housecleaning: submissions
Sep. 30th, 2006 08:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7OK, my actual, possibly-realistic, self-imposed goal is to clean off my writing slate in time for November, which is National Novel Writing Month. I may or may not participate (who am I kidding? Of course I will.), but I want at least to move one project out of the In Progress queue and into the next phase.
The next phase being, of course, Submission. I have to do my research and look for some good agents. What do y'all think-- should I submit it to Tor's slushpile, given that it is, after all, of the fantasy genre? Suggestions from those of you who've done this before are thoroughly welcome. I have a query letter drafted in the finest style as suggested by Miss Snark and Kit Wossname, of course, but welcome any suggestions about that as well.
I am speaking of Barbarians_Novel, I should mention-- the current title is Protector, which I was wholly enamored of as a title until Jet Li released a movie with the same name (well, with a "the" in front of it, which I'm avoiding as Thes tend to be messy when alphabetizing etc, or at least in my organizational systems tend to be thus).
So I am asking those of you who read this to do me a quick favor, and if you are markedly disinterested, so much the better: I am going to paste in the opening few pages of the novel. I want you to comment with a simple cut-and-paste of the sentence where you stopped reading because you were bored or confused or disinterested or whatever. You don't have to explain. And for once, I'll allow unsigned anonymous comments, if that would make you feel more comfortable. I've reworked this opening as much as I know how, and would appreciate having someone throw a few rocks at it so I can look at it afresh. Mine eyes grow bored and slide down mine own page with little constructive insight, at this point.
If you should have any concrit-like comments to make, that would likewise be appreciated, but is certainly not necessary: I have a terrible history at replying to comments anyway, and I don't have time to offer reciprocal concrit anyway, my headspace being as useless as it is.
Another thing making me worry is that the more I rework it, the longer it grows-- I cut huge swathes from the middle, but the end keeps growing, fleshing itself out. It's, and I cringe to say this, 175,000 words. Is it futile to even query such a thing as a debut? I absentmindedly assumed 150,000 words was normal for a novel while I was writing it, and it wasn't until I was irrevocably committed to the new plot that I realized I was overshooting by half. Eep. Me and numbers, not so good.
But anyhow. Without further ado, the opening chapter's opening scene, last overhauled three days ago but now reread so many times the words are meaningless to me.
CHAPTER ONE: MEETING
I'd been uneasy all morning. It was a feeling I couldn't shake, bothering me since sunrise like a flea I couldn't catch. It grew on me, pulling me inexorably southward, away from the damaged road and towards the heart of the unseasonable wilds. My patrol, twenty-five slightly bored members of the legendary cavalry of the Letts, followed me with a minimum of murmuring. We had all been serving together for several years now, and they were used to me and my inexplicable instincts. Besides, my hunches usually led to more interesting things than the routine early-spring road repair patrols usually entailed.
We were well away from populated areas now, in the thick arboreal forests to the southeast of the city of Saxeus, a fortified citadel that had been our tribe’s firmest ally since we had first given up our nomadic ways and settled in our beautiful land. But down here, there were no settlements for miles, not anymore. The old stories said the woods were haunted with the ghosts of those who used to live here: the Livs, most of whom had died on a single day when a rival tribe had descended and slaughtered them during a festival. Enough Livs survived among our people to keep the horrific stories vivid. On a grey, tense day like today, with invisible clouds shrouding the sun and the moss hanging over the muddy road in silver-spun trails, the wind rattling last season’s clinging dead oak leaves whispered snatches of the old stories.
"Where we goin', Captain?" Feliks asked, reining up beside me as we halted at midday. He was my lieutenant, and had long since overcome his provincial shyness and learned to speak his mind to me in his unabashedly broad accent. Others found his accent comical, and it was a long-running game on boring patrols to trick him in various ways into saying words he couldn't pronounce properly. But it was a long time since I'd laughed at his speech, and I didn't today either.
I shook my head, tipping my helmet back on my head and squinting south with my face all screwed up against the glaring white, but obstinately never sunny, sky. "Don't know," I said. "You hear anything?"
"Never a thing," he answered, or syllables approximating it, and I grunted, dissatisfied.
"Not so much a sound," I said, "as a, a feeling I guess. You don't feel anything?"
"Nothin'," he said, more or less, but squinted southward into the unspeaking forest.
We had come another couple of miles, riding faster southward now, before my horse's head went up and his ears went forward. I called out to Feliks, and he reined in beside me. "Erklas hears something," I said, drawing to a halt. Erklas bobbed his head, listening, and beside me Feliks's horse pricked up his ears and looked as well, nostrils moving with more intent purpose than simple breathing.
"Brytta smells something," Feliks said, and I felt Erklas's flanks move as he whuffled at the air as well.
There was a blind curve ahead, along the edge of this ravine: to our right, the ravine's face rose up, trailing moss, and to our left was a scree slope down to the uneven, spring-swollen stream below. The view was good here, but up ahead would be a prime spot for an ambush.
I held up my left arm, elbow at a right angle, fist clenched: a silent signal to close up the ranks. The others quieted, and I felt more than heard them readying their spears. Whatever it was would be up around this corner. I drew my sword, and with all my nerves jangling, I rounded the corner.
There were brigands on the road.
A wagon was sitting skewed in the road, the dray horses cut from the traces and the contents of the wagon strewn across the wide part of the road. The wagon and its entourage had just come around another blind curve before they were attacked, but we had a nice long straight view to see the looks of horror on the faces of the brigands, who were busily stripping the bodies of the fallen.
It was quick work to ride them down, quick and messy, and made the quicker and messier because there were apparently no survivors among the little convoy they'd attacked. Everyone standing and moving was easily identified by their ragged clothing and panicked flight as a bandit, and their well-chosen ambush site meant that there was almost nowhere for them to scatter and run to that a horse, and efficient warrior, couldn't follow.
Soon enough the usual, dreadful silence fell, broken only by horrid gurgles and wet noises as my men picked over the bodies to dispatch any lingering sufferers. I dismounted and wiped blood from my hands and face, and shivered a bit as I let killing energy pass. It always made my head feel strangely light, to kill other men, and I always had to crouch down a minute and take my time to clean my hands before I felt I could look another living man in the face. Others, it seemed not to bother so much, and I never spoke of it except to my brother Talus: a matter of minutes older than me, he was immeasuraby wiser.
