In the distance, she heard an animal cry. The sound was strangled and desperate, it carried along the wind like a howling spectre that was in anguish of its mortality. Lyra crouched, pine needles made the floor squishy but uncomfortable, and left red marks in her skin, making her look scaled.
She cocked her head, trying to capture more sound, but all that met her was the tweeting of birds and the far away rush of fresh water. The cry had come from the direction of the water, Lyras keen kelrine senses were sure of that, which meant her path was also set in that direction.
She ducked under a low branch, carefully skidding across the forest floor like a pebble across open water; swift like the wind, as she’d always been taught. She moved in tandem with the forest, leaping over mossy fallen logs and dodging overgrown shrubbery; Lyra would’ve laughed and shrieked with ecstasy were she not on a hunt, and even then, a smile cracked on her attempt at a stern face.
The rush of water increased - a good sign, it meant she was heading in the right direction.
Brambles and twigs clawed at Lyras exposed ankles like orphan kittens, a drooping branch nicked her cheekbone too, but after prowling the mountains for several days she cared little. Instead, each cut came as a reward, the wild was carving her as it saw fit, and she bled with pride.
Lyra hoped she’d find the bear closeby. She’d already sharpened her teeth and nails, and was in a fighting spirit that made her feel as though she could conquer the world, perhaps while wearing the hide of the bear she’d soon slay.
The air became damper, moisture gathered at her skin in tiny cooling droplets. Lyra could smell the musk of damp leaves, along with the smallest scent of blood. It was metallic and tangy and it excited her, because it meant she was closer to victory and soon, she’d be walking through the doors of the Aliarqe keep with the largest bear anyone had seen. By then, she’d be like the great Kahlmid, Torva, basking in blood and glory.
The image was so perfect in her mind that she leaped the last part of the forest before breaking out onto the stony river bank. Lyra faltered. Before her, in the shallow, ankle-deep river that was more pebble than water, was a bloody, furry mass of flesh. It was no great elk, or meek fox as Lyra has expected, no - it was the bear.
The beautiful beast was drenched in its crimson lifeline, its fur matted and pockmarked with gashes upon gashes. The softest of moans escaped the bears dripping snout. Not yet dead then.
Lyra could only stare for a couple moments at the sight, both beautiful and soul crushing.
The bears chest was still weakly rising and falling in some futile, final efforts to breathe life into its dying body. Every huff was quieter than the last. She crept forward a bit, what could have possibly killed such a thing?
The bear noted her presence, but didn’t stir; it likely knew that Lyra couldn't worsen it's fate.
The fast water around it carried heaps of blood downstream, the red crept through the river like tendrils of dark smoke, curling round boulders and seeping into crevices. Small silvery fish began urgently racing through the stream.
She took a step closer, cautious of her surroundings, “What happened to you?” she muttered. The bear huffed again. She caught sight of something protruding out of the bears brown fur, all twisted and gnarly like an ancient wooden vine, but pale like moonlight. Closer up, and Lyra realised it was an antler. A huge one by the looks of it, gleaming like polished bone and wedged right where the bears heart would be, digging right into the beasts flesh like a blade would.
She swore softly. How could this happen to her? She had been trailing the bear for days, waiting for the time to strike, only for a monstrous stag to kill her prey? She jerked up, and whipped her head round to find the stag amongst the thick tree trunks across the river.
She felt the boiling urge to kill it, slaughter it for stealing what was hers and put its severed head on display- only, that wasn't her. That wasn't the ways she was supposed to abide to. Meaningless sacrifice never served any purpose other than ones own selfishness, her masters own words.
The bear huffed again. Lyra looked down into its ochre eyes and saw the pain, the pleading. She sighed, and reached for her makeshift blade.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hi Lxna, welcome to YWS! I hope you're enjoying the site so far
Let's jump straight into the review!
I like that you've jumped straight into the action, but some of these sentences are a bit long and clunky and I think could benefit from some tweaking when you're editing.
There are a lot of sentences at the beginning of the chapter that start with 'she' and then an action. This might flow a bit more seamlessly if you can change that up somewhat!
I like this insight into what she's thinking - things like this help the reader to connect with the character and makes it compelling to read on.
Overall I think this is a good start, if in a little need of tweaking just to change up the flow and structure. I'd also like to see more of Lyra's feelings, whether here or in the part that follows directly after, in order for me to connect to her more as a character.
Hope this was helpful!
Icy
Hey there, and welcome to YWS
As an overarching comment before I get into specifics, I wanted to say that, much like I used to, you seem to struggle with where to put some punctuation, especially when it comes to commas. A free tool that you might find helpful is Grammarly. To this day I use it. You can get a web widget for it where it will show you grammar mistakes or improvements as you write (as it's even doing to this review). It's been invaluable to me and lots of other people. Just Google Grammarly (and there is a free version - you should never have to pay for it, so if you get somewhere where it's asking to upgrade you may have gone too far)
Onto the story - it seems we have a non-human race, which is exciting, although you didn't capitalize Kelrine, so I'm not sure if that's a people group or an entire race. Either way, definitely not just human it seems from the sharpening of claws. It kind of made me think of Pandora from Avatar.
I think that one thing that would help with the beginning of the story is to state that Lyra has been hunting the bear for days because it comes off as odd that she just KNOWS that it's a bear that's killing (or as she thinks anyway) prey, instead of a myriad of other animals that it could be.
I love the idea of a huge and wild stag, but I've got to imagine that this thing is quite a force to take down a bear of any size. It seems surprising then, that Lyra wouldn't have more hesitation when seeing it, despite being full of anger. But I love the idea of a big elk.
The way you described the blood washing away in the river was really fun and visually fun to imagine. You set a good tone for the entire forest, and it gives a good sense of how I'm imagining the whole chapter in my mind. I do think that a stronger hook at the end of this chapter could help, because as is, while it was fun to read, I'm not sure if I would keep going if I picked it up on a book shelf knowing nothing about the larger plot. I'll gladly follow along here though!
I also liked that there are hints of her tribalism and the code of ethics that she lives by. Wasting things in rage isn't part of it which makes sense, especially because hunting in the way that she does gives me a more pioneering type of survival where you can't afford to waste energy and resources. I'm also curious how strong Lyra is because tracking and hunting a bear by yourself is a lot of work and dangerous as is, but what about moving it once you harvest it? That seems like a ton of meat and pelt to move.
Hope this helps you!
~Messy
Hi! This chapter was originally much longer until I split it into two parts which is where the larger plot is laid out, so I'll probably join them again to create more of a hook - it would also explain the things such as Lyra's strength and whatnot. I'll be sure to check out Grammarly also, sounds like an absolute lifesaver. Thanks for the review
ah see, that makes a lot of sense. Really it wasn't a long read, but for the sake of getting at least 2 reviews on both parts, I would just post the 2nd part separately anyway. Maybe put a disclaimer at the top of this bit if you want.