Chapter 7
A Curious Gift
While I was asleep, I had an incredibly strange dream. At first I was just standing in darkness. There was absolutely no light, until a blacksmith’s shop appeared from no where. Then, an anvil and a blacksmith hammering some sort of metal appeared. The blacksmith worked for a bit before stopping and turning around. He looked at me and smiled. “Finally,” he said more to himself than to me.
The next thing I know is that I am being jerked around by George. After he saw my eyes open he stopped and backed up a bit. I yawned and asked, “Couldn’t you have gotten my up nice and slow?”
George shook his head and said, “No, dragons have been spotted. They are gathering a few miles from here and it is believed that they will attack soon.”
I looked up in surprise. I jolted up and said, “Shit! Get Carrie up and where is the captain?”
George replied as he rushed to Carrie’s side, “He’s in the main hall.”
I ran to the main hall and saw the captain in full armor standing next to two horses. He looked at me and said, “Serj, here are the horses I promised and there is a path under the town to another small village to the east.”
At that moment Carrie came in and walked to my side. She asked, “So what’s the plan?”
I said, “We’re sneaking away with these horses through a secret tunnel to a small village to the east.”
The captain interrupted and said, “And George will be accompanying you so when you reach the village they won’t run from you or try to kill you.”
A few moments after the captain finished speaking, George came through the door strapping his bastard sword to his back and sliding his studded leather gloves. The saddled Arabian horse that I saw earlier was following him. He said, “Follow me. The tunnel entrance is in this building.”
Carrie and I each grabbed a horse and followed him. He went to a door in the back and opened it. He went in and we followed. The tunnel entrance was right there. George took a torch that was on his horse and lit it. We walked for a couple minutes before we started hearing loud noises above. Occasionally some dirt from the ceiling did fall down but there were no cave-ins. We continued walking for a couple hours. I could tell Carrie was still exhausted, but none of us could mount our horses because the ceiling was too low.
We, finally, came to a huge cavern in the tunnel. It was a dead end, but in the middle of the cavern was a big lift. To the side of the lift was a ladder that lead to the hole in the ceiling. George turned to his horse, looked it directly in the eye, and pointed at the lift. His horse walked onto the lift and stood there. Then George turned to us and said, “Stand on the lift as well.”
Carrie and I nodded and took ourselves and our horses onto the lift. George started climbing the ladder, and after a minute, he got to the top. We heard mumbling for a bit then the lift stated moving up. At first the horses were startled, but then they got used to it.
The lift was slow. It took five minutes what George had climbed in less than thirty seconds, but we eventually got to the top. I saw George standing next to two guards that were in a dome shaped building that had nothing in it other than the hole. The guards had loose, brown, cotton clothes and a standard handgun. One of them did have a knife strapped to his belt.
George immediately started saying, “We can get a good rest here. This town has more advanced technology then mine. These men have offered two rooms at the inn for us.”
I looked at Carrie and saw that she was almost ready to feint. I, then, said, “Let’s get to this inn. I’m pretty sure we’re all pretty tired.”
“Follow me than.” George took us out of the dome shaped building that was over the hole in the ground. There were two streets. One went straight and into a bustling market filled with all sorts of fruits and vegetables. However, George led us to the right.
We walked several before an elder looking women yelled with a raspy voice, “Half blood!”
I looked knowing that this was an old name for the half dragons. She had a very small physique. She was holding a sheathed dagger. The handle was pure black except for the occasional white string on it. The handle didn’t have a guard but constricted just before the blade. The sheath was the same color black and had a white at both ends of it.
The women looked at me and smiled. Then, she said, “I don’t believe it. That man was right.”
“What? What man, and what was he right about?” I asked in utter confusion.
“About a day ago, a man, I believe he called himself David, gave me this knife and said to give it to a black half blood that would be in this city soon. I thought all black dragons, half blood or not, were killed.”
“All but me were killed. Did you say he called himself David?” I said as I took the dagger from her and strapped it to my belt.
“Yes I did.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Sure, hun. A handsome young man. He was pretty tall though not really tall. He had short scruffy brown hair and beautiful dark eyes.”