I composed myself, and checked Erklas quickly to see that he was uninjured-- it is both a great virtue and a great fault that horses never complain, because it means that they sometimes conceal injuries. Finally my vision had returned enough to normal, and my head felt once again seated firmly enough between my shoulders, so that I could begin checking the tracks to see what had happened.
The patrol's other tracker was working, likewise, at the other end of the battlefield. I stood, getting my bearings, and watched him intent on his work. He was checking the north end-- if there had been any survivors, they would likely have fled that way. I was confident in him, and so began to work at my end, looking to see if any brigands had left the road before our arrival.
It wasn't long before I spotted tracks, scuffs on the rocks at the edge of the path, disappearing sharply downhill away from the road. A mossy patch yielded distinct tracks: two booted pairs of feet, and one in sandals or shoes, smaller. Two men and a boy? A short distance down the hill, heavily scuffed with the traces of an ungraceful passage, and there was a sandal, strap broken, caught in a rock. There was blood on the strap, a little-- it had been wrenched off the foot, then. The sandal-wearer was certainly being dragged against his will.
Or hers.
A suspicion rose, an ugly suspicion that tasted foul at the back of my throat, and I drew my sword. Possibly these were refugees from the convoy making a hasty escape with one reluctant to abandon their companions, but it wasn't very likely.
I had seen a lot of warfare in my day. I had seen a lot of things nobody should have to see. I had seen a lot of things that would come back to me at night when I was trying to sleep. There were a select few things of this nature that got particularly unpleasantly beneath my skin. The things a couple of thugs would drag a woman off to do to her were among them. I was close enough now that I heard her make a breathless, angry noise. There was a thud, something connecting with flesh with some force, and a man cursed shrilly in a language I knew but couldn't place.
I stepped out from behind the tree, sword raised, and found the steel a ready home in the neck of a man kneeling with his back to me. He was holding a dark-clad girl by her wrists: she was lying on her back with one foot raised. Another bandit was sitting on his knees a short distance away, belt unfastened, hand cupped over his bloodied nose: by their postures, the girl had just kicked him in the face. He had a knife and had been raising it to hit the girl with the hilt of it.
My sword easily separated the kneeling man's head from his body, and he fell across the girl, fountaining blood. The man at her feet blinked in astonishment, dropping his knife and scrambling backwards to try to get to his feet. He had just enough time to look up at me and shriek in horror before I had stepped over the decapitated man and brought the sword down point-first obliquely through his ribcage to pin him to the ground.
The girl was screaming hoarsely, disentangling herself from the decapitated body. I left my sword in the second man and turned to her, ready to apologize for the grueseomeness of the rescue. By the time I turned, she had scrambled out from beneath the body and was on all fours, staring up at me in blank-eyed terror.
I stared back at her in confusion: she was entirely covered in something darker than blood, her eyes and her teeth a stark white -- oh, it was her skin. Her skin was a deep brown color. I had never seen anyone so dark before, not even the darkest tanned Saxean farmer, and I blinked as I realized that the uniformity of her color was because she had not a shred of clothing on. Her nipples were yet darker spots against the brown skin of her small breasts.
She stared at me wide-eyed for a moment, mouth open—her lips were pink--, and then she erupted into a flurry of motion, getting to her feet and coming toward me. She had a knife in her hand, I realized a bit belatedly, and I threw up my forearm to ward off the blow she directed at my face. She'd taken the knife the man had dropped. She was quick. She'd brawled before.
"Easy," I said, desperately hoping she spoke Etalin. She was vicious, and slashed again at me, ducking to aim at my midsection. Of course-- she had been overpowered once and obviously wasn't keen on it happening again. "Easy, girl. I won't hurt you. It's all right now." I held out my hands, palms open, both to ward her off and to show her I was not trying to fight her. But I knew how frightening I looked: I had spent enough time among the Saxeans to know that my garb, my tattoos, my very body itself was at the least unnerving if not terrifying.
She hissed and slashed at my hands. I closed my gloved hand around the knife blade and twisted it out of her grasp, continuing the movement to enfold her in my other arm. I turned and pinned her between my body and a tree, and with a final wrench completed the motion to disarm her. The knife thudded to the ground and I kicked it away.
She shrieked and kicked at me, her feet pattering ineffectually against my shin greaves. She was trying to kick my knee backwards but didn't have the angle. Even in panic, this girl was thinking of strategy. "Stop," I said. "Stop, you'll hurt yourself." But I didn't dare release her. She had cut through my glove and my palm stung fiercely. She squealed and squirmed, but I was heavy, and had taken a few captives in my day.
It didn't seem she knew Etalin. I could tell at a glance that she wasn't a member of any of the local tribes, and that was all the language expertise I had. I didn't know what to do, so I spoke to her as I would to a frightened horse, relying on tone of voice and repetition to accomplish what incomprehensible words couldn't.
"Shh," I said softly, holding very still and bowing my head toward my shoulder so as to give her space around her face. "Shh. Stop. Shh. Whoa. It's all right. I won't hurt you. Shh. Shh. Easy. Whoa."
She went still, and tipped her head back against the tree to look at me. "Who are you," she said shakily, in Imperial-accented Etalin. Her eyes were a pale brown, reminding me of the amber jewelry our women wore. Her mouth was very red. She would be a striking beauty in a calmer moment, but right now her eyes were almost glazed with terror.
"A captain of the Letts," I said. "We patrol against the bandits on this path. We protect travelers. I am trying to help you."
She shuddered and relaxed abruptly, letting her head fall against my shoulder. She sobbed, and I murmured comfortingly again: "Shh. It's all right now."
She nodded, already composing herself. I eased my weight pinning her against the tree, but remained with my arms around her in a gentler embrace, which I could easily tighten should she decide to struggle again. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Did I hurt you?"
I laughed softly, surprised that she would even think to ask. "Don't worry about that," I said. "Are you hurt badly? Bleeding anywhere?"
