Assassin's Novice: The City of Rain

They know hundreds of ways to kill a person without breaking a sweat then they disappear without a trace.  Now with only a handful left they search for the next generation of assassins to aid them in there struggle to defeat the banished assassin Jaeger.

They have no flag, they have no king, they only have their Creed. Never kill the innocent, never fight for revenge, and welcome death. These men aren’t soldiers, they aren’t warriors. They are assassins.

******
Year 855

A man walked into the city of Morina, face cloaked behind a black hood. He hid behind a tree over looking the setting sun. He sighed and leaned his head back against it before he looked at the bundle he held so carefully in his arms.

A baby boy with a thin layer of black hair was sleeping in his arms as he rocked him gently. It had been an exhausting journey for them both. He sighed deeply before standing up and walked to the castle in the back of the village keeping the baby’s face covered. He knocked on the castle door and they opened.

“I must see the king,” he said. The knights looked at him and nodded. He walked in and walked up the castle steps, down the long corridor to the throne room. Two knights followed him in, the king looked up and smiled softly.

“Hermes!” he said and walked up to him but stopped when he saw the baby. His blue eyes wide open and awake, he was gurgling softly and looking between the two men. The king looked up at Hermes his eyes sad.

“He’s orphaned and he needs a family,” the younger man said. The king looked at the boy as he played with the chain around the man’s neck, Hermes smiled sadly at him. The king frowned at his friend.

“He can’t stay at the castle with you and the others?” he asked..

“No...I don’t want him to know his family or who he is,” he said. “Not while he’s growing up, and we’ve just banished Jaeger and who knows what can happen now,” he said and closed his eyes. “Morina is the safest place for him,” he said.

The king sighed and took the child into his arms. The boy whimpered and reached back to the other man. Hermes smiled softly and took off the necklace and put it in the boy’s hands. The baby played with it and looked at the man.

“I hope to see you again,” He paused and kissed his head. “Falcon,” He looked at the king as smiled before he turned and left the castle. A single tear fell from his eye and he vowed to never shed another tear for as long as he lived.

After all, assassin’s shouldn’t cry.

Hello! Wonderful to meet you, Assassin! (Out of context, that sounds like I'm asking for bad news.)

So I'll admit that I'm not very good at noticing and wanting to read the newest posts on the block. I tend to have to search for them first (fancy Shuffle button win woo!), but yoursss... zomg. I have a thing for assassins? I love rogues and thieves and assassins and all those sneaky killer dudes lykwut. Anyway, kudos for a catching title, I suppose!

I liked your introduction! It was kinda sneaky and dramatic like an assassin typically is. Crazy how that worked out, right? Though I think it'd be way cooler if you started with just the creed. It would take work and research, but I think it would be worth it. The introduction you have here now doesn't seem to be needed. It might be good on the back cover, but as an introduction? Probably not! The creed idea would be really cool. (Gah, you got me all excited now!)

The man!assassin is a big softie! I dunno who the kid is, and it's very intriguing as to why he gave it to a king of all people, but the almost-too-soft assassin is really soft! So this is either intentional and intrigues me or something worth looking into. Basically, just a note I wanted to make for your convenience. :]

Another note is I don't know why he would give it to a king. Obviously the king knows who Hermes is (they seem to be big pals here, which is odd for an assassin to walk through the front doors unscathed, so that's another intrigue!), but maybe a little more hint as to how trusted they are? Pretty much, it's just telling us what happened rather than adding a little more depth or eerieness to it. Hint at the reader as to whether this is good or bad with some foreshadowing, atmosphere/climate control, more character interaction, etc. Just little things that can really change everything. It adds a little umph to the piece that way! Draws the reader in more.

Style-wise, I think there were a lot of "he saids" that distracted me anyway. When I read this:

“He can’t stay at the castle with you and the others?” he asked..

“No...I don’t want him to know his family or who he is,” he said.

I had to reread about three times to make sense of who's talking when. xD So try name-dropping just a little more? Or use other tricks to refer to each character with the dialogue. Like the first one here, don't use the tag. Instead, refer to the king's frown in this line too. The smallest nitpick ever, but worth a mention.

So besides that, I looooved how you named the guy Hermes. At first, I was like, "Why would she name him after a guy with winged sandals?" Then I remembered Hermes is the god of thieves. xD So it turns out that it was an awesome Easter egg you threw in here, and I hope you make that Greek reference to Hermes a bit more (especially if he's, I'm assuming, the father). There were some grammar flaws in here, but that can be handled easily with an edit.

