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Young Writers Society



A Shadow's Cry

by Sureal


This is my first (and more than likely, will be my only) story in the fantasty forum. I've just made the title of this story up on the spot - as this piece has no title (or at least, none that I can remember).

You see, this is a very old piece - I wrote it two (or maybe even more) years ago. The only reason I keep it is to compare it to my new writing, and to see how I have improved.

None the less, I'm still interessted in hearing what you have to say on it :).

So, without further a do - I present to thee:

A Shadow's Cry

The small village of Ganderson stood quiet in the darkness, only the lights in the windows and the few people wandering around – silently – gave any indication that anyone lived there at all. Small and big houses made of stone and other buildings, pubs, town hall, shops and many more besides stood quietly in their own personal patch of land. The roads where made of stone slabs that looked like grey scales in the darkness, giving the impression that the roads were snakes weaving in and out of the buildings. In many of the house, curtains, shutters and blinds were shut. A river, not far from the main entrance, was splashing and bubbling in the cold air. In fields, yellow and green crops grew, with fences around them, and the farmers house right next to them, out of the reach from all but the most daring of children.

All in all, the village would have looked peaceful, if it weren’t for the weather that is. Dark clouds hid the stars in the sky and rain splashed down from the heavens as if it was trying to drown the poor planet. Wind blew through the trees and the coldness made frost on the streets, daring people to risk travelling outside and dying of cold. Thunder rumbled in the sky, sounding like drums echoing around an empty room. Hail cut through the air, and the trees gave no protection from the fierce rain and hail.

However, the weather though didn’t stop one traveller from reaching his destination, although no more than a boy – twelve or such an age – he staggered through the wind and pelting rain. His map gone, lost in the downpour of rain, he could only hope that he would find an inn soon. He wore a long travelling coat and had the dark hood pulled over his head. Pulling his coat tight around his body he searched for an inn.

His name was Matt Kendar, and he had been travelling for days to get to Ganderson and no matter what the weather was like, now he’d got there he’d find an inn, even if it took him all night. The closest inn would be towards the town centre, so off he went in that direction, fighting the weather as he staggered forward.

Matt did reach an inn - eventually - his teeth were chattering madly and his breathing ragged from the fighting he had had to make against the elements. How good it felt to be inside a warm building, even if it did smell a bit.

The inn was much bigger than it had looked from the outside, in the very middle stood the landlord, surrounded on all sides by a large square shaped counter. All around the counter stood a few tables and chairs, but the main part for drinking (and occasionally eating…) was off down the farthest side of the building. To the left and the right were staircases leading up to the room. A murky smell was in the air and there was barely any light in all the room downstairs. Despite it being rather late, there was still a lot of people downstairs, some drunk, some talking or telling stories, some just doing nothing – then again, they could be asleep.

Matt took a step into the building, letting the door close behind him, looked around, and then approached the landlord slowly It was terribly late and he needed a room to sleep in. “Yes?” asked the landlord, “D’ya need summit?”

“Have you got any rooms free? Quite a cheap one, mind.”

The landlord eyed him, and looked around. “You by yer self? Cheapest only 50, for one person, of coarse.”

Matt nodded and passed over the money, the room was a bargain, and the last inn Matt had stayed in had been twice as much money. He received the key from the landlord’s big hands.

“Room 83, over there, need anything jus’ ask. Oh, and by the way, my names Mallum.”

Matt thanked Mallum and took a look around downstairs. He toyed with the idea of going straight to bed, but decided against it. Better to get warm and relax before going strait to sleep. He’d be off again first thing in the morning so he may as well make the most of it.

He pulled off his coat and slung it over his shoulder as he walked away from the counter. His blond hair was wet, despite wearing a hood and it stuck to his head. He walked across the wooden floor and jumped down the small step leading to the back of the room. Matt slumped down at an empty table and leaned back on the dusty chair. He closed his eyes and took in the heat coming from the fire in the corner of the room.

“Hey, buddy, what’s your name?” asked someone nearby. Matt was so startled that he nearly fell off the chair he was on.

“Wha’?” Matt asked, startled by the sudden voice. A tall man with jet-black hair and dark clothes had slumped opposite Matt. The intruder had a thin body and looked like he was somewhere in his twenties.