She shook her head. "I," she said unsteadily, her breath coming in short gasps. "I don't -- know."
"Take a couple deep breaths," I said. "It's all right. You'll be fine. Breathe with me." I breathed in slowly and deeply, and then blew out a slow exhalation. She nodded shakily, closing her eyes and breathing along as I took another breath this way, and another.
"There," I said. "All right. What hurts? Does anything hurt very badly, or feel wrong or broken?"
She shook her head. "Jesus," she said, and laughed a little shrilly. I wasn't entirely sure what the word meant but the Saxeans used it too, sometimes, usually as a curse word. My Etalin was good, but lacked depth in the realm of curses. She laughed again. "No. I'm fine." There was an edge to her laughter, that suggested she was on the edge of what she could tolerate. "I've had worse, actually." Another laugh, and a shiver this time. "They didn't even get what they wanted."
"All right, then," I said. "Easy, now. I'm going to let go of you and then I'm going to give you my cloak because you must be cold. And then we're going to find you some clothes, because you'll freeze otherwise."
She nodded. I released her, and unfastened the pin at my shoulder. I draped the cloak around her shoulders, and she pulled it closed around her body, leaning against the tree. She was shivering now, and had covered her mouth with her hand. I saw blood on my cloak. She was bleeding-- her hand was bleeding, but not fast. It was hard to see the blood against her dark skin.
"Captain," Feliks shouted, somewhere above me. His tone was sharp—he was worried. "Martins! Where are you?"
I realized with a shock of guilt that I hadn't said anything when I'd left the ambush scene. "Here, Feliks," I shouted back. "I have found a survivor!"
The girl started, and stared blankly at me in shock. "Who is that," she whispered, wide-eyed.
"My lieutenant," I said.
"There are more of you?" She clutched the cloak tighter.
"Twenty-six," I said. I laughed. "I am not such a hero that I could kill thirty-odd bandits all by myself." But she was frightened, I could see.
"Injured?" Feliks was not shouting so loud now, having come closer, but I could hear that he had not yet begun to descend the steep slope.
"I think she is all right," I said, speaking Etalin as I realized that she could not understand him and that was frightening her more. "Beat up a little. Wait there, Feliks. It's steep. We'll come up."
She looked at me, and I gave her an encouraging smile. "It's all right," I said.
"I am naked," she whispered. "I don't want them to see me naked."
I looked around. There were brightly-colored pieces of fabric scattered through the undergrowth, but nothing seemed intact enough to put back on her. I grimaced at this evidence of savagery. "Here," I said, and turned to the bandit who still had my sword in his chest. "If I give you a belt, you can keep my cloak closed. At least you will be decent. Would that be all right? I am afraid none of this will cover you."
"If anything in the wagons survived," she said, "I had more clothing there."
"They escaped with nothing," I said, and wrenched my sword out of the bandit. He gurgled faintly, and I kicked him over. He breathed, but he was so damaged it could scarcely be called breathing-- more gurgling, and frothing blood from his nose and mouth. His belt was already unfastened. I pulled it off of him. He twitched once more and I cut his head off to end his misery, kicking him back over as I turned away. The feeling of steel parting bone made me shiver, as it always did if I made the mistake of thinking about it.
She was watching me with an expression of disgust. "He did not deserve the mercy you just gave him," she said.
I handed her the belt. "It's simple professional courtesy," I said with an indifferent shrug. "I don't leave anyone alive."
"You do a lot of killing," she said, her tone flat, but it struck me as a question.
"A fair bit," I said. Four today, or five counting the one just now. I tried to decide if telling her the number would reassure her.
"Would you believe me if I said I have never killed a man?" She was watching me think. I had the odd sensation that she knew precisely what I'd been considering.
"I would," I said, but thought of her first reaction to me: I would not believe her if she said she'd never fought.
"I would be lying," she went on in a moment. "If I said that. But I didn't."
"Oh," I said, uncertain how to respond.
"Do you like doing it?" she asked. She was wrapping the cloak around herself like a toga. "Killing people, I mean."
I shrugged. "Not particularly," I said. "It's messy and rather ugly."
"What do you like to do?"
It was an odd question. I considered it. Perhaps she was afraid of me. Honesty on my part usually cured people of that: I was intimidating, and shaggy, and grim-looking, but was remarkably boring when not actively killing people. "I like stories," I said. "Riding my horse. Good conversation. And drinking beer. Mustn't forget the beer."
"Of course," she said faintly. I held out my arm to her.
"Can you walk, or should I carry you up to the path?"
"I can walk," she said. "But my shoe is missing."
I remembered the blood on the sandal. "It is caught on a rock back there," I said. "I think the strap is broken." I turned. "Here, you can ride on my back. It is not far."
She hesitated, but in a moment stepped forward, and I helped her climb up piggyback-style. She was awkward, unused to the position. "Put your hands around my chest, there," I said. "Did your papa never give you a piggyback ride?"
"No," she said, and I put my hands under her thighs. She shivered. The palms of her hands were quite as pink as mine, I noticed, and I could see now that one of them had a bad cut in the middle of it.
"That's terrible," I said. "All children should be given piggyback rides."
"My father was not the fatherly sort," she said. I hiked her up a bit, but gently in consideration of her probable bruises, and started up the hill. "Aren't I too heavy?" she asked.
"No," I said. "Not at all." It wasn't bravado: despite her height, she was quite slender-built, and no more of a burden than my enthusiastic twelve-year-old second cousin who kept insisting she had not outgrown piggyback rides. I bent to toil up the hill, careful with my balance in the loose footing.
"Oh my," Feliks said, stepping back out of my way as I approached. "What's this now?"
"Be polite," I said, in Lett. "She's shaken up but I think she'll be all right."
"I can walk from here," she said, unclasping her hands. I let her down.
"If you're sure," I said.
