Published May 1, 2020
Zoltar was panting loudly as he levelled out into even flight over the windswept tundra. The blizzard was still raging around him, but had thinned out a touch since he’d last flown in it. The visibility was still very poor; the swirling snow blocking out the landscape before him.
Zoltar glanced back down to where Felistia had been flying. His heart jumped into his throat as he realized that she was gone. He scanned below, searching the swirling waves of snow, but still no sign. In the rush to escape the Drilvers, he must have lost sight of her in the storm.
‘No, no, no. This can’t be happening,’ Zoltar thought as he searched desperately for the thin shadow of the ice dragon. A flood of guilt and fear was hurling itself over his senses as he began to panic. He had to find her, but how. In this whiteout she could be miles away by now. How could he have just lost her like that? She was wounded and needed his help, but without her knowledge of the area, he was lost, with no hope of finding her.
Searching the violent snows with his sharp eyes, Zoltar sped through the storm. She had to be around here somewhere. She couldn’t have gotten too far with that wound?
Zoltar knew he was kidding himself. He sucked in a deep breath of the icy air and let out a thunderous roar, "Feeellliiissstttiiiaaa!” Maybe she’d hear him and would be able to locate him
The snow around him twisted away from the blast of hot air like waves after an atomic bomb. His call echoed off into the howling blizzard, slowly fading until nothing all but the cruel screaming of the wind was left.
‘She’s gone,’ Zoltar realized, after straining his ears and eyes for the smallest sign of Felistia. He'd lost her in the middle of the Ice Talon Kingdom. She could be anywhere and was in trouble. What was he going to do? She had to be out there somewhere, but he’d never be able to find her until the storm let up and by then it might be too late.
He shot another hopeful glance as the whirling white flakes around him only to once again see nothing.
Guilt racked his body with its foil talons. This was all his fault. He should have stuck closer to her. What if he’d lost her forever? What if the Drilvers had found her? He’d never be able to forgive himself if anything happened to her. It had been his idea to come along with her and she’d allowed it. If he’d travelled on his own, she’d never have been attacked.
Suddenly, there was a load screech. Zoltar was knocked from his thoughts by the rush of powerful wing beats and the pain of cold talons seizing his wings, ripping him out the sky.
Zoltar let out a yell and lunged, trying to break free as he and the unknown dragon plummeted towards earth in a wheeling spiral. They slammed into the paw deep snow, knocking the wind for Zoltar’s lungs. Gasping for breath, he desperately fought to fling his attacker off, lashing out with claws and fangs, but a blast of frosty breath smacked him between the horns, stopping his struggles. There was a blur of icy voices and the clang of metal as heavy chains were wrapped over his wings. Zoltar barely had enough time to see the shape of a female Ice Talon swim into his view before he passed out, sinking into a pit of darkness.
…
Zoltar woke to the sharp pain of talons grasping his wings and neck as harsh winds stung his face. His head was pounding and he found that heavy chains were bound to his paws, the weight of the metal making the minor wounds he’d received burn like fire. He tried to swing his tail up to stab at his attacker, but to his surprise, he couldn’t. A strong metal casing was locked onto his poisonous barb, rendering him helpless. He only had one weapon left; fire. He tried to take a gulp of air only to find that his mouth was clamped together. His captor seemed to take little notice and simply shifted its steal grip, digging its razor sharp talons further into Zoltar’s scales.
Zoltar cringed as a fresh spike of pain shot through his shoulders.
‘Who are these dragons,’ Zoltar thought worriedly as he went limp as possible, so as to not to make his abductor tighten his grip anymore.
The ground was dizzyingly far down and all he could see below were pitch black spikes and daggers of ice jutting out of the uneven land.
Metal scrapping against metal filled the air around him and Zoltar shifted his gaze to look up at his captor. The massive Ice Talon was wearing silver armour with a diamond-like carving scraped into the chest piece. What Zoltar saw made his blood run cold as ice. He recognized that symbol. This wasn't just any pack of ice talons. These were the queen's soldiers; ice talons trained for battle from the day they were hatched.
He was in deep trouble. The Ice Talons didn't take kindly to outsiders.
What was he going to do now? He hadn’t even made it to the Palace before being caught. How had they found him in that blizzard? Even Felistia had had trouble seeing.
His body was flooded with a cold realization; he’d yelled out to Felistia. The soldiers must have heard it and found him. This was all his fault. If he hadn’t paniced he would have recognized that shouting in the middle of hostile territory wasn’t a good idea. Now he was prisoner and Felistia was still missing. How did he manage to get into such a mess?
Then the dream from the previous night entered his mind, ‘No she wouldn’t have done that. She couldn’t. Would she?’
Zoltar peered behind him to find a squadron of about ten Ice Talons, all much larger than him, flying in perfect formation, all wearing the Queen’s symbol. Zoltar carefully examined each of the Ice Talons, his sharp vision looking for Felistia’s streamlined shape and glowing yellow eyes.
‘Please don’t let her be one of them. Please tell me that she didn’t do this,’ Zoltar pleaded silently.
To his relief none of the Ice Talons looked quite like her. All of them were far larger and seemed to have war wounds streaked across their snouts and wings.
Just then another dragon swooped in from the swirling snows around them. She was a massive Ice Talon with claws that glinted like knifes even though there was not a blade of sun cutting through the cruel blizzard. But it wasn't her claws that caught Zoltar’s attention. It was the limp shape hanging from her talons. A huge lump formed in Zoltar’s throat as he realized who the unconscious dragon was; Felistia.