“I asked what you’re name was, I’m Charlie Thandin, now you know my name.” He said, he spoke cool and calm. Matt looked up at the stranger, what in the world could have made him want to speak to him? “My name’s Matt. Matt Kendar.”

Charlie nodded, as if out of all of the different possible names, this was the most likely. “Well Matt, are you from around here or do you come from somewhere else? You know, I come from a small town not far from here, Onma, ever heard of it?”

Matt shook his head vigorously. “No, not really, I’ve never heard of such a place. I come from out of town too, but not as close as Onma, a couple of weeks travel.”

Charlie gave a small whistle. “That far? And all by yourself? That quite a distance you know, and quite a feat. So then, what brings you here?”

“Oh, not much. Thought I’d have a little walk around at home, maybe ten to twenty minutes, but it turned into a week’s walk.” He replied sarcastically, starting to get annoyed at this pointless and boring conversation.

“Well I’m here to visits a friend. You won’t know him if you don’t live near here so it’s pointless for me to tell you his name.”

Of all the strange answers, that one should be near the top of the list. “Right.”

Charlie sat quiet for a little while, but it was Matt who broke the silence that had come between the two.

“Er, look Charlie, I’m going to bed know. So good night.” He didn’t really want to be talking to someone he didn’t know in a place he didn’t know.

“No!” Charlie yelled, before calming down, back into his usual calm self, “No, not yet, I just want to talk.”

“Good night Charlie.” Matt said again, stood up and walked away towards the stairs on the right. Matt walked slowly and calmly until he knew he was out of view from that Charlie bloke. He had heard Charlie cursing as he had walked away, so he decided it might be best to put as much space between himself and Charlie as possible.

Matt broke into a run, wanting to get to his room fast, and get away from Charlie. He had to dodge a few people as he race down the hall.

The corridor was rather long, as well as narrow. It held a dusty odour around the walls, and was almost pitch black due to the distinct absence of lighting. Dust seemed to have settled and made it’s home in the place as had spiders and other such creatures. On two occasions Matt had even heard a quiet crunch when he brought his foot down. This place needed cleaners.

There were a few people in the corridor, and most got out of the way of the ‘little maniac’ rushing down it. One person however did get a slight push from him, but Matt yelled his apologies over his shoulder, who in return got a couple of swear words.

“How rude.” He murmured with a small smile of amusement on his face.

As he got to room 83 he stopped to breathe. He bent over doubled for second, than stood up strait again. Matt fished for the key in his inside pocket of the coat he was wearing, but stopped suddenly, hearing a sound coming from his room.

“What the?” Matt whispered. He listened again, pressing his ear firmly against the door, this time he had a faint shuffling and the creak of the floorboards.

He looked in through the keyhole, and saw a figure crouching over the bed. Maybe it’s only the cleaners, Matt thought hopefully.

He swallowed hard; with trembling fingers he put the key in the keyhole, and then turned slowly, so as not to make to much noise. The door clicked and Matt swung it open.

Inside his room stood a figure dressed in full black. He could easily tell it was a girl, and not young, but that didn’t put him off his guard, this was a Salian warrior, an assassin trained in the art of stealth and swordplay.

The Salian had a mask over her face made from a material that looked like silk, with two thin eye slits cut in it. She wore a long dull cloak that went down to the floor, and was tied together at her shoulders with a thin, fragile looking, piece of string. The assassin’s shirt was dull and had no sleeves, but her hands were covered in the same material as the cloak, and went up to her elbows. Her trousers were connected to the shirt, separated at the waist by a grey cord. The shoes made similar to the gloves and cloak, going up to her knee height. All the clothes, other than the cloak, the gloves and the shoes, were skin tight, and when she stood still she seemed to have no outline, but rather she blended into her surroundings.

At her side she held two, long thin swords. Sleek and dulled with dirt so as not to hinder her stealth powers.

“Who are you?” Matt asked dumbly, too aware of what she was. He made sure his voice sounded confused, as if he had no idea of what she was or what she intended to do.

“Do you really think I’m going to tell you?” she hissed from behind her mask. Her voice as both threatening and startled, it appeared he arrived ahead of schedule. Too bad for her.

Charlie must have been working with her, Matt thought bitterly, as a distraction. What she wanted with him was no mystery - to kill him, but rather why she wanted to kill him, was.

“What d’you want?” Matt stammered – let her think he was scared, she may drop her guard if she did. No such luck.

