Break the Chains 1

Hey! I'm KitxKat, or Kit, and I'm here to review your work.
I like this piece. You show talent and promise.

Karsten wrote:BREAK THE CHAINS

1

I first met my future employer at swordpoint.

The tip dug into my throat. I froze. My eyes skittered up the length of the blade. He watched me over the point, his eyes the same cold grey as the steel, a killing colour.

My throat was dry. I swallowed. Until now I’d been hired by soft men with more money than spine; this one was the first to draw steel. He was testing me, seeing if he could scare me.

Tombstones pushed up out of the sea of mist like the bones of broken ships. A grave nearby had been hacked open and the mouldering bones scattered in the search for valuables. The skull grinned at me from atop the tombstone, dirt still clinging to discoloured bone, a worm wriggling in one socket. I’d assumed anyone who wanted to meet in a graveyard was an idiot in search of cheap thrills; now I was thinking that graveyards were isolated. Good places to kill.

I was charging him double after this. Bastard.

“Pleasure to meet you,” I lied. His eyes narrowed, not happy at a mere nobody speaking to him like an equal. The cold bite at my throat was a rapier, the kind of blade a gentleman would carry, and it took a title and an expensive education to instil that kind of arrogance. “My lord,” I added.

The gentleman in question said to his companion, “Your so-called assassin is ... a girl.”

I disliked him already, but I could learn to like his money. Gold talked with such a sweet voice.

“May I pass along a word of wisdom?” The lady shook a bright scatter of rain from her parasol and smoothed her skirts with one gloved hand, a glimpse of rich purple through the mists. “Girls make good killers. Nobody expects a young lady to garrotte them.”

His lordship angled the rapier ever so delicately. A single drop of my blood ran down the groove in the blade, a red thread unspooling. “I was expecting someone a little ...” The sentence dangled in the air like a hook he wanted me to bite on. “Different.”

My master hadn’t let employers rattle him. Listen to the money, that was his rule. Even the gold wasn’t singing to me quite so sweetly any more. “If I looked like an assassin I’d be dead already. I’m a professional. I kill people. That’s not something I shout to the rafters.”

The point bit deeper. Blood trickled hot into the hollow of my throat. Fear fluttered in my stomach, a thing I wanted to crush. If I couldn’t convince him to hire me I’d have to rush him before he killed me. For all that he looked twenty years older than me, he’d drawn with the speed of a striking snake, so I’d have to be faster still. Maybe I could reach the dagger in my boot in time.

“I like this one.” The lady smiled at me; her voice was honey, sweet and warm. “Let’s keep her.”

“If she pleases you I suppose she’ll do.” His lordship lowered the blade.

The fluttering stopped. I let go a long, shaky breath and relaxed for the first time since I’d arrived. When a meeting went wrong, it went wrong terrifyingly fast. A bad decision made in a heartbeat could leave scars for a lifetime. “Let’s talk about the money.” I could afford to smile now I was getting hired instead of killed. “My fees are very --“

The son of a bitch stabbed me.

The point drove up under my ribs. Pain seared through me. I choked on salty blood. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think. The blade jarred against the tombstone behind me. I clutched it, scrabbled at it trying to rip it out of me, barely felt it bite into my bare hands. It burned coldly like a sliver of ice. Red leaked between my fingers.

He wrenched the rapier out. The world tilted around me, the grass jumped up and knocked the breath out of me as I fell. Icy stone seared my bare arms. Tombstone. I dragged in a breath past throttling panic and the pain spiked unbearably. It was too much; it made me small. Helpless. Dying. Had to get away, had to hide, terrified instinct.

Crawl, my master had told me. It amuses me.

A snarl rose in my throat. I was going to die on my feet.

The tombstone was slippery. Blood and mist ran down it in trickles. When I first tried to haul myself up my hand slipped, I fell back and pain jolted through me. I gritted my teeth. Got a better grip. Pushed myself up. The world kept swaying, I couldn’t pin it in place. Under my feet the grass gleamed dark where my blood had soaked in.

“Admit it,” the lady said. “You’re impressed.”

“Maybe a little,” his lordship allowed.

I pulled the dagger from my boot and managed to straighten. Everything hurt. All this blood was making my hands slippery, so I shifted my grip on the hilt. He had the longer blade and the better reach; he’d stab me again before I ever got close enough to strike. I took a step back blindly, not daring to take my eyes off him. Then another. Then the earth crumbled away underfoot, discarded bones tangled my feet and I nearly fell into the open grave.
She;s be able to do all this while dying? Really?
“This is a terribly unfair fight.” His lordship came after me with frightening ease, sword red with my blood. He was in no hurry; all he had to do was wait for me to fall over and bleed to death.