"Greetings," Feliks said, in his incongruously flawless Etalin. He had learned Etalin from me, and my Etalin was perfect. I often wished he would always speak to me in Etalin, because his accent was so much better than in our native language. "I hope you are not badly hurt, madam." He sketched her a pretty courtesy, and she nodded at him, regarding him in some bemusement. He was young, even younger than me, and his beard did not grow in fully yet, so he kept it closely, neatly trimmed around his chin. Despite being a bit of a rube he did present himself well: he was a fastidious and well-favored young fellow. As barbarians went, I supposed he was not particularly frightening. He was shorter than me by a head and wiry rather than bulky: not a large man, by our standards, although he was bigger than any of the dead Etalans or bandits.
"I do not think I am," she answered. "Thank you for asking." She looked around, and grimaced at the carnage in the clearing. My men had begun to lay out the bodies in an orderly fashion.
"I am called Feliks," he went on. "I am the lieutenant of this patrol."
She gave him a charmed little smile. "I am Callonia," she said. She glanced at me. "If you told me your name, sir, I was too distraught to remember it."
"Oh," I said, "I don't think I said. I am Martinus." I used the Etalin ending, easier to pronounce. She smiled at me. She was disconcertingly beautiful: her skin was a rich and brilliant color and now that I had become used to it, it was a lovely shade for a person to be. Her eyes were a dark golden shade, and her face was heart-shaped and symmetrical. Her hair was dark and glossy, caught in an intricate series of braids across her scalp and down her back, with some sort of ornaments at the ends.
"Ha," Feliks said. "I have always said you have no manners, Captain."
"Watch yours, Lieutenant," I said with some humor, drawing myself up. I surveyed the clearing. "No other survivors, then?"
Feliks shook his head sadly. "Not so much as a groan out of anyone," he said. "Bandits cut their throats," he added in rapid Lett.
"Ah shit," I said, with a grimace. "Quick, anyway." I switched back to Etalin. Callonia was regarding us with some suspicion. "No other tracks, then?"
Feliks shook his head again. "Nothing."
"Bad," I said. He nodded. "Well. At least we have you in reasonably few pieces. Let me see your hand, there."
She held out her bleeding hand and I examined it. A superficial wound, as I had thought. I retrieved a dressing from my waist-pocket and pressed it carefully over the injury.
"Yes," Feliks said. "At least there is a slight chance Galjis won't kill us."
"We didn't expect anyone on the road this early," I said, looking up into Callonia's face. She looked perfectly blankly at me. "Hold that there," I added, releasing her hand. "The bleeding should stop on its own. Where else are you hurt?"
"Of course we did not expect anyone," Feliks said. "But that does not mean we will not be blamed for this."
I shook my head, dismissing it. "No point worrying," I said. The others had noticed us, and a few broke off their tasks to come over and see what was going on. Callonia's fingers around my arm were abrupt and tight. I glanced at her. She was looking at the scattering of soldiers approaching us. They were all big men, some bloodstained; attired like me in leather armor, but many of them were grimy and poorly-groomed after so long out in the woods, and some of them looked, if I considered them with fresh eyes, distinctly frightening. Perhaps even scarier than me.
"Oh," I said. "Did you want to go see if any of your things are left in the wagon?"
She nodded tightly.
"Feliks," I said, "take her over there, then. I'll get everyone else's reports."
She let go of my arm only reluctantly, and I went out to speak with the others.
A half an hour later I came to see her at the wagon. It was a fully-enclosed boxy thing, large enough that she could probably sleep in it. She was sitting on the steps at the back of it. She was wearing a blue dress in Etalin fashion with a cloak that matched it, but my own green woollen cloak was still around her shoulders over it all. Her hand was wrapped in a clean bandage, and so was one of her feet. Feliks had left her to come speak with me, and she was sitting alone, arms wrapped around herself, looking rather forlorn.
"I see you found your clothes," I said. The pale blue suited her complexion, and she looked delicate and pretty, but even more exotic than she had seemed when simply naked. She had rearranged her hair as well, but her feet were bare. "How do you feel? Are you all right?"
She shivered. "I am fine," she said. "A little bruised."
"I am sorry about your companions," I said. "We have put their bodies into a trench and covered it over. The bandits we will let lie, the filth."
She nodded. "That is well," she said absently.
"I do not want to pry," I said. "But I must know what your destination was."
"Saxeus," she said, in the same detached tone. "Do you need to know my errand?"
I hesitated a moment, and let out my breath slowly. It was obvious from the scanty contents of the wagon and the slain men's packs that this had not been a merchant caravan. "Would diplomacy be a fair guess?" I asked carefully.
"It would," she answered.
"I will not ask more," I said. "Not at present."
"Good," she said. She seemed very weary. "What will happen now? What will you do?"
"I recommend that we continue north on the road," I said. "And with all speed. I do not like to linger in a place of violence: it often attracts more."
"Must I ride?" she asked.
I shook my head. "The draft animals were not killed," I said. "We can keep the wagon. You can ride in it, if you like. I do not know what you prefer."
"I prefer that," she said. "Then when will we leave?"
"Shortly," I said. "Have you anything else you need, here?"
"My shoe," she said. "I never got my shoe."
"I will get it," I said. "Anything else?"
She shook her head. "I have bid my former companions farewell," she said, and flicked her fingers in an almost dismissive gesture. But she shivered as she did so, and I could see that she was more bothered than she was trying to let on.
I took my leave of her, reflecting grimly on her worrying change in manner. I hoped she would be all right. It would make things much easier to explain to my lord, for one thing, but for another thing I found myself already somewhat fond of her. She was strange, but oddly likeable.
The next phase being, of course, Submission. I have to do my research and look for some good agents. What do y'all think-- should I submit it to Tor's slushpile, given that it is, after all, of the fantasy genre? Suggestions from those of you who've done this before are thoroughly welcome. I have a query letter drafted in the finest style as suggested by Miss Snark and Kit Wossname, of course, but welcome any suggestions about that as well.
I am speaking of Barbarians_Novel, I should mention-- the current title is Protector, which I was wholly enamored of as a title until Jet Li released a movie with the same name (well, with a "the" in front of it, which I'm avoiding as Thes tend to be messy when alphabetizing etc, or at least in my organizational systems tend to be thus).
