Tauren had seen the ocean once, long before, hunting down Carmenton valley.
What he saw as he emerged from under the pine forest’s last trees reminded him of the ocean. Only instead of water, there was grass, instead of waves, there were hills, and instead of rocky shore, there was forest.
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, it was an amazing sight.
I’m a long way from home, he thought to himself.
Detrick rode forward next to him and gazed out at the rolling plains going off into the distant mountains to the east and into the horizon to the west and south.
“I never seem to tire of looking at this.” He said slowly.
Tauren nodded silently.
“I don’t know why, but the plains always seemed . . . so safe, so peaceful, and so perfect.” He seemed in a trance.” I remember living by the Great Plains when I was little, before we moved to the city and ocean and mountains. They weren’t like this; they were flat, so perfectly flat, filled with this short, soft grass. I never got tired of them . . .”
Tauren nodded, he felt as if he knew what he was talking about. Already he felt like there were no enemies out here. That they had nothing to fear now. . .
”We should keep moving.” He said finally, after a short silence, glancing back at the forest, for the first time feeling that . . . feeling that he wanted to leave it behind.
Detrick glanced back with him and his peaceful expression disappeared.” Yeah, we should.”
Together they headed out into the plains, trying to go around the hills instead of over them, so as to avoid cliffs and rock heaps that would be difficult if not impossible to navigate with the horses.
They were only a hundred yards away from the forest when Detrick gave a surprised cry behind Tauren and yelled.” RUN! Halavardes, right behind us”
Tauren didn’t glance back or even hesitate; he spurred T’hune forward, and leaned low over the saddle tore forward between the hills, only glancing back once.
What he saw chilled his blood, a couple yards behind him was Detrick. Stretched low over his heavy black charger, riding just as hard as he was. But behind Detrick, streaming out of the forest was an entire squad of Halavardes, if not more.
At least fifteen men in gleaming coats, riding massive battle horses, black cloaks streaming out behind them, screaming indecipherable war cries. Three or four of them carried crossbows, two had lances, and the rest had drawn swords.
And it only took them a few minutes of frantic riding between the boulders strewn about the hills to find that they were better mounted as well, for they started to gain.
Slowly at first, then with increasing speed as the rocks became thicker, slowing Tauren and Detrick down.
The instant Tauren had seen them he had pulled his bow off of his saddle, hooked one end in a stirrup, strung it, and loaded it in a matter of seconds, but on T’hunes jolting back there was no way that he would be able to get a decent shot.
This wasn’t good, thought Tauren to himself as the Halavardes continued to get closer, their hard, savage faces now visible under hawk-like helmets.
Suddenly they hit a stretch of smooth ground running along the side of a stream between two rocky hillsides, and instantly T’hune and Detricks horse seemed to double their speed, flying forward faster and faster, while, once the Halavardes hit the same strip of ground, they barely seemed to change speed at all.
Quickly the intervening space between the two groups began to widen dramatically, and Tauren smiled, yes!
He managed to twist around and loose a few shots before they hit rocky ground again, and had the satisfaction of seeing his enemies slow down even more at the sight of arrows appearing literally under their horse’s legs.
Again their pursuers began to catch up, only for Tauren and Detrick to hit another space of clearer ground and make up the space.
Apparently both of their different types of horses had advantages.
Tauren began to become frustrated after about twenty minutes of this, not unconscious of the fact that their speed was slowing down and that T’hune was sweating freely and frothing at the mouth.
“Detrick, we have to get off of our general path.” He called forward to his companion.” This isn’t going to end in anything good for us. We need to head for the more open plains, away from the mountains, we can outrun then then.”
Detrick apparently had noticed the same thing as Tauren had in the horses.” All right, at the end of this valley we turn left, remember. We have to stay together.”
Tauren didn’t answer; instead he stretched lower in the saddle, and urged his poor sweating horse to even greater efforts, though he knew that if he kept this up T’hune would die before he gave up.
He was distinctly aware of the smell of horse sweat and dirty leather under him, so strong he could almost taste it. His ears were twitching to ever little creak and occasional war cry he heard. His eyes stung and he felt dizzy looking at the short dead, seed topped grass and hard dry, yellow dirt rushing underneath of them as they sped across the ground.
A minute later they turned violently left and leaping over the trickling stream sped to the west, towering rocky, grass covered hills on either side of them. For a moment, and hardly a second more, their pursuers were out of sight, but then they came round the bend, riding as hard as ever.
It only took a few minutes for Tauren to feel and see the dramatic change in the landscape, the lower, less rocky hills, the longer open spaces, and their increased speed.
Looking back though, he saw to his dismay that the Halavardes hadn’t dropped behind any, instead, they appeared to be gaining.
All of a sudden the rhythmic thumping of the horse’s hooves on dead grass and hard ground stopped, and instead Tauren heard the sound change to a sharp clattering, as though they were back on the stone road that ran through Carmenton.
Strange.
But he had no time to think about it, for there was a whistle and a crossbow bolt flew by his ear, clattering off of a rock ahead of him, closely followed by another, and another, all narrowly missing him. He answered instantaneously by turning in the saddle and loosing two shafts in quick succession, knocking one man out of his saddle with the first and narrowly missing another’s horse with the second.
He cursed, they were catching up too fast, and his horse could do nothing more.
The only options left to them were to run from their pursuers until one of the crossbow bolts took them in the back, fight back, or try to hide.
And none of those would end up with them being alive at the end of the day though.
Glancing ahead of them he saw that they were riding straight between two massive hills, literally covered in massive rocks, they appeared to be on an even, straight flat space that ran for a few hundred more yards before it disappeared under heaps of gigantic rocks.