Bollocks to that. If I had to end up in one of these graves with worms eating my eyes, this bastard was coming with me.

The lady perched on a tombstone and gathered her skirts around her in a flood of purple. “If you get careless and die, I may laugh. Just warning you.”

I pretended to stumble. His lordship skewered me straight between the ribs. The impact tore a strangled sound from my throat. Blood spilled, stupid amounts of it. I fell into him and caught a handful of his coat.

He pulled away too late. I stabbed him under the ribs with a snarl.

My dagger snapped. Armour. Bastard was wearing armour under his coat.

Next moment a bony hand yanked my feet out from under me. The rapier ripped free and I strangled off a scream as I toppled into the open grave. Bones shattered under me. The skull leapt down from the tombstone and bounced toward me, still grinning, its yellow teeth chattering. I kicked at it, missed. The skull jumped onto me and bit my arm once, twice, leaving half-moon imprints of teeth. I flailed around in a panic, caught it and threw it against the tombstone. It smashed. Bone showered. The fragments twitched toward each other like they were trying to reassemble themselves.

All the heat was leaking out of me as the blood seeped into the earth. I fumbled a hand under my torn coat in a pathetic attempt to stop the bleeding. My heartbeat skittered, caught. I dragged in a rattling breath and choked. The darkness crept in, and I knew fear as paralysing as the pain. No afterlife for Godless like me. Just worms.

“I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson today.” The lady in purple came to stand at the edge of the grave. A glance from her quieted the twitching remains of the skull. “When you want a job done properly, hire a necromancer.”

Everything went dark.

Thanks so much for your comments, everyone. I'm very grateful for your help.

Hey,

Confusion was mentioned, but I wasn't confused - and would pounce at the opportunity to criticize this piece somehow, pretending to be helpful all the while turning green with envy. Ha. Everything was quite clear to me in terms of events. One phrase did catch my eye, though.

"The Godless" - something the MC is originally or in anticipation to what she'll become? It pops up and I don't know what it means. Well, I can guess but then I'll prolly end up wrong.

Also, when she's stabbed, the world tilts. Everything hurts, etc., etc. My point is that her sight is affected. That's one sense (taste, the blood in her mouth). Would hearing be too? After stabbing no 2, maybe? For a moment, at least - I think that would be a ncie touch.

A lord and a lady in a cemetery, finely dressed. Our assassin, on the other hand, could be a princess in disguise - but I don't want to know, not yet, at least. But she's described as a "mere nobody", or rather we're told that she is - I don't think the reader does get to know how she's dressed, to recieve that tag. But how else to come to that conclusion? It's certaintly not in her speech - if she hadn't vocally acknowladged her lower social standing (and if I weren't told: "mere nobody"), I'd simply not believe it.

As to outside world - me, I feel that the only thing lacking is grounding in period/time/world. It read like an urban fantasy, but then the lords and ladies, rapiers and whatnot. I feel a bit as if I were floating aboveground. Other than that and I'm pretty confident all the whys&whats will be answered later and there's no real need to clutter up a fast-paced first chapter.

_

quote:
Had to get away, had to hide, terrified instinct.
Last part?

quote:
The darkness crept in, and I knew fear as paralysing as the pain.
It took me some time to understand this sentence. Ignorance breeds hatred - maybe I'd not go so far, but I didn't like it.

Eh so many semicolons. Justified in general, I suppose, although I still think a few could be done away with. Me, I'm lovingly nurturing my hatred of semicolons - but when it appears paragraph after paragraph at on epoint, isn't it a tiny bit too much?

_


This was a very fun read. I sincerely hope you post more.


Esme

Hello Karsten.

I think what you've written here is pretty solid overall, but I think you can do better than this. I've reread this about 2-3 times and most of the flaws that I've noticed boil down to just three points. 1. Character's voice 2. Familiar plot elements 3. The lack of the "bigger picture".

Alright firstly, your main character doesn't really seem like an assassin in some places.

Things like:

My master hadn’t let employers rattle him. Listen to the money, that was his rule. Even the gold wasn’t singing to me quite so sweetly any more. “If I looked like an assassin I’d be dead already. I’m a professional. I kill people. That’s not something I shout to the rafters.”

For all that he looked twenty years older than me, he’d drawn with the speed of a striking snake, so I’d have to be faster still. Maybe I could reach the dagger in my boot in time.