So I am asking those of you who read this to do me a quick favor, and if you are markedly disinterested, so much the better: I am going to paste in the opening few pages of the novel. I want you to comment with a simple cut-and-paste of the sentence where you stopped reading because you were bored or confused or disinterested or whatever. You don't have to explain. And for once, I'll allow unsigned anonymous comments, if that would make you feel more comfortable. I've reworked this opening as much as I know how, and would appreciate having someone throw a few rocks at it so I can look at it afresh. Mine eyes grow bored and slide down mine own page with little constructive insight, at this point.
If you should have any concrit-like comments to make, that would likewise be appreciated, but is certainly not necessary: I have a terrible history at replying to comments anyway, and I don't have time to offer reciprocal concrit anyway, my headspace being as useless as it is.
Another thing making me worry is that the more I rework it, the longer it grows-- I cut huge swathes from the middle, but the end keeps growing, fleshing itself out. It's, and I cringe to say this, 175,000 words. Is it futile to even query such a thing as a debut? I absentmindedly assumed 150,000 words was normal for a novel while I was writing it, and it wasn't until I was irrevocably committed to the new plot that I realized I was overshooting by half. Eep. Me and numbers, not so good.
But anyhow. Without further ado, the opening chapter's opening scene, last overhauled three days ago but now reread so many times the words are meaningless to me.
CHAPTER ONE: MEETING
I'd been uneasy all morning. It was a feeling I couldn't shake, bothering me since sunrise like a flea I couldn't catch. It grew on me, pulling me inexorably southward, away from the damaged road and towards the heart of the unseasonable wilds. My patrol, twenty-five slightly bored members of the legendary cavalry of the Letts, followed me with a minimum of murmuring. We had all been serving together for several years now, and they were used to me and my inexplicable instincts. Besides, my hunches usually led to more interesting things than the routine early-spring road repair patrols usually entailed.
We were well away from populated areas now, in the thick arboreal forests to the southeast of the city of Saxeus, a fortified citadel that had been our tribe’s firmest ally since we had first given up our nomadic ways and settled in our beautiful land. But down here, there were no settlements for miles, not anymore. The old stories said the woods were haunted with the ghosts of those who used to live here: the Livs, most of whom had died on a single day when a rival tribe had descended and slaughtered them during a festival. Enough Livs survived among our people to keep the horrific stories vivid. On a grey, tense day like today, with invisible clouds shrouding the sun and the moss hanging over the muddy road in silver-spun trails, the wind rattling last season’s clinging dead oak leaves whispered snatches of the old stories.
"Where we goin', Captain?" Feliks asked, reining up beside me as we halted at midday. He was my lieutenant, and had long since overcome his provincial shyness and learned to speak his mind to me in his unabashedly broad accent. Others found his accent comical, and it was a long-running game on boring patrols to trick him in various ways into saying words he couldn't pronounce properly. But it was a long time since I'd laughed at his speech, and I didn't today either.
I shook my head, tipping my helmet back on my head and squinting south with my face all screwed up against the glaring white, but obstinately never sunny, sky. "Don't know," I said. "You hear anything?"
"Never a thing," he answered, or syllables approximating it, and I grunted, dissatisfied.
"Not so much a sound," I said, "as a, a feeling I guess. You don't feel anything?"
"Nothin'," he said, more or less, but squinted southward into the unspeaking forest.
We had come another couple of miles, riding faster southward now, before my horse's head went up and his ears went forward. I called out to Feliks, and he reined in beside me. "Erklas hears something," I said, drawing to a halt. Erklas bobbed his head, listening, and beside me Feliks's horse pricked up his ears and looked as well, nostrils moving with more intent purpose than simple breathing.
"Brytta smells something," Feliks said, and I felt Erklas's flanks move as he whuffled at the air as well.
There was a blind curve ahead, along the edge of this ravine: to our right, the ravine's face rose up, trailing moss, and to our left was a scree slope down to the uneven, spring-swollen stream below. The view was good here, but up ahead would be a prime spot for an ambush.
I held up my left arm, elbow at a right angle, fist clenched: a silent signal to close up the ranks. The others quieted, and I felt more than heard them readying their spears. Whatever it was would be up around this corner. I drew my sword, and with all my nerves jangling, I rounded the corner.
There were brigands on the road.
A wagon was sitting skewed in the road, the dray horses cut from the traces and the contents of the wagon strewn across the wide part of the road. The wagon and its entourage had just come around another blind curve before they were attacked, but we had a nice long straight view to see the looks of horror on the faces of the brigands, who were busily stripping the bodies of the fallen.
It was quick work to ride them down, quick and messy, and made the quicker and messier because there were apparently no survivors among the little convoy they'd attacked. Everyone standing and moving was easily identified by their ragged clothing and panicked flight as a bandit, and their well-chosen ambush site meant that there was almost nowhere for them to scatter and run to that a horse, and efficient warrior, couldn't follow.
Soon enough the usual, dreadful silence fell, broken only by horrid gurgles and wet noises as my men picked over the bodies to dispatch any lingering sufferers. I dismounted and wiped blood from my hands and face, and shivered a bit as I let killing energy pass. It always made my head feel strangely light, to kill other men, and I always had to crouch down a minute and take my time to clean my hands before I felt I could look another living man in the face. Others, it seemed not to bother so much, and I never spoke of it except to my brother Talus: a matter of minutes older than me, he was immeasuraby wiser.
I composed myself, and checked Erklas quickly to see that he was uninjured-- it is both a great virtue and a great fault that horses never complain, because it means that they sometimes conceal injuries. Finally my vision had returned enough to normal, and my head felt once again seated firmly enough between my shoulders, so that I could begin checking the tracks to see what had happened.
The patrol's other tracker was working, likewise, at the other end of the battlefield. I stood, getting my bearings, and watched him intent on his work. He was checking the north end-- if there had been any survivors, they would likely have fled that way. I was confident in him, and so began to work at my end, looking to see if any brigands had left the road before our arrival.
It wasn't long before I spotted tracks, scuffs on the rocks at the edge of the path, disappearing sharply downhill away from the road. A mossy patch yielded distinct tracks: two booted pairs of feet, and one in sandals or shoes, smaller. Two men and a boy? A short distance down the hill, heavily scuffed with the traces of an ungraceful passage, and there was a sandal, strap broken, caught in a rock. There was blood on the strap, a little-- it had been wrenched off the foot, then. The sandal-wearer was certainly being dragged against his will.