My head was racing at this time. This sounded like my friend David, but he had died. I started thinking that maybe he didn’t. I didn’t actually see him die. I looked at Carrie who was slowly falling asleep standing against her horse. I looked at the women, smiled, and said, “Thank you for this gift, but my companions and I are very exhausted and are eager to get to the inn.”
She nodded and replied, “It was no trouble. Good day to the last survivor of a glorious race.”
I nodded and turned to George as the women left. George started walking again. After about a minute, George asked, “You seemed surprised when she said the name David.”
“He’s my best friend, or was my best friend. I thought he had died, but the women’s description sounds like him,” I replied.
“That’s what I thought because I remember him at the inn when you saved me,” Carrie said just before she let out a loud long yawn.
There was silence for a few more minutes before George took another right and said, “Here we are.”
We strapped the horses to the bars in the stable and went into the inn. George went up to the desk and showed the clerk an emblem of some sort. The clerk, then, said, “Rooms sixteen and seventeen. Should be near the end of the hall,” as she handed George two keys with the numbers sixteen and seventeen on them.
George came back to us and handed the key with the sixteen on it to Carrie. We all headed upstairs to the two rooms Carrie went into her room and George and I went into ours. There were two beds that looked very comfortable. George and I didn’t say anything. I just crawled into one of the beds and fell asleep within a few seconds after realizing that I have never slept on a bed so comfortable.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
Hey, man! Took me long enough, but I have the critique as promised.
The blacksmith finished his work before he turned around and smiled.
The next thing I knew, George was shaking me awake.
I suggest using contractions (they're and it's) 'cause I would sound more realistic, especially since you throw a contraction in here and there during George's dialogue anyway.
I'm going to assume you're using modern day swears in your fantasy?
When a character speaks to another through dialogue, you're basically telling the reader as well (in some situations, this is false ^^). Here, you have the MC explaining the plans to Carrie, when the reader already knows. You can either reword this to look more interesting, like "We're going to leave" (something short and cute) or just say, I told Carrie the plan, and blah, blah, blah... ^^
The underlined part is a bit awkward when read. They're opposites with an 'or' conjunction which I think is a bit strange. Rewrite this possibly? ...they won't either run away or kill you, whatever it may be. Maybe either would make it look better...
We followed him inside.
A torch that was on his horse?
The horses whinnied from the sudden jolt as it struggled to start. The part after "jolt" is a bit iffy, but meh.
Repetition of that = bad.
Immediately started is just too awkward. ^^;
While we're at it and it's on my mind, what does this village/city look like? Is it crowded? Are the people depressed or happy? Are the buildings falling apart or made of marble? Details, my friend, details...^^
Repetition. Either replace one with it or combine them into one.
Too many questions to ask when you just met the woman. If you want more than "What?" then say "What do you mean?" or "What are you talking about?"
This last question he asks is a bit sudden. Sure, the reader may recall the name as the MC's best friend, but do we know if the MC figured that out? Tell us of what he's thinking or feeling.
Hearts race, heads spin (aka dizzy). ^^
I liked this.
I had a friend named David. Sounds more realistic. ^^
This is basically an info-dump and can be rid of. A couple sentences later, you say they're comfortable, which is brilliant how you worded it. In fact, I think it's the last word.
Overall: You really have something going on here. I enjoy reading your work. It's a matter of sentence structure and variety of structure.
In the beginning of this, you have the tags before the dialogue. In my opinion, tags after the dialogue is better, unless the character's doing some action while they're saying that quote. For example:
The little girl considered the purple dress for her doll with the blue one before finally saying, "I think pink's your color."
[i]The girl said, "I think pink's your color." She was comparing the purple dress with the blue and finally put the purple one back in the toy chest.
See what I mean?
Anyway, watch your word usage too. Woman is singular; women is plural. I also suggest a hyphen in half-blood rather than half blood since the whole thing's an adjective in itself.
Finally, watch your close repetition. By that, I mean something like this:
I got out of the car, closing the car door behind me. The car drove off as I turned and walked up the steps to the courthouse.
Notice the repetition of car in my two sentences? It gets a bit irritating, and this is quite a juvenile example. However, I've noticed it in your piece here and before. Watch out for that, add word variety. We'll love you for it.
Otherwise, I can't wait for the next piece! Keep writing!
Jabber, the One and Only!