You are as a good a writer as you are a review. And as you can pick out every flaw in a person's work (which is why I like you), I am unable to find any (major) flaws in yours.

One thing I would clarify is the skull-biting scene. How is the skull jumping? I know that the woman is controlling it, but how is she making it jump? It seems weird.

Hey Karsten!

The rule is always focus on the character who is the most powerful. Why? Because that character has the upper hand and will manipulate people to do what he wishes. In the beginning, it's clear that the man is more powerful, so it's a good thing you focused on him! However, as you continued on, it became clear that the most powerful person there was the lady in purple. She was clearly controlling the man. It appeared that she had brought the man and the assassin together and that she was keeping the man from killing the assassin... at least at first, before he got annoyed with her. So, seeing as the lady is persuading the man to not kill the assassin, why wouldn't the assassin focus on her, at least somewhat? Obviously, she doesn't want to be side-tracked and ignore the man entirely, but it seems unlikely that she would not really notice the lady at all.

So basically, describe the lady more and make her less of an observer and more intimately connected with the story. It'll seem much better that way.

I didn't want to clog up your thread, which is why I said PM me haha but I guess it's relevant discussion, so I'll just add that I was fine with it, and I would read on -- well, until you explained the way they've gone about it anyway. Are there no dead assassins to bring back? Why her and her alone? That's such an extreme move, that kind of paranoia you mention seems really at odds with the cool, detached disdain of the two noble characters you presented us with here. It's hard because I really like this scene and I really like the character but I really don't like that justification.

Probably because it seems pointless (to me personally) to bother continuing on from that point. If I'm already dead, what have I got to lose by not continuing on? Screw the bastards that did this to me, I'm not going to help them out. Unless she is literally their slave which would just suck epically. Based on that, I can't say that I would honestly read on, but that's personal preference and not to do with your actual writing. However! I like helping with reviews and what not, so if you post more, I'd probably review it. Who knows, maybe you'll change my mind...doubtful, but still. Anything can happen, right?

Cheers and good luck.

I liked it a lot. My heart is still racing! It drew me in and now I'm hooked! Yes, as the others have stated before me, you have a problem with redundancy. You like to use the same words over and over. This can be quite distracting to some people. Aside from that, it was great. Good job!

Karsten wrote:I couldn't find quite the right word - the English language doesn't seem to have an exact term for "bad guys who kill you and resurrect you from the dead to make you their minion as part of a conspiracy". Any takers?

I'm sorry - I didn't intend to confuse the issue even more!

The bad guys need the protagonist specifically because of her relevant skills and experiences, but they're paranoid about her possibly betraying them, so they decide to kill and resurrect her. Undead, she'll be under their control - they can kill her for good any time they want.

As you say, killing an assassin is risky. Several elements of this opening scene are precautions the bad guys take to minimise risk. The lord is armed and wearing light armour. They meet in a graveyard, where if anything goes wrong the necromancer chick can raise some dead as backup. Necromancer chick is probably armed as well, but thankfully it doesn't come to that.

From their perspective, apart from the protagonist not seeming very impressive in person, the meeting goes entirely to plan.

The protagonist is resurrected in the next chapter. Her only reward for this job is being permitted to cling to (a hollow semblance of) life for just a little bit longer, time she can use to plot her horrible revenge.

I agree that my use of the term "employer" in this scene was wrong. I couldn't find quite the right word - the English language doesn't seem to have an exact term for "bad guys who kill you and resurrect you from the dead to make you their minion as part of a conspiracy". Any takers?

edit: I wanted there to be a certain amount of surprise in this scene. Obviously the protagonist is quite surprised to be stabbed mid-sentence. But when it comes to reader reaction, there's a difference between "How intruiging, this story is unpredictable, I must read on to see what happens next" and "How confusing, I don't trust this author, I'm not reading on". I'd be interested to know which surprise reaction people are having.

I don't think there was all that much confusion, honestly. I initially thought, and the way this reads (in my opinion) is that a mercenary assassin has come to meet with a potential employer and the meeting went horribly wrong, which is where we come into it. The implication for me was one of dismissal and disappointment - the lady recommended her, but the lord was unimpressed and really, you can't just say, 'Sorry for the bother, but you're not what we're looking for right now' a la typical interviews because you don't want anyone knowing even the slightest bit about you, or the fact that you're looking for an assassin, for whatever reason. So he offs her.

And I was happy with all that. It's also obvious, from the very first line, that she isn't in fact dead - 'I met my future employer at swordpoint[/i]' - although, I guess you could make a case for a story that starts off with a death, then narrated in flashback (as most recently seen in A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms).