Or hers.
A suspicion rose, an ugly suspicion that tasted foul at the back of my throat, and I drew my sword. Possibly these were refugees from the convoy making a hasty escape with one reluctant to abandon their companions, but it wasn't very likely.
I had seen a lot of warfare in my day. I had seen a lot of things nobody should have to see. I had seen a lot of things that would come back to me at night when I was trying to sleep. There were a select few things of this nature that got particularly unpleasantly beneath my skin. The things a couple of thugs would drag a woman off to do to her were among them. I was close enough now that I heard her make a breathless, angry noise. There was a thud, something connecting with flesh with some force, and a man cursed shrilly in a language I knew but couldn't place.
I stepped out from behind the tree, sword raised, and found the steel a ready home in the neck of a man kneeling with his back to me. He was holding a dark-clad girl by her wrists: she was lying on her back with one foot raised. Another bandit was sitting on his knees a short distance away, belt unfastened, hand cupped over his bloodied nose: by their postures, the girl had just kicked him in the face. He had a knife and had been raising it to hit the girl with the hilt of it.
My sword easily separated the kneeling man's head from his body, and he fell across the girl, fountaining blood. The man at her feet blinked in astonishment, dropping his knife and scrambling backwards to try to get to his feet. He had just enough time to look up at me and shriek in horror before I had stepped over the decapitated man and brought the sword down point-first obliquely through his ribcage to pin him to the ground.
The girl was screaming hoarsely, disentangling herself from the decapitated body. I left my sword in the second man and turned to her, ready to apologize for the grueseomeness of the rescue. By the time I turned, she had scrambled out from beneath the body and was on all fours, staring up at me in blank-eyed terror.
I stared back at her in confusion: she was entirely covered in something darker than blood, her eyes and her teeth a stark white -- oh, it was her skin. Her skin was a deep brown color. I had never seen anyone so dark before, not even the darkest tanned Saxean farmer, and I blinked as I realized that the uniformity of her color was because she had not a shred of clothing on. Her nipples were yet darker spots against the brown skin of her small breasts.
She stared at me wide-eyed for a moment, mouth open—her lips were pink--, and then she erupted into a flurry of motion, getting to her feet and coming toward me. She had a knife in her hand, I realized a bit belatedly, and I threw up my forearm to ward off the blow she directed at my face. She'd taken the knife the man had dropped. She was quick. She'd brawled before.
"Easy," I said, desperately hoping she spoke Etalin. She was vicious, and slashed again at me, ducking to aim at my midsection. Of course-- she had been overpowered once and obviously wasn't keen on it happening again. "Easy, girl. I won't hurt you. It's all right now." I held out my hands, palms open, both to ward her off and to show her I was not trying to fight her. But I knew how frightening I looked: I had spent enough time among the Saxeans to know that my garb, my tattoos, my very body itself was at the least unnerving if not terrifying.
She hissed and slashed at my hands. I closed my gloved hand around the knife blade and twisted it out of her grasp, continuing the movement to enfold her in my other arm. I turned and pinned her between my body and a tree, and with a final wrench completed the motion to disarm her. The knife thudded to the ground and I kicked it away.
She shrieked and kicked at me, her feet pattering ineffectually against my shin greaves. She was trying to kick my knee backwards but didn't have the angle. Even in panic, this girl was thinking of strategy. "Stop," I said. "Stop, you'll hurt yourself." But I didn't dare release her. She had cut through my glove and my palm stung fiercely. She squealed and squirmed, but I was heavy, and had taken a few captives in my day.
It didn't seem she knew Etalin. I could tell at a glance that she wasn't a member of any of the local tribes, and that was all the language expertise I had. I didn't know what to do, so I spoke to her as I would to a frightened horse, relying on tone of voice and repetition to accomplish what incomprehensible words couldn't.
"Shh," I said softly, holding very still and bowing my head toward my shoulder so as to give her space around her face. "Shh. Stop. Shh. Whoa. It's all right. I won't hurt you. Shh. Shh. Easy. Whoa."
She went still, and tipped her head back against the tree to look at me. "Who are you," she said shakily, in Imperial-accented Etalin. Her eyes were a pale brown, reminding me of the amber jewelry our women wore. Her mouth was very red. She would be a striking beauty in a calmer moment, but right now her eyes were almost glazed with terror.
"A captain of the Letts," I said. "We patrol against the bandits on this path. We protect travelers. I am trying to help you."
She shuddered and relaxed abruptly, letting her head fall against my shoulder. She sobbed, and I murmured comfortingly again: "Shh. It's all right now."
She nodded, already composing herself. I eased my weight pinning her against the tree, but remained with my arms around her in a gentler embrace, which I could easily tighten should she decide to struggle again. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Did I hurt you?"
I laughed softly, surprised that she would even think to ask. "Don't worry about that," I said. "Are you hurt badly? Bleeding anywhere?"
She shook her head. "I," she said unsteadily, her breath coming in short gasps. "I don't -- know."
"Take a couple deep breaths," I said. "It's all right. You'll be fine. Breathe with me." I breathed in slowly and deeply, and then blew out a slow exhalation. She nodded shakily, closing her eyes and breathing along as I took another breath this way, and another.
"There," I said. "All right. What hurts? Does anything hurt very badly, or feel wrong or broken?"
She shook her head. "Jesus," she said, and laughed a little shrilly. I wasn't entirely sure what the word meant but the Saxeans used it too, sometimes, usually as a curse word. My Etalin was good, but lacked depth in the realm of curses. She laughed again. "No. I'm fine." There was an edge to her laughter, that suggested she was on the edge of what she could tolerate. "I've had worse, actually." Another laugh, and a shiver this time. "They didn't even get what they wanted."
"All right, then," I said. "Easy, now. I'm going to let go of you and then I'm going to give you my cloak because you must be cold. And then we're going to find you some clothes, because you'll freeze otherwise."