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140,089 Literary Works • 672,997 Reviews
Hello again,
Great chapter! It was pretty intense, and a turn-of-events that I really didn't expect right away! The imagery and descriptions were incredible! I could definitely picture the severity of the blizzard, and the word choice made it easy to feel and imagine what Zoltar was experiencing throughout the chapter.
Phrases like "A flood of guilt and fear was hurling itself over his senses as he began to panic" contributes greatly to how he's feeling even without knowing Zoltar's exact thoughts. There's a lot of dread and alarm going on in these paragraphs, and I feel like Zoltar's past anxieties resurfaced during the stress of the moment. He continues to do quite a bit of thinking, and it was interesting to hear so many of his thoughts in this suspenseful situation.
I'm really interested to see what happens next! I'm relieved that it wasn't Felistia who arranged for Zoltar's capture (or something along those lines), but this brings up a bit of a challenge for both of them to carry out their original plans. It was a great cliffhanger, and I've got to see what's next!
Once again, keep up the good writing!
~Spider~
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world)
Almost halfway there.
First Impression: Well, well, well we are in trouble. Nice depiction of them running away and neat little fight scene too.
Why did he take so long to look her way? Or did she just vanish that quickly?
That was a bad decision.
That sounds like jumping to conclusions. They were many instances earlier when they were flying in that he lost sight of her and the reason she didn't answer could have been because she didn't want to make a sound so close to the palace borders.
Okay and he goes and gets himself captured though it is a small wonder how those guards were able to track him in the wind.
So he knows enough about the Ice Talons to know this fact.
That should be panicked.
Okay how did they find Felistia. She probably didn't make any noise? Did she crash to the ground form her wounds?
And that's it.
Overall: Setting the stage for some really interesting things to come now. Looks like we might soon start to learn more about Felistia. And we get to see the Ice Talon kingdom which looks like a place that is run by someone who is very keen on security.
As always take what you think will help and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Thank you again for the review. I'll explain more about how they got captured later in the next chapter or so.
Your Welcome!!
Hey felistia! Hope you don't mind if I swing by for a review today
I haven't read any of the previous chapters, so if I make a comment that would be clarified had I done so, I apologise!
Since he has already lost sight of her/wasn't even looking in her direction during the start of this chapter, I'd word this more like "In the rush to escape the Drilvers, he must have gotten separated from her."
Should end with a question mark!
"violet snows" is a bit of a strange way to word that? Maybe something like, "Even with his sharp eyes, he strained to see through the storm." and then maybe something about how risky that is? I can imagine there's all sorts of dangers that could present themselves from flying quickly through a storm like this with limited vision.
Also, I have to say I'm loving all your descriptions!! I love winter and snow and this is bringing back a lot of Feelings for me and though there seems to be a dire situation afoot, I'm still able to appreciate the setting and nature of this scene!
I don't think "all" is supposed to be there?
I think you meant "from".
Generally (and this goes for the other times that Zoltar's been having thoughts), you don't need to mention that your pov character is thinking (unless you're writing through an omniscient narrator) the way you add dialogue tags to dialogue. You can! But you don't need to do it every time. Italics in long form the way you already write it is usually a pretty good indicator of Thoughts.
This sentence is unnecessarily padded, for instance, and you could just have: "He remembered last night's dream. No, she wouldn't have done that. She couldn't. Would she?"
You have a good sense of pacing and you never lingered too long or moved too fast through anything that happened in this chapter! Despite not having read anything before this, I wasn't bored or lost at any point during the chapter. Your writing style is clear and engaging, so kudos to you for that!
There seems to be an inconsistency in whether "ice talon" or "Ice Talon" is capitalised or not? I would pick one or the other and settle with it, so it's not confusing for your reader.
Overall, this is a solid chapter with good pacing and an interesting plotline (also I love dragons so you earn bonus points for me with that!), so good job!
Hopefully this helped you, and if you have any questions, please feel free to let me know!
I hope you have a wonderful day
Awww yeeeeeeeeah things are getting SO good here.
My first thought while reading was how Zoltar ever thought he could make it by himself if he was so dreadfully lost and confused. XD He was never one to panic so bad before, but now it's like he forgot all sense of reason. I certainly don't blame him though 'cause it's a nasty blizzard and those are really nasty BUT it did make me wonder how he ever thought he could make it alone. I feel like would normally just say to find shelter, away from cavernous areas or wherever Drilvers live.
DUDE those Ice Talons have EPIC hearing. The blizzard undoubtedly carried his voice away, so the fact that the guards actually heard him is amazing. Maybe they were downwind when they heard the voice and followed it, or maybe they really do just have really good hearing like they know how to hear past the blizzard.
I'm super excited about getting a glimpse at the Ice Kingdom itself now. It's been snow and blizzard for so long, so to finally see some civilization is so awesome. And now we're tapping into Zoltar's knowledge of the Ice Talon kingdom and how much he really knows, like he was able to pinpoint the queen's guard already. So that's a good thing for him! In hindsight, it does seem a bit silly that he was flying so openly for someone intending to steal like a thief, but I guess he was just really panicked and forgot all his senses.
Anyhoot, I AM pleased that Felistia doesn't appear to have turned him in, so I proceed to worry about and hope she will be okay. :c I think it's pretty telling, though, that despite Zoltar shouting and giving himself away, they were still able to find Felistia, who was undoubtedly quiet and lagging behind. So I feel like either the guards found her first and his shout gave him away as a companion, or they were lucky in finding her while hunting down Zoltar.
Either way, Zoltar gave away Felistia's name too so SHEESH.
I'm excited to see more of the Ice Kingdom though!! I feel like we're starting to pick up speed here!
So glad you liked the chapter. Thank you for the review. I'm so excited to post the next chapter and allow an insight into what the Ice Talon kingdom is like.