“Well I’m not here to kiss you good night am I?” she muttered, careful not to give away to much of what her voice was like – there was always the chance that Mike may get away – no matter how slim, “Well, not with my sword in hand at any rate.”

Almost like a cat, she sprang at him, slashing her two blades down on to his unprotected head.

The Salian’s blade stopped before it reached Matt’s head; she looked in confusion at his taunting face, untouched by her blade. Then she moved her gaze from his face, over to his hands; he too had a sword. Well, this would be interesting, she knew she could beat him, after all, she was a Salian, and he was only a peasant boy.

Matt felt all his sleepiness leave him, seeping out of his body at the thrill of a fight. “Yeah,” he said with a half shrug, “I guess not.”

Matt swung his blade around at the Salian, but it was quickly blocked, and that was the beginning of the fight.

The assassin’s right hand sword flew at his stomach, followed up by a quick jab at Matt’s head with the other. Both were blocked with ease.

Matt was no amateur at fighting – he was use to it and had spent all his life training with his sword. Unfortunately, so had the Salian.

Matt swung his blade at the Salian but she nimbly dodged it, another shot flew at her she, rather amazingly, jumped clean over it. She never blocks, Matt realised, she plays on pure offence. Another shot at Matt’s head, parried away, still moving, Matt brought his own sword up in a cutting motion.

Normally the fight would have been fairly even – but Matt was tired and the Salian was not. She taunted him for this weakness without slowing her movement. She had prepared and slept in advance, fail safe most likely.

Determined not to lose (and die), Matt took four quick steps back into the wall. The Salians mask twitched slightly and Matt knew it must have a been a smile – she believed she had him. Throwing in a couple of taunts that Matt failed to even take in – she slowly began to close in on him. She didn’t give him much time… but it was more than he needed. She throw down a heavy blow at Matt’s head, expecting it to be the killing blow, but once again it was blocked – but that wasn’t all.

Though Matt didn’t feel it, he knew what it felt like and easily recalled it. Matt knew that a burning feeling shot down her arm, her sense would have screamed danger and a sense of terrible pain was shot all around her body.

She staged back, not screaming, much to Matt’s amazement. Her eyes slowly looked down to the blade of the boy’s sword. It was glowing a deep blue sensation and was almost white in the very centre. It was an old trick but few people knew of it.

Seizing the opportunity, Matt jumped forwards and ripped the dark masked of her head.

Like most Salian, her flesh was slightly pale, deep green eyes stared back at him, in surprise and alarm, and adjourning the top of her head was:

“Blond hair?” Matt gasped in shock. The Salian quickly recovered her wits, and bolted for the window, which, for Matt had just noticed, was unhinged and hanging open, letting in rain, wind, insects and psychotic assassins.

Without looking out or pausing, she leaped through it. It took Matt two seconds to reach the window and look out, but by that time she was out of sight. The window was two stories up.

Matt cursed, but turned his attention away from the window, as a second thought, he closed it, stopping the wind and rain from getting in – among other things. Matt walked over the bed in the corner of the room, the Salian had been doing something to it, and Matt wanted to know what.

The bed wasn’t extraordinary, but it looked much comfier than the small patch of grass he had slept in the other night. Four, sturdy looking wooden legs, held it up, and the duvet was a shade of grey that looked like a rain cloud.

It looked okay; Matt pulled of the duvet and peered at the white cover, which also looked fine and comfy. He ran his hands over the bed, his heart was beating crazily in his chest, and he was sweating madly, in fact, he was even more afraid now than when he was fighting the Salian. Matt knew some of the tricks of the Salian.

All of a sudden, just as he ran his fingers near to the centre of the bed, a blade flew up. In the middle horizontally, but near enough to the top of the bed to impale him sooner or latter.

Matt jumped back, the glistening blade had nearly went through his hands, a horrible image of himself, skewered on it shimmering point, ran through Matt’s head.

“Maybe I need a new room…” he mumbled dryly. Not wanting to discover what other traps had been set up in the room for him, he walked cautiously to the door.

A couple of girls screamed when they saw the sword, still glowing, in Matt’s hand. It was quickly sheathed and hidden back under his cloak. The stairs seemed uneven to Matt, something that he hadn’t noticed before, but all the same he made his way down them. Charlie had left, that was good news at least.

“Ya need something, my good sire?” asked Mallum humbly,

“Yeah,” Matt replied, “A new room.”

