Prologue

by 04piegirl12
  • January 29, 2012
  • Novel / Chapter
  • Fantasy · Fantasy


We had always been the King’s last resort. When all else failed on the battlefield, we would ride in and save the day. Our blood would run cold; we would grow stiff with anticipation for the call of the King’s Golden Horns.  The wind thickened as we dove down the mountain pass. We’d listen to the cries of soldiers as they died in valor. Cries on the battlefield were chilling; the shouts echoed through our ears. The death of men was etched in our minds, and blood splattered all over our armor, weapons and shields. Even if we survived the battle, we would never be the same. The battlefield would grow silent as we'd race in, but the silence would soon be broken as the cries of enemy soldiers’ rang in the ears of every man on the field. We would glide away listening to the cheers of all the King’s men. We never would go to the kingdom to make large speeches or go to elegant balls. We would just ride back to our clearing or campout and talk of the success on the battlefield. All that was before the King’s insanity. After the King’s son died on the battlefield, he went into a depression. His sorrow soon consumed his soul, leaving behind a lifeless, thoughtless heap of flesh. He’d lock himself in his room for hours; he’d neither eat, nor sleep, nor talk to anyone. The King blamed his son’s death on us, and, therefore, the King banished us from his lands. Soon after the banishment, the Tribes of Dradious went to war with Yitceht, my home city. I watched from The Calipsyo Mountain peaks as my kingdom started to go down in blood and flames. I could almost hear the helpless screams of poor women and children. Anger welled up inside of me and I charged down the mountain pass. My men quickly followed, and we rode on with valor and victory.  We vanquished the enemy but it cost my army many lives. There are only eight of us now. We wait in the dank caves of the Calipsyo Mountains; we wait for the embers of hope to spark into flame again.  My name is Violet and I am the last Leader of The Dragon Riders.

Comments & reviews · 3
Note: You are not logged in, but you can still leave a comment or review. Before it shows up, a moderator will need to approve your comment (this is only a safeguard against spambots). Leave your email if you would like to be notified when your message is approved.

User avatar
kaitlyn
Review
kaitlyn wrote a review · Sun Sep 12, 2021 6:58 pm

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm Knight Hardy here on a mission to ensure that all works on YWS has at least two reviews. You will probably never see this but....Imma do this anyway.

Anyway let's get right to it,

We had always been the King’s last resort. When all else failed on the battlefield, we would ride in and save the day. Our blood would run cold; we would grow stiff with anticipation for the call of the King’s Golden Horns. The wind thickened as we dove down the mountain pass. We’d listen to the cries of soldiers as they died in valor. Cries on the battlefield were chilling; the shouts echoed through our ears. The death of men was etched in our minds, and blood splattered all over our armor, weapons and shields. Even if we survived the battle, we would never be the same. The battlefield would grow silent as we'd race in, but the silence would soon be broken as the cries of enemy soldiers’ rang in the ears of every man on the field. We would glide away listening to the cheers of all the King’s men. We never would go to the kingdom to make large speeches or go to elegant balls. We would just ride back to our clearing or campout and talk of the success on the battlefield. All that was before the King’s insanity. After the King’s son died on the battlefield, he went into a depression. His sorrow soon consumed his soul, leaving behind a lifeless, thoughtless heap of flesh. He’d lock himself in his room for hours; he’d neither eat, nor sleep, nor talk to anyone. The King blamed his son’s death on us, and, therefore, the King banished us from his lands. Soon after the banishment, the Tribes of Dradious went to war with Yitceht, my home city. I watched from The Calipsyo Mountain peaks as my kingdom started to go down in blood and flames. I could almost hear the helpless screams of poor women and children. Anger welled up inside of me and I charged down the mountain pass. My men quickly followed, and we rode on with valor and victory. We vanquished the enemy but it cost my army many lives. There are only eight of us now. We wait in the dank caves of the Calipsyo Mountains; we wait for the embers of hope to spark into flame again. My name is Violet and I am the last Leader of The Dragon Riders.


Hmm...well as far as prologues go this one certainly was fairly dense as far as information goes but I think you managed to deliver it well enough that it didn't feel like too much of an info dump and that is most definitely a very good thing there, cause you really have to watch out for accidentally doing infodumps when writing things with this genre.

Before I dive deeper into this premise here, I will start out by saying that you need a couple of paragraphs. This is short enough that you can't call this a big clump of text that's hard to read, but I do still think this piece here would benefit greatly from being split into at the very least two paragraphs right here. It would divide the description of the early history and that turning point followed by the stuff closer to the present where the story takes place.

Now moving to the present and the premise itself, the simple idea of dragon riders is already pretty cool so I will say this is a pretty awesome idea, and the idea here that this is a group of elite warriors used when battles get a bit chaotic that ends up being banished but attempts to save the kingdom once more when its in dire trouble is a pretty nice backstory...its honestly good enough to be a story in its own right there..cause I'd definitely read that. Overall, this sounds like it could lead to a really cool story here...and honestly besides the lack of paragraph I don't have too much else to point out here.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry

User avatar
Snoink
Review
Snoink wrote a review · Mon Jan 30, 2012 8:24 am

Hey piegirl! :D

So, it looks like you have a pretty cool work here! I mean, you have the king being insane, you have a bunch of battles... this looks pretty cool! Plus, you have... the Dragon Riders?! Riding dragons?! How awesome is that?!

Now! One of the things that you might consider doing is leaving this information for the story. You know how sometimes you can incorporate the details into the story? Yeah... that might be cool here! So, one of Violet's men is like, "So, do you think the crazy king is dead yet?" and then maybe Violet can glare at him, so that would give it away more than this.

If you want to make it more old-fashioned and epic (less like modern fantasy and more like Beowolf) consider starting at the first part of the story, before this (Violet shows herself to the king, Violet wins a battle, blah, blah, and just make it quick stories about how Violet does all these awesome things in combat.

Or... er... this prologue seems to be a book summary of a previous book. Maybe start with that and just do sequels?

I don't know... but I think you can totally spice this up. :)


04piegirl12
04piegirl12 replied · Tue Feb 14, 2012 12:34 pm

you should read my first chapter :)
I like it a lot more then the prologue.



I am just curious-have I ever been on the bottom quote-thingy?
— foxmaster