Scene 2
Scene 1:http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/work.php?id=95584
“I’m tired can we stop?”
“You don’t have time to be tired,” Arvid scowled. He looked at the sky and gauged the angle of the unrelenting sun. It was a little before noon. At home the hunters would be returning from setting their snares, some of the girls would have set out to collect water from the springs a few miles to the north of the village. They’d be home before supper. The Ulusami would call for a halt in an hour or so, to escape the heat of the day.
Sarah began to complain again, but Arvid threw her a look over his shoulder and she was silent.
He knew she was suffering: she was at least two years younger than he and was unused to lengthy exposure and unforgiving marches, but if he showed her any tenderness she was bound to see how terrified he was. Better for her to be fearful but maintain the illusion of a strong ally than see her uncertain terror mirrored in his eyes.
Shadows of carrion birds circled lazily across the sand around them as they trekked. Arvid watched them shimmer and undulate, lost in a thoughtless haze. The plain was fiercely uninviting, with a few low shrubs interrupting an otherwise deserted landscape of infertile and sun-parched land. For a moment Arvid thought he saw shapes on the horizon, but a moment later they were gone. He hoped the Ulusami would call for a halt sooner rather than later, before the mirages became less a distraction than an encroaching madness. He had heard stories of travellers lost in the Ulusami plain and the insanities they endured when driven by thirst and exposure. He allowed himself a small shudder before steeling himself. He was a man of his father’s people, though he already had difficulty remembering the precise cast of the man’s face. He tried to picture it, but his thoughts fixed on the man whose unclenching hands had surrendered him, but whose back had not deigned to turn and face him.
“It is good that you keep her quiet,” the soft-voiced advice came from the youth marching stolidly in front of Arvid that had been silent until this remark. Each day they were chained in the same position in the chain-line so Arvid had been marching behind him for six days. In the circumstances Arvid had not invested himself in trying to forge a friendship amongst the other bedraggled youngsters, and until now that silence had been reciprocated. The boy, whose face Arvid could not see, was clothed in worn sheepskin not unlike Arvid’s. He seemed older, or at least taller, and had shoulder length dark hair.
“I had thought so,” Arvid replied “the fat one is liberal with his use of the cane farther up the line.”
The other youth chuckled, his voice rasped in the dry heat of the late morning. When he spoke his tone was deadly serious, “they buried a girl a week ago, the day before you joined us. She would not stop crying, even at night. They tired of her. The slavers have not stopped for more tribute since your village so we may be on the way back to wherever we are to go.”
The fat one had stopped up ahead, and the long line began to be snake past him. The boy in front of Arvid was silent and kept his eyes to the front and so Arvid followed his lead. He could hear Sarah sniffling behind him and silently begged her to quieten.
The fat slaver, who had been shouting obscenities at children farther up the line, fell into his position at the back, about four yards behind Sarah. He paid no attention to her sniffling, and she trudged on, matching the pace. Young or not, she came from strong stock.
When they had resumed a marching gait, the slaver barked at no one in particular with an accent Arvid could not place, but was unlike the plainsmen who frequented his village for trade, “We reach Fartheil in two hour, you walk there and I not beat you.”
The journey continued.
End of chapter
Continue to next chapter Enslaved Chapter 1 Scene 4Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
139,334 Literary Works • 672,537 Reviews
I'm here for part two,
OK Rubric, this scene is better than the first, not only because we get a more clear picture of the setting, but the characters as well. Their plight has me intrigued, and it's thanks to your ability to paint a picture in my mind. Excellent work.
There are a few things I'm curious about though. Mainly the name change from Arvad to Arvid. (I'm guessing you just didn't like "Arvad"?). And also how he remembered Sarah's name (Which zohali93 mentioned already).
Those are the only two things (and a few grammatical errors) that distanced me a bit form the story.
One thing I also noticed was that you stated that they are in the "Ulusami" plain, and the slave traders are called "Ulusami" also. This made me think that they didn't have much further to go, and I was glad to see you reinforced this towards the end. ("We reach Fartheil in two hour...")
But since Arvid knows this, perhaps he could say something to Sarah like, "It's not much farther anyway." (after "You don't have time to be tired,"). It could help show that while he is annoyed with her whining, he is still in fact concerned for her. Just a thought.
The characters and their antagonists are pretty clearly defined. Moving on to scene 3...
Hey there!
I liked this scene too.
So you wrote that the girls name is Sarah am I write? Didn't you say in the previous scene that you forgot her name? When she first spoke I was a bit confused because you didn't mention who was speaking.It could have been anyone.
I'm not so sure how quiet that boy laughed if the slavers didn't hear him.
I think the other scene ended better than this one. It was more mysterious I guess.
I liked the part where all he could remember of his was his betrayal. That was deep. It said so much with just a few words.
Try starting new speeches on their own new line. It will help in making it look better and neat. You have good use of words.(seriously I'm learning new words from reading this.)
At least this time round there was more description. I could picture this desert kind of scene. Although I know that there are other kids,I don't think that there's anything stating how much. It was a bit hard to picture how long the line was. Also you don't have too, but a little more info about the slavers would be nice.It's alright this way though.
I hope this helped you
-Zo
Good, good, I notice an improvement immediately from this scene and the last.
There's not much for me to fault here; you've built the mood well, the sense of melancholy rings through - maybe even apathy - and I get a very existentialist vibe, also. However, I also get an ominous feeling, something's coming, something WILL happen, especially reinforced by the last bit of dialogue.
I also like the way you described the surroundings, I don't know whether this was due to earlier criticisms, as I don't know when you wrote this, but I had a clear, accurate image in my head of the area that you were describing, which always helps.
Your narration stayed fixed and wasn't as confusing as in the first scene. However, there is a "carry-on" problem, if you want to call it that, in that there I was introduced to 'too many' characters/terms in the first scene and I kind of find it hard to remember them all. Of course, I'll say that I don't nearly read fantasy as much as I used to so maybe it's just due to my long time out of the genre.
Overall, I like this scene, it progresses the story well, the ending helps whet my appetite and I hope for more!
[Btw, I reduced the amount of direct quoatations that I used in my review of your first scene to make it more concise, let me know if you'd like me to include more examples, if that'd be more beneficial! Saying that, there wasn't that many I could've picked up here, only 3 spring to mind, but they were all for positive reasons, nothing negative.]
Your story is coming along very well, but the clif-hangars are killing me here! I hope that you write the next scene soon. I'm dying to read more!
My rating: 5*s
Write fast!
w&w