The commander walked with confident steps to a squat young man. The young adult had evidently got the short stick in a draw, because he was cleaning the gore under the execution platform, with a rag. The commander stopped behind the man and listened to him huff with the exertion. He waited till the young man stopped to sweep the sweat away from his forehead and said: “Oriel, slacking off as usual?” he kept his face steady, fighting down a smile as he saw the young man spin around to face him. Oriel lifted himself up precipitately, and raised his hand in a salute.
“Hail!” Oriel stuttered. Peter couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Oriel looked at him displeased. “What’s so funny?” he asked.
The grizzled commander stopped laughing; some of the men around them had already given him some weird looks.
“You,” he answered smiling.
Oriel frowned, “What’s so funny about me?” he asked.
“If only you could’ve seen your face,” he said, “you should really cut that hair of yours… It’s getting too long; you’ll soon look like a girl.”
Oriel stared at him coldly. If only looks could kill, Peter chuckled to himself. Then he remembered why he was there.
The commander gathered himself and swept the smile off his face. Oriel too snapped into attention. “What is it?” he asked.
“Leo wants you to send word to capital. We need reinforcements.”
Oriel lifted an eyebrow. “Is Leo readying the men?” he asked. Peter nodded silently. Oriel shook his head, “That might just be suicide.” He sighed, looking straight into Peters eyes. “This will be hard,” he stated.
Peter gave him a grimaced smile. “Easy for you to say, you’ll be in the capital while I do all the fighting.”
Oriel snorted, “No. I’ll ride to the capital; inform the authorities; do paperwork; lead the reinforcements back here… and fight. You’re the lucky one.”
Peter smirked at him. “Never lost your sense of humor, did you?” He asked.
“I guess I didn’t.” His eyes sobered when he took a look around himself, at all the blood. Peter too became serious again, as the metallic smell started to infiltrate his nose.
“Hideous isn’t it? That a man can kill like this, without hesitation,”
“Hesitation can kill the best of men… Remember that Oriel.”
Oriel gave him a sad excuse for a smile and whispered: “Be careful, dad.”
Peter frowned “A son shouldn’t be worried about his father. I should worry about you. Besides you’re the one with all the paperwork, that stuff would kill me in an instant.” He grinned “Now get going you.”
Oriel saluted and walked away from the platform to his horse, which was tied to a tree, and mounted it with ease.
Peter looked as his son rode to the south, and then turned to his own horse. He had work to do.
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,844 Reviews
Hey Anzius, Stella here!
I. NITPICKS
No comma needed after "platform."
Capital H.
Small H here...
II. UH...
I'm confused... who's going to the capital, who's fighting? Which job is, in truth, more dangerous? Why is the commander's son cleaning?
Overall, I really like your writing, but this section puzzled me. Try and make things a bit clearer because I really did get confused about this...
III. OVERALL
It's pretty short so I don't have much to say. Mostly, I really liked it. Your writings gotten so much better since I reviewed you first who knows how many months ago. I would like to see some more character development, but I'm supposing that it will come later in the story. Overall, good job!
Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything,
-Stella.
Here as requested, Anzius. ^^ Let's see what we have here.
The repetition of 'young' disrupts your flow, which is particularly bad in the first paragraph. I understand you can't just use 'he', because then your readers would be unsure as to which 'he' you were referring to. Maybe you could do something like this:
The commander walked with confident steps to a squat young man. The poor boy had...
Or, you could even replace 'boy' with 'fellow' or something along those lines. Just avoid immediate repetition in short stories.
Same thing. It might not be so bothersome if the word being repeated was a really interesting word-- like cacophony or opulent or discombobulated, but with a simple word like 'young' that doesn't describe too terribly well, it sticks out as redundant. Try alternating between 'young man' and 'boy' and maybe his title-- is he a cadet, or a soldier, or a guard, or the baker's son?
'Weird' is a rather (for lack of a better word) immature way to describe the look. I think you could replace this with something like 'suspicious' or 'amused' to get across a more interesting effect.