His eye caught something.
“Detrick that nook in the rocks! There!” He called, hoping his companion saw the nook in the heaps of rocks ahead of them were there seemed to be some sort of tunnel that went under the hillside, but Detrick was already ahead of him, and already on his way for the spot.
He was only thirty yards from the dark tunnel in the massive limestone blocks, his enemies were a hundred yards behind him, seeming to be slowing down now that they saw their quarry was cornered, when Tauren felt a massive jerk, a jolt, a pained whinny and next thing he knew he was flying through the air.
He landed hard, his breath was knocked straight out of him, his bow went flying from his grasp, and he lay there for a few minutes, trying to figure out what had happened.
Slowly he rose from the ground, heaving in a deep breath, and wincing painfully at his bruised body. Then it hit him.
He spun around and ran over to T’hune, lying there in a widening pool of blood, a short cruel crossbow bolt stuck straight through his neck. The first thing he felt was sadness, his grandfather had owned this horse longer than Tauren knew, the second thing he felt was anger, a flash of violent anger that seared through his mind.
He reacted to the second.
Reaching forward he jerked his sword, no, his grandfather’s sword, from its sheath, and turning he prepared to face his enemies, ready to fight to the last.
But what he saw when he turned surprised him even more than this sudden change of events in his life.
The Halavardes were still charging, but when they were only thirty yards from him, and he was ready to face the first man, their horses went wild.
All of a sudden they seemed to jerk to the side, or upwards, or any direction, some continued forward, but stopped with a sickening jerk, as though some invisible wall were between then and Tauren . . . or the heaps of rocks behind him.
There was a moment of confusion but the men got over it quickly and getting out of the tangle of bodies advanced on foot, but when they were only twenty yards from Tauren a look came onto their faces, uncertainty, fear, and pain.
Tauren stood there, perplexed, as man after man that approached him fell face-forward, blood pouring silently out of his ears, nose, and mouth. It only took the remaining men a few moments to figure out that something went terribly wrong with anyone who approached the direction they had seen their prey going.
Slowly, they turned; got on what horses they had left, and rode silently away, the same puzzled, pained, and confused look on each of their faces.
Fate appeared to have selected the two companions for survival, and selected the Halavardes for death.
Slowly Tauren turned around and stared up at the massive heaps of rock behind him, and all of a sudden recognition dawned on him.
Oooh. A fellow east US-er to review~
Hey there Black,
This is the first chapter I've read, so I may get confused and give weird advice. My apologizes if I do.
I'll just jump in~
Love this description. Your description is really strong.
Don't forget that period.
I feel like this is very sudden. There's no build up at all either within the characters with emotion or outside the characters with the surroundings. I think there needs to be some lead up to this point.
This breaks up the action. We're hurtling along, starting to enjoy the ride, and then we need to grab a pencil and a notepad. The numbers aren't really necessary, it just undoes all your good work to building up a good action scene with good tension.
Short sentences often work with action scenes better because long sentences, like the ones you seem to favor can get confusing when there's so much going on in one sentence. Maybe you'd like to try that style out? With this sentence alone, you could have shortened it to: Tauren had strung his bow the instant he had seen them. He tried to find a target, but on T'hunes jolting back, there was no way he'd get a shot."
That's not perfect. Just an example.
Why is he aiming under the horse's legs?
As Aux pointed out, there are a few typos, but a fine toothed comb should get all of those out of there.
You seem to have a very good handle on your setting, and that's admirable. As a fantasy writer myself, I struggle with that sometimes. I could really see what was there and how the land changed and flowed. Really good job with that!
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me~
Hope to see more of your writing,
Megsug~
Hey there! I feel awfully late reviewing this, considering it was published in February! Nearly a year ago... what.
Anyway! Onto the review!
A couple of little improvement which are easy to make...
"He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, it was an amazing sight."
Perhaps carelessly throw a professional semi-colon in there:
"He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly; it was an amazing sight."
Overall, great story, seeing as I have not read your previous work, and this was my first impression, I can assure you, it is a great first impression. My favourite line was probably:
"The only options left to them were to run from their pursuers until one of the crossbow bolts took them in the back, fight back, or try to hide."
It was just so well done, I mean, the way you list their options and make it so DRAMATIC and GREAT. You've done a fabulous job, keep it up!
-CFG
"seemed entranced" sounds a little better.
Wait, who seems in a trance? You've just had Tauren smile, so it seems to the reader that it's Tauren that's smiling, but then afterwards we realise that it's Detrick that's talking.
The end of this sentence is quite awkward. The list of the places that he's lived is tiring for the reader. Try ", before we moved to the city, then the ocean, and after that the mountains."
Even that sounds a little awkward to me. Play around with that sentence until it seems right.
Semi-colons aren't conventional in novel writing, I think that I've already said it. You should be able to run the sentences together, so try to.
This is very ... (dammit I've had enough of saying awkward) difficult. You can make it into one paragraph for one.
Secondly, you don't need the "And" at the beginning, theen "...for they started to gain on Tauren an Detrick, slowley at first, then with increasing speed as the rocks became more numerous." sounds a bit better/
The repetition of "side" in 'hillside" too is awkward. you don't really need it on "hillside". You could also say "running alogside a stream that trickled between two rocky hills".
Also, really? This isn't very believeable.
Try not to do this. Say "smiled in victory" maybe.
You can just say "conscious".
"had apparently noticed".
Ohh a cliffhanger!
A lot of action in this chapter, but it needs to be worked on a little. I like the fact that the Halavardes can't enter the stones, However, you seem to have forgotten about Detrick at the very end, try and at least mention him.
Hope I helped and keep writing!
Auxiira^^