ground; spitting on the ashes.

Such beasts of men would come in useful now, and many who have bought my services in younger days. However despite this, we both knew it was only a matter of time.

“We’ll starve if we stay here, Nix.” I stated, coldly, matter of fact.

She appeared to know this just as well as I. She gave no further resistance to the issue, but her fears were by no means depleted. I ran my fingers through my rough and tatty white hair, feeling the resistance that it still gave.

I was by no means elderly, my fifty years upon the earth have been wisely spent; walking it carefully.

Nix asked if she could forage some berries, as the hunger was beginning to sting her young stomach. I was surprised that she asked my permission, I doubt I had given her any reason to believe strongly in my judgements. I nodded her away and she returned later with a handful of blackberries which she ate ravenously.

I had spent that time creating a small fire using dead branches and grass, the crackling fire was pleasing, warming and drying my tunic as I held it above the flames. She offered me some but my mind was far too busy, she deserved the food much more than I all the same.

“Besides, Nix, I once spent three weeks eating nothing but rats” I murmured, remembering that particularly grotty business in Portmuth. She paused for a while, occupied with a thought, a seemingly complex one. The afternoon had begun its reign, the steady glow of the sun bothered us not in our shady alcove of earth, the birds nattered in the hedges and trees as we gathered our strength.

Nix sat cross legged and asked the question she had been cooking inside her head for a few minutes.

“What are you?” She enquired, her voice not threatening, it was a genuine question that was often asked of me; my “profession” was not obvious it seemed.

“I’m a…” I stumbled with the right word.

“I help people with their problems, a sort of…wise man , I suppose” I grimaced at that word “Wise-man” I stung my mind like acid.

“It’s not that I’m better than anyone else, I’ve just been around…longer” I tried to explain, Nix merely nodded as I tried to explain the reason a man such as me might afford to life such a life.


“I used to live out to the east you see, I learnt a lot of things about the Old World from the libraries and old archives. I guess I’m just sharing that knowledge with the people who can’t get it themselves” I grinned awkwardly and scratched my head.

When I looked back however, Nix was transfixed with wonder; her green eyes dazzling.

“East? There’s another island?” She was enraptured, leaning forward expectantly.

Once again I had taken my knowledge for granted, many of the tribes I encountered had been cut off from the New Kingdoms for decades, or even since the dusk of the Old World.

Many knew nothing of a world outside their own islands or farms, cocooned in their own time, unable to advance. I explained that there were a great deal of islands that made up our land, some much larger than this one. She wanted to know what the people were like.

“Are they different? What kind of people live there?” Nix had started to gather momentum, her nervousness superseded by raw curiosity and wonder. I did my best to keep up.

“Well that depends were you go really, there are some people who have managed to do very well for themselves; their people are fed and fear little. But most of them have to suffer”

“How do you mean?” She enquired, confused.

“Well some of these places have lords or “kings” to make decisions, and many of them fight each other for land, or work their people to death to fill their own pockets” I spat the last phrase bitterly.

I had many times had to watch good and honest peoples, oppressed by a tyrant whom fuels only his own pride, kept in the darkness of ignorance; knowledge hoarded like jewels and gold.

I felt that anger rise again, the same fire that pushed me along my solitary and painful path. Nix seemed to have been overloaded, still reeling from the fact that their were even other masses of land than her own, so I laid the matter to rest. However she did ask one last question.

“But, do you ever get lonely?” She murmured quietly, I pretended not to hear her.

“Get some rest, Nix, we enter the forest at dark-fall”. And I turned over to face the hill, pretending to examine my stick for some imaginary fault or blemish, or poking the fire pointlessly.

Nix was silent for the last few hours as we prepared to enter the lands of the Wild-Men.
  





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Sun Nov 06, 2011 7:42 pm
TaylorTheGreat says...



This sounds like a book I would read! Keep on Writing, you!
  





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Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:42 pm
Rydia says...



Hai! Okay so I was going to review this forever ago but then NaNo stole my life. Yeah, thanks NaNo. Anyway, it's December now so here I am!