Great first part, and I do hope you post more soon! I look forward to reading more!

Keep writing!

Jabber, the One and Only!

Okay, so this a pretty neat little prologue you have here. I'm hooked. I'm looking forward to discovering why the King kept the baby, essentially the baby's significance. Some, however, advise against a prologue: http://universityoffantasy.blogspot.com%20...%20-rant.html. Often times, a prologue can just be the first chapter, but I have a feeling that there's going to be a time gap between the prologue and chapter 1. Is my guess correct? Now off the the bad part. You make a ton of grammar errors. I edited some of them, but there are still more lurking around in your prologue. If you need grammar help, my English teacher recommended Eats Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. I hear it's very helpful. I also believe there is a forum in the community forums for grammar help. One member said it helped them improve their grammar significantly. Anyways, nice prologue. Keep on writing! :3

They know hundreds of ways to kill a person without breaking a sweat, then they disappear without a trace. Now with only a handful left they search for the next generation of assassins to aid them in there theirstruggle to defeat the banished assassin, Jaeger.

They have no flag, they have no king, they only have their Creed. Never kill the innocent, never fight for revenge, and welcome death. These men aren’t soldiers, they aren’t warriors. They are assassins.

Perhaps you could put the Creed in italics or do a paragraph poem format type thing.

A man walked into the city of Morina, face cloaked behind a black hood. He hid behind a tree over looking the setting sun.

*overlooking

The king looked up at Hermes, his eyes sad

.

The king looked at the boy as he played with the chain around the man’s neck, Hermes smiled sadly at him.

Should be semi-colon

After all, assassin’s shouldn’t cry.

No apostrophe

Okay, so I like what you've got going here. I like the idea of an assassin brotherhood sort of thing as it could build to be a great story. This is too short for me to really be able to comment much on your storyline, but I will give you a couple of comments on what I did notice. The reviewer before me got some of them, but here are some other ones. Let's start with grammar, shall we?

While grammar is not fun to get through, it is very important to your writing. Most of the issues in here are grammar and they're relatively easy fixes. So, here they are:

Now with only a handful left they search for the next generation of assassins to aid them in there struggle to defeat the banished assassin, Jaeger.

Two things here: 1) 'there' needs to be 'their'; 2) there needs to be a comma before Jaeger.

They know hundreds of ways to kill a person without breaking a sweat, then they disappear without a trace.

There needs to be a comma in there.

...face cloaked behind a black hood

'Cloaked' sounds a little awkward. Maybe try 'hidden'? It's up to you.

“Hermes!” he said and walked up to him, but stopped when he saw the baby.

To me, these should probably be two seperate sentences. For that, you would take out the 'but' and put in 'He'. Otherwise, if you want to leave it as one sentence, just add in the comma.

The king looked up at Hermes, his eyes sad.

Just add the comma in there.

"He can’t stay at the castle with you and the others?” he asked.

He needs to be the King, who I'm assuming is the one saying this. It got a little confusing while reading.

Hermes smiled softly and took off the necklace and put it in the boy’s hands.

I would have 'the' become 'the chain around his neck'. That's probably just me, but I think that it would sound better.

“I hope to see you again.” He paused and kissed his head.

Comma needs to be a period.

“Falcon.”

Same thing here about the comma.

Alright. Now, for your plot. As I said before, I really enjoyed your story and your idea sounds really good. However, readers don't know that much right now except that Jaeger has been banished and that Hermes is taking a John Doe to the King. This being your prologue, you need to tell us a little bit more. We need to know why Jaeger has been banished. And we need a little bit of background on the boy. How are he and the assassins connected? What does he have anything to do with Jaeger? Basically, there needs to be a little more connection between it all. We need to know how it all fits together. Other things that should be explained are how the king and Hermes know each other. They seem like good friends, but what made them good friends. Nothing much is needed here, just a small bit of background. But get some of that background in there, explain how the baby and Jaeger are connected, and that will help a lot. Oh, and I forgot about the Creed. What exactly does it entail? I mean, I know what a creed is, but what makes their's different?

All in all, I really like this. I would love to read more of it when you get it up. Keep writing!

Cheers,
Luxe