She nodded. I released her, and unfastened the pin at my shoulder. I draped the cloak around her shoulders, and she pulled it closed around her body, leaning against the tree. She was shivering now, and had covered her mouth with her hand. I saw blood on my cloak. She was bleeding-- her hand was bleeding, but not fast. It was hard to see the blood against her dark skin.
"Captain," Feliks shouted, somewhere above me. His tone was sharp—he was worried. "Martins! Where are you?"
I realized with a shock of guilt that I hadn't said anything when I'd left the ambush scene. "Here, Feliks," I shouted back. "I have found a survivor!"
The girl started, and stared blankly at me in shock. "Who is that," she whispered, wide-eyed.
"My lieutenant," I said.
"There are more of you?" She clutched the cloak tighter.
"Twenty-six," I said. I laughed. "I am not such a hero that I could kill thirty-odd bandits all by myself." But she was frightened, I could see.
"Injured?" Feliks was not shouting so loud now, having come closer, but I could hear that he had not yet begun to descend the steep slope.
"I think she is all right," I said, speaking Etalin as I realized that she could not understand him and that was frightening her more. "Beat up a little. Wait there, Feliks. It's steep. We'll come up."
She looked at me, and I gave her an encouraging smile. "It's all right," I said.
"I am naked," she whispered. "I don't want them to see me naked."
I looked around. There were brightly-colored pieces of fabric scattered through the undergrowth, but nothing seemed intact enough to put back on her. I grimaced at this evidence of savagery. "Here," I said, and turned to the bandit who still had my sword in his chest. "If I give you a belt, you can keep my cloak closed. At least you will be decent. Would that be all right? I am afraid none of this will cover you."
"If anything in the wagons survived," she said, "I had more clothing there."
"They escaped with nothing," I said, and wrenched my sword out of the bandit. He gurgled faintly, and I kicked him over. He breathed, but he was so damaged it could scarcely be called breathing-- more gurgling, and frothing blood from his nose and mouth. His belt was already unfastened. I pulled it off of him. He twitched once more and I cut his head off to end his misery, kicking him back over as I turned away. The feeling of steel parting bone made me shiver, as it always did if I made the mistake of thinking about it.
She was watching me with an expression of disgust. "He did not deserve the mercy you just gave him," she said.
I handed her the belt. "It's simple professional courtesy," I said with an indifferent shrug. "I don't leave anyone alive."
"You do a lot of killing," she said, her tone flat, but it struck me as a question.
"A fair bit," I said. Four today, or five counting the one just now. I tried to decide if telling her the number would reassure her.
"Would you believe me if I said I have never killed a man?" She was watching me think. I had the odd sensation that she knew precisely what I'd been considering.
"I would," I said, but thought of her first reaction to me: I would not believe her if she said she'd never fought.
"I would be lying," she went on in a moment. "If I said that. But I didn't."
"Oh," I said, uncertain how to respond.
"Do you like doing it?" she asked. She was wrapping the cloak around herself like a toga. "Killing people, I mean."
I shrugged. "Not particularly," I said. "It's messy and rather ugly."
"What do you like to do?"
It was an odd question. I considered it. Perhaps she was afraid of me. Honesty on my part usually cured people of that: I was intimidating, and shaggy, and grim-looking, but was remarkably boring when not actively killing people. "I like stories," I said. "Riding my horse. Good conversation. And drinking beer. Mustn't forget the beer."
"Of course," she said faintly. I held out my arm to her.
"Can you walk, or should I carry you up to the path?"
"I can walk," she said. "But my shoe is missing."
I remembered the blood on the sandal. "It is caught on a rock back there," I said. "I think the strap is broken." I turned. "Here, you can ride on my back. It is not far."
She hesitated, but in a moment stepped forward, and I helped her climb up piggyback-style. She was awkward, unused to the position. "Put your hands around my chest, there," I said. "Did your papa never give you a piggyback ride?"
"No," she said, and I put my hands under her thighs. She shivered. The palms of her hands were quite as pink as mine, I noticed, and I could see now that one of them had a bad cut in the middle of it.
"That's terrible," I said. "All children should be given piggyback rides."
"My father was not the fatherly sort," she said. I hiked her up a bit, but gently in consideration of her probable bruises, and started up the hill. "Aren't I too heavy?" she asked.
"No," I said. "Not at all." It wasn't bravado: despite her height, she was quite slender-built, and no more of a burden than my enthusiastic twelve-year-old second cousin who kept insisting she had not outgrown piggyback rides. I bent to toil up the hill, careful with my balance in the loose footing.
"Oh my," Feliks said, stepping back out of my way as I approached. "What's this now?"
"Be polite," I said, in Lett. "She's shaken up but I think she'll be all right."
"I can walk from here," she said, unclasping her hands. I let her down.
"If you're sure," I said.
"Greetings," Feliks said, in his incongruously flawless Etalin. He had learned Etalin from me, and my Etalin was perfect. I often wished he would always speak to me in Etalin, because his accent was so much better than in our native language. "I hope you are not badly hurt, madam." He sketched her a pretty courtesy, and she nodded at him, regarding him in some bemusement. He was young, even younger than me, and his beard did not grow in fully yet, so he kept it closely, neatly trimmed around his chin. Despite being a bit of a rube he did present himself well: he was a fastidious and well-favored young fellow. As barbarians went, I supposed he was not particularly frightening. He was shorter than me by a head and wiry rather than bulky: not a large man, by our standards, although he was bigger than any of the dead Etalans or bandits.
"I do not think I am," she answered. "Thank you for asking." She looked around, and grimaced at the carnage in the clearing. My men had begun to lay out the bodies in an orderly fashion.
"I am called Feliks," he went on. "I am the lieutenant of this patrol."
She gave him a charmed little smile. "I am Callonia," she said. She glanced at me. "If you told me your name, sir, I was too distraught to remember it."
"Oh," I said, "I don't think I said. I am Martinus." I used the Etalin ending, easier to pronounce. She smiled at me. She was disconcertingly beautiful: her skin was a rich and brilliant color and now that I had become used to it, it was a lovely shade for a person to be. Her eyes were a dark golden shade, and her face was heart-shaped and symmetrical. Her hair was dark and glossy, caught in an intricate series of braids across her scalp and down her back, with some sort of ornaments at the ends.