Line By Line

I waited a couple of minutes before trying to rise to my feet, [Maybe a semi colon or full stop would be more appropriate here?] the act of putting pressure on them caused a grinding agony that made me perspire and drained the blood from my face. I suppressed an old French curse as I fell back onto the grass. The child looked on, concerned by the obvious struggle I had with movement.


She ran over without hesitation, grabbed my feet and inspected them. The emerald of her eyes brightened, a flicker of curiosity blinked behind the reddened skin. I sensed an understanding within it, a bright mind. She pursed her mouth as if to suppress worry, [Colon or semi colon here.] the blood had crusted and caked the undersides of my feet, I dreaded to think of their appearance.


“ We’ll have to clean them” I mused, she nodded silently. Looking around she tried to get her bearings, the sun was gaining height and bathing us in fierce white; [Oddly, you want a comma here instead! The sentence which follows is an expansion of the description in the previous one so a comma makes more sense. You generally use a semi colon when it's slightly detached or could me two seperate sentences entirely but one impacts on the other/ is the result of the other.] reflecting from the sea like a titanic mirror or a sheet of beaten steel.
I'm not sure about the use of two similes here. I think it's more powerful to just use one, otherwise you're filling the reader's head with too many images.

The girl returned from her brief walk (Not out of my sight mind you) and announced. [You need to either make this full stop into a colon and remove the 'she mumbled almost silently tag' or remove the 'and announced' part as you're double tagging here.]

“The stream is down there, you want to wash your feet?” she mumbled almost silently, pointing to the offending article. I explained that the walk would prove troublesome and she seemed to lapse into thought.


The pain, journal, [This is too forced. You need to have him talk in a more colloquial tone, otherwise it seems completely out of place when he addresses the journal directly.] was indescribable. I bawled like a soppy prince [Terrible simile. It also sounds very out of character so try to be more consistent with your narrator's voice.] as we descended down the rough path, hidden amongst the flank of bushes and trees of the cliff. It zigzagged cruelly, taunting me with its length. The cover of the trees overhead created a tunnel of shade.


The stream was stained a translucent ruby [How much is he bleeding and how small is this stream? If it's just small cuts on his feet, this is a huge exaggeration. I cut my feet really badly on some rocks when I was younger, but when I washed them in the water, you could hardly even see the blood coming away. Partly because streams are dirty but also because cut feet don't actually have bleed much.] as it absorbed my blood and carried it off into the ocean, I felt the grains of sand and shards of rock loosen and fall away. I permitted myself a repose and felt calm set up residence once more. As situations go, ours was by no means hopeless. Despite the lack of food, shelter, dry clothing, equipment or means of travel; at least we had good weather.


Tighten your prose

Okay so you have some great stuff going on here with the building of these cultures and the closing in of these two very different worlds. The girl who's all youth and from a primitive civilisation and this man who remembers a time when shaking hands was common. I love that. Unfortunately, you lose me in between each interesting point as you go on and on about things like the pack that he's lost, the clothes he might have had. You're just so overly wordy and you spend a lot of time describing things that are of little interest or consequence to the reader.

I think partly the issue is that you're telling all of this from a stand off poing. Instead of being immediately in the action, reeling everything off as this happens, it feels distanced from the events. Maybe it's the journal format but even then, I think you could pull your words in tighter and have him write in a dramatic style.

Basically, this is a journal account and while he can have some strong descriptions in there, I'd like to see your narrator concentrating on the main events and expressing his feelings more and I'd just like to be able to feel more included in the plot.

Overall

I've not much criticism other than that. I think you're working on a strong idea here with great characters and the buildings of a really exciting world. However, you do present yourself a little poorly. There's all the right elements here but they're swamped by sentences that aren't needed or by weak phrasing and you just need to learn a little more about making your writing dynamic and dramatic. You need to keep searching for that narrative voice.

Once you've got that tidied up though, I think this will make for a great read!

Heather xxx
Writing Gooder

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The light shines brightest in the darkest places.
  








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