(Okay, banged this bad boy out over the course of the night. I'm unsure about the pov I've chosen to write in. So, in addition to other things, I would really appreciate comments on the style and the pov. If you think this would sound better written differently then let me know. And again, please don't spare my feelings. I need all the help I can get.)
The people of Castil had never seen a monster before.
Yes, there were the Bogmen crudely drawn in children’s books, warning of the dangers of Pyne. And everyone knew that Frights had orange teeth and red eyes and, if you stayed after dark for too long, one was liable to snatch you away, right into thin air. But nobody, not even the eldest of the priests, had ever seen anything like this.
Reor lay untouched in the middle of the courtyard. His bog black skin bubbled in the sunlight. Smoke rose from his body in plumes, keeping even the bravest of soldiers away with its stench - a horrible, acid burn that clawed up the nose and corroded the sinuses. Needless to say, a raven was dispatched to the Kingdom immediately, but the castle was miles off, and the children were beginning to cry.
Astringent smoke billowed into the air, and though the women had ushered the young ones away into the top floor of the tallest house, even they could not escape the sting. A bird fell from its tree. The crowd watched as it landed in a twitching heap next to the mass of tangled green hair on Reor’s head. They watched as it struggled, fighting desperately for air, and then died.
“I’ve had enough,” the butcher growled, breaking the silence. He pushed past the shaking guards, cleaver ready in hand. “Let’s kill it and be done!”
The crowd pleaded - “No, Lotto!”, “Please, stay back!” - but the burly man descended on Reor, face red from holding his breath, eyes blinded by the smoke. He grabbed a handful of hair and lifted the boy from the cobblestone.
The sharp edge of a blade slicing into the skin of his throat snapped Reor’s eyes wide open. In one fluid motion, he grabbed the handle of the cleaver, snatched it from the butcher’s hand, and severed his hair where it held him up. He was barely awake. His eyes rolled in his head and he could not stop himself from falling into a heap on the ground. The pain sizzling at the edge of his consciousness reached full crescendo. Agony sent him scrambling to his feet.
Lotto hadn’t moved an inch. Reor met his eye, though only for a moment before the blinding light of the sun forced his lids back closed. He hissed, spitting blood, and scurried hastily from the scene. There was only one place to go. Skin boiling, he ran back into the forest, into Pyne’s treacherous dark, from whence he came.
He’d no time at all to comprehend the gravity of his failure, not with his heart pumping that familiar beat of panic, but when he finally collapsed, surrounded by the dense thicket and cool shade, all the weights of the world settled themselves comfortably on his chest. He didn't have any more tears to cry.
Fa’una was gone. He could no longer smell the sickly sweetness of her corpse. He could no longer hear the portal. The rustling of the leaves in the wind seemed to laugh at him and he spat at sky - raked the ground with his nails, banged his head on the exposed roots of the trees. He raged until he could move no more, and even then his teeth grinded against one another, threatening to turn his canines to dust.
Narrow, yellow eyes stared at the thick canopy of trees above, wet with tears that wouldn’t fall.
Fa’una was gone. Fa’una was awake.
The world would know horror once again.
I'm having kinda a hard time varying sentence length. Usually I just write how I think, so it all comes out at once and it's hard to know when I need to break.
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