But now you say she's been hired by a Necromancer? That doesn't really make any sense. Because you use the word 'employer' and we know its all about the money from the outset, so why would a Necromancer kill someone, bring them back to "life" and then pay them money? At the very least, it requires you to change the use of the word employer as it is synonymous with 'future' i.e the rest of the story.

Also, why go to the effort of making a fresh kill? Why not just use the dead as they are? Any Necromancer worth his salt could surely come up with something that didn't involve the cloak-and-dagger stuff we see in this first bit. Unless you mean to reinvent some aspect of the Necromantic mythology whereby one can only control what one has killed personally, which would be interesting. But even then...why is a Necromancer hiring an assassin? Necromancy is the magic of death - if ANYONE has less need of an assassin, it's the Reaper himself.

It just doesn't really make sense to me. Unless of course the target is also a Necromancer! But then...making the main character your undead creature would be against the point. And I realise I'm babbling now. It's interesting. I love discussing such things. PM me!

Thanks for your comments, Hippie - I'm thrilled that you enjoyed it! I'm glad you mentioned plot confusion, because I wasn't sure if that was coming across clearly enough. (Necromancers don't hire you, they kill you and resurrect you as their undead slave.)

I do feel a little nervous about having my antagonists give further details, including their names, because right up until the end there's a risk the protagonist might escape and possibly blow the whistle on them. I might hold off until the next chapter and see if that fixes the confusion problem.

You actually submitted something! How unprecedented.

What can I say? This is brilliant. The first line hooked me and the rest reeled me in. There were very few problems I saw, so forgive me if my review's a little small.

Tombstones pushed up out of the sea of mist like the bones of broken ships. A grave nearby had been hacked open and the mouldering bones scattered in the search for valuables. The skull grinned at me from atop the tombstone, dirt still clinging to discoloured bone, a worm wriggling in one socket.

I’d assumed anyone who wanted to meet in a graveyard was an idiot in search of cheap thrills; now I was thinking that graveyards were isolated. Good places to kill.

Thanks very much for your thoughtful comments, napalmerski and Jigs. Plenty for me to think about! I really appreciate your time.

Hello Thar,

It's a Karsten! So, I thought I'd come check this out - good fantasy isn't easy to find these days. But I was reasonably confident this would be good and you didn't disappoint - incidentally, this is much more polished than your teaser involving the Witch King. Is this the same piece? But, to the point.

I enjoyed this, first and foremost. It's a great little scene. And there's plenty of character being shown by the main character who, I might add, isn't named at any point which is a tad odd, but nothing life threatening. Your style is a bit too choppy at times. A bit too static. Everything. Becomes. A. Little. Stilted - it's really effective generally speaking but be careful not to overdo it. Especially in flowing action scenes like a fight.

For example:

I pretended to stumble. His lordship skewered me straight between the ribs. The impact tore a strangled sound from my throat. Blood spilled, stupid amounts of it. I fell into him and caught a handful of his coat.

I clutched it, scrabbled at it trying to rip it out of me, barely felt it bite into my bare hands.

I clutched and scrabbled at it; trying to rip it out, barely feeling it bite into my bare hands.

Hallo,
that's some tight prose, and an OK mix of 1930's pulp influenced dialogues, internal and external, and a rapier and necromancy setting.
The turn of events caught me completely unprepared and pulled the carpet away from my feet.

The skull sequence, I do't know if you planned this in advance, or just described the skull and then let events write themselves, was fine by all rules of drama. Chekov would have approved.

I don't do grammar, only structure and internal consistency, and I forced myself to find something to mention.

The throat:
The tip dug into my throat.
My throat was dry. I swallowed - I wouldnt't swallow. I'd struggle with myself to not swallow.


grave nearby had been hacked open- perhaps 'hacked open' is more fitting for the coffin itself. One doesn't hack earth I think, but flesh, or wood...

The skull grinned at me from atop the tombstone, dirt still clinging to discoloured bone, a worm wriggling in one socket. - the worm makes it too much like a tatoo/heavymetal album cover. Unless that is your intent that is.

“May I pass along a word of wisdom?” The lady shook a bright scatter of rain from her parasol and smoothed her skirts with one gloved hand, a glimpse of rich purple through the mists. - a beautiful sentence, the glimpse through the mists is a bit off. I strongly urge an ending to the sentence, which would be fittingly excellent.

Well, here are the things which caught my attention, but even as it is, this beginning of a story is quite impressive