Mallum scratched his head almost feverishly, “But whatever for?”

Matt plonked the mask on the counter, but left his hand resting lightly on it, “I has a small visit from a Salian – I don’t want to wake up to find a knife through me.”

Mallum had gone pale and slightly light headed at the sight of a Salian mask so close to him,

“B-b-b-b-b” was all he could manage to say, it seemed that he would have liked to have said ‘but how?’ or something along those lines at least.

“Don’t worry Mallum, I’m not blaming you, and no one got hurt. Nearly maybe.”

“I’ll get you a new room right away, jus’ hand over the keys for room 83, and I’ll give you a new room. A nicer one, how about that for compensation?”

Matt was astounded at getting a better room, after all it wasn’t really Mallum’s fault, “No, need, really Mallum. It was a fine sort of room,” Matt mumbled, “Well apart from the Salian and the traps and everything….”

“Now, now sir, no need to argue over the matter, I’ve got loads of spare rooms, some haven’t even been touched yet, apart from me an’ me cleaners, gather dust if you leave ‘em to long.”

Matt wondered why he hadn’t been bothered to clean the hall.

“Okay, okay. I’ll have the better room.” Matt received the key, room number 22, up the left stairs this time, “Oh, and Mallum, what do you know about the Salians?”

Mallum gave Matt a confused looked, “Erm, their assassin dressed in dark clothes, and they’re some of the best sword masters known, and erm…”

“And this young boy here defeated one!” cut in one of the spectators.

“About hair colour?” Matt asked coolly.

“Oh yes, of coarse,” Mallum replied, looking almost relieved, “They all have black hair, is that it? They all have black?”

Matt pocketed the key; “This one had blond hair.”

Matt walked calmly away from a bewilded Mallum and made his way up the stairs, to his new room.

As you may (or may not) have noticed, there are some unanswered questions. That's cos I origionally planned this to be far longer. This, plus a little more on the end that I've cut out here (as I felt it was unnecesary) was going to be Chapt One.


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506 Reviews


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Reviews: 506

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Tue May 17, 2005 8:57 pm
Sureal says...



*shrugs*

I know as much about 'em as you do. I didn't actually bother coming up with any background story for 'em ;).




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Sat May 14, 2005 3:30 pm
deleted6 says...



That was a great story but could you give us some background of the salian plz but great story




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506 Reviews


Points: 9907
Reviews: 506

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Sat May 14, 2005 3:06 pm
Sureal says...



Thanks for the reply :).

Don't worry - you weren't being too harsh. Like I said - I wrote this a long time ago - and back them I made lots of typos (weak keyboard skills y'see) and was always too lazy to proof read any of my work. Thankfully though, that is no longer the case (though I still can't be bothered to proof read this one, though I have no doubt there are hundreds more spelling errors in there... ;)).

There won't be any more on this I'm afraid though. This is a stand alone piece ;).




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Fri May 13, 2005 8:45 pm
Lollipop wrote a review...



Wow..I really enjoyed reading this story. Just a couple of mistakes though


Matt thanked Mallum and took a look around downstairs. He toyed with the idea of going strait to bed, but decided against it, better to get warm and relax before going strait to bed. He’d be off again first thing in the morning so he might as well make the most of it.


I thought when you said "going straight to bed" twice, sounded repetative. Why not try:

"Better to get warm and comfortable before heading for bed"

Maybe something like that and you spelt straight wrong! :D . And at the part where it says

but decided against it, better to get warm and relax before going strait to bed


I don't think you should have a comma between the it and the better. It would sound better if you used a full top instead :D

sometime in his twenties


This might sound better if you use "somewhere" instead of "sometime"

“Well I’m here to visits a friends house


Using "house" here makes it sound as if he is visiting the house, not his friend. So change it to

"I'm here to visit a friend" :D

This place need cleaners


This doesn't sound right to me. Maybe, you could use "needed" instead of "need"

comfused


Spelling error :D

but by that time she was out of site


I think you should change "site" to "sight"

I don’t want to wale up to


Typo. Is it supposed to say wake up?

This is a really good story. I want you to post more. PLEASEE!!! Sorry if I was too harsh. I hate being horrible to people. Just read over your work before psting and you shouldb e fine! :D

~Lollipop~





I feel like it will be absolute hotdog water, but oh well. It's just a draft.
— Charm