"Ha," Feliks said. "I have always said you have no manners, Captain."
"Watch yours, Lieutenant," I said with some humor, drawing myself up. I surveyed the clearing. "No other survivors, then?"
Feliks shook his head sadly. "Not so much as a groan out of anyone," he said. "Bandits cut their throats," he added in rapid Lett.
"Ah shit," I said, with a grimace. "Quick, anyway." I switched back to Etalin. Callonia was regarding us with some suspicion. "No other tracks, then?"
Feliks shook his head again. "Nothing."
"Bad," I said. He nodded. "Well. At least we have you in reasonably few pieces. Let me see your hand, there."
She held out her bleeding hand and I examined it. A superficial wound, as I had thought. I retrieved a dressing from my waist-pocket and pressed it carefully over the injury.
"Yes," Feliks said. "At least there is a slight chance Galjis won't kill us."
"We didn't expect anyone on the road this early," I said, looking up into Callonia's face. She looked perfectly blankly at me. "Hold that there," I added, releasing her hand. "The bleeding should stop on its own. Where else are you hurt?"
"Of course we did not expect anyone," Feliks said. "But that does not mean we will not be blamed for this."
I shook my head, dismissing it. "No point worrying," I said. The others had noticed us, and a few broke off their tasks to come over and see what was going on. Callonia's fingers around my arm were abrupt and tight. I glanced at her. She was looking at the scattering of soldiers approaching us. They were all big men, some bloodstained; attired like me in leather armor, but many of them were grimy and poorly-groomed after so long out in the woods, and some of them looked, if I considered them with fresh eyes, distinctly frightening. Perhaps even scarier than me.
"Oh," I said. "Did you want to go see if any of your things are left in the wagon?"
She nodded tightly.
"Feliks," I said, "take her over there, then. I'll get everyone else's reports."
She let go of my arm only reluctantly, and I went out to speak with the others.
A half an hour later I came to see her at the wagon. It was a fully-enclosed boxy thing, large enough that she could probably sleep in it. She was sitting on the steps at the back of it. She was wearing a blue dress in Etalin fashion with a cloak that matched it, but my own green woollen cloak was still around her shoulders over it all. Her hand was wrapped in a clean bandage, and so was one of her feet. Feliks had left her to come speak with me, and she was sitting alone, arms wrapped around herself, looking rather forlorn.
"I see you found your clothes," I said. The pale blue suited her complexion, and she looked delicate and pretty, but even more exotic than she had seemed when simply naked. She had rearranged her hair as well, but her feet were bare. "How do you feel? Are you all right?"
She shivered. "I am fine," she said. "A little bruised."
"I am sorry about your companions," I said. "We have put their bodies into a trench and covered it over. The bandits we will let lie, the filth."
She nodded. "That is well," she said absently.
"I do not want to pry," I said. "But I must know what your destination was."
"Saxeus," she said, in the same detached tone. "Do you need to know my errand?"
I hesitated a moment, and let out my breath slowly. It was obvious from the scanty contents of the wagon and the slain men's packs that this had not been a merchant caravan. "Would diplomacy be a fair guess?" I asked carefully.
"It would," she answered.
"I will not ask more," I said. "Not at present."
"Good," she said. She seemed very weary. "What will happen now? What will you do?"
"I recommend that we continue north on the road," I said. "And with all speed. I do not like to linger in a place of violence: it often attracts more."
"Must I ride?" she asked.
I shook my head. "The draft animals were not killed," I said. "We can keep the wagon. You can ride in it, if you like. I do not know what you prefer."
"I prefer that," she said. "Then when will we leave?"
"Shortly," I said. "Have you anything else you need, here?"
"My shoe," she said. "I never got my shoe."
"I will get it," I said. "Anything else?"
She shook her head. "I have bid my former companions farewell," she said, and flicked her fingers in an almost dismissive gesture. But she shivered as she did so, and I could see that she was more bothered than she was trying to let on.
I took my leave of her, reflecting grimly on her worrying change in manner. I hoped she would be all right. It would make things much easier to explain to my lord, for one thing, but for another thing I found myself already somewhat fond of her. She was strange, but oddly likeable.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 03:10 pm (UTC)This sentence is too hard, right at the beginning. It interferes with the 'plunge into the story' so to speak. Make it easier to read/comprehend. In general, the whole paragraph is maybe just a tad too high on the grade reading level, but okay, since (I assume) you're going for brighter readers.
the moss hanging over the muddy road in silver-spun trails,
I love this phrase.
Give some consideration to this:
Start with the paragraph, "Where we goin', Captain?" Feliks asked, through "Brytta smells something," Feliks said, and I felt Erklas's flanks move as he whuffled at the air as well; then the second paragraph: We were well away ... snatches of the old stories; then the first paragraph.
For the rest of it, I can honestly say I was rivetted. It did occur to me, though, that you need to either tone him (Martins) down a bit, or explain at some point why he is so educated.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 06:02 pm (UTC)On a grey, tense day like today, with invisible clouds shrouding the sun and the moss hanging over the muddy road in silver-spun trails, the wind rattling last season’s clinging dead oak leaves whispered snatches of the old stories. and had it been a book I was looking at in a bookshop I think I'd have put it down there.
However! When I read on past there, and arrived at the fight with the bandits and the finding of Callonia, I thought it picked up pace no end and suddenly became very engaging and interesting, so that I *would* have carried on reading, had I managed to get through the first few paragraphs.
I think that you might have tried to pack too much backstory into the very beginning, and for my money I would suggest that you started with the fight with the bandits. After all, you're going to be explaining to Callonia who these people are, so the reader can learn about them when you do that. Kill two birds with one stone, and start with the action scene :)
Just my take on it, YMMV :)
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 10:13 pm (UTC)I don't think you need to start with Feliks, but you could trim the paragraphs before. If you want I can try to rewrite them using my own methods, which will probably make them much worse if shorter.
I also... well, I thought you had a touch too many adjectives, some of them quite unnecessary, like arboreal forest, and others odd, like unseasonable wilds.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-01 08:11 am (UTC)