Don't go overboard with the ellipses. (...) It doesn't always help your storyline. Here, for example, you could just say:
"Hesitation can kill the best of men." Peter paused, his eyes focusing on something far away. "Remember that, Oriel."
If you can add action description after dialogue, it always helps set the scene and the tone of the words. This was, I know that Peter says these words kind of dreamily, as if he's not really thinking of Oriel but remembering something from his past.
First of all: 'dad' should be capitalized, because it's a title. Now, if you said, "The son looked up at his dad" then it's lowercase, because it's not an actual title, it's a description. ^^ Make sense?
Secondly: WOW.
Don't forget your dialogue punctuation rules.
One thing that bothered me throughout the piece was the lack of action description about what they were doing as they spoke. I know Oriel jumped up to salute-- what did he do with the rag he had been cleanign the execution platform with? What happened when he rode off and left the job unfinished? You can't leave loose ends like that. Maybe, before Peter sends his son off to the capital, Oriel mentions that he has to finish cleaning, but then Peter tells him to forget it and go on because it's an emergency. You can't drop everything for even the most important things; remember to finish what you started.
I didn't feel much of Oriel and Peter's relationship, like Pippie said. They worried about each other, yes, but I need more of that to really understand how they feel towards each other. Maybe describe how Peter feels hulty, sending his son off to war-- or how Oriel doesn't have a good feeling about his old Pops fighting in big battles. What about the mother? Is she dead? Is she at home, knitting socks and cooking? Maybe mention her in passing; it will really complete the family effect and make us more sympathetic towards their plights of war.
All in all, I thought the dialogue was actually really nice. You had some good touches of the father/son relationship, although there could definately be more, and I think most of it sounded believable. However, I was unsatisfied with the descriptions.
Or, rather, the lack of descriptions.
All in all, a nice, short chapter. ^^ Good job and good luck continuing this.
~Evi
Hello again!
Thanks once more for posting in my WRFF thread! I think you have a good story here 
Do you mean 'huff' here instead of 'chuff'?
I'd maybe change 'the smile' to 'a smile' and I think 'spun' should be 'spin' or you should leave out 'he saw'. I'd maybe think about changing 'when he saw' to 'as he saw' too
'Peter couldn't help but burst out laughing' or something like that might be better here as otherwise it sounds like 'couldn't help it' is something other than referring to the laughter but it is all one thing.
This sounded a bit awkward to me, I think you could phrase it a bit differently. Maybe you could say something about how he stops laughing and I'm not sure about 'questioning stares', here's an example of how I think it could be rewritten-
'Peter's laughing petered out beneath the curious looks of some of the surrounding men.'
This happens kind of quick, why does he gather himself? Is it at remembering that he has something to do? I'd add something in about why he suddenly changes his attitude to make more sense
I think 'looked' should be 'looking' here. I think this might run a bit smoother without the 'he stated' part on the end as well as there is already a good image of how he is talking.
'Easy for you to say' is a more commonly used expression that might be better here, I'm not sure about 'grimaced smile'. I think maybe just saying he grimaced might work more.
As it is just a smell, instead of infiltrating his system I'd maybe just mention something about it reaching his nose or nostrils.
I'd add 'for a' before 'excuse'
This sounded a bit odd to me, maybe something like 'Peter looked on as his son rode to the south' or 'Peter looked as his son rode to the south' would work better?
Overall: Ii like how you have changed to another perspective, I think it works in continuing with the story and sets the scene for some sort of conflict to come
I like how you described the son, but I didn't really get much of a sense of Oriel. Maybe you could add some detail in there? I also think you could extend upon how he feels for his son, perhaps adding in some thoughts especially as he is riding away to show the relationship between the two of them. In general I think the last part could be added to describe the scene in how it looks, you could make it kind of dramatic perhaps in describing how the sun streams down or whatever you like
Other than adding a bit more emotion and thoughts, I think this was a good piece and I like how you have carried on with the story! All my comments are just suggestions and hope I've helped