Torthane
Resident schmuck.
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2007
- Messages
- 14
Hey everyone!
This is the intro to a fantasy novel I have been working for a while. If any of you have comments on the flow and style I would love to hear them. Is it too dark? Does it get you interested for more?
Moonlight
A single ribbon of fire danced for an instant in the blackness ahead. There was a blinding flash and flames exploded from the pitch soaked grass with a bloodthirsty roar. Pitiful, screeching figures of men and beasts filled the young man's vision as the burning field consumed them. His head reeled with the overpowering stench of charred flesh and burning hair, and his ears were assaulted by the cries for help and the hideous voice of the greedy fire. But worse, he could hear laughter and he knew it was his own. Some twisted part of him felt that those poor souls deserved it. They were fools to blunder into the trap.
Deeper down, something inside, nourished by his pain, wanted to see her burning. He hated her for every time she had hurt him and he blamed her for all the things he had done to himself. And then he could hold her small, dying body next to his and whisper in her ear, “I could have saved you if you had not run from me. If you had listened to me.” She would weep and beg for his forgiveness and he would give it, and she would die thinking the world of him and hating herself. No, life would give him no favors.
The flames starved and his laughter died with them. Blind again by the blackness he stared out into nothing as the smell and the moaning went on. Soon the cries stopped and he crept forward feeling his way with groping hands low to the charred dirt and ashes. He could feel waves of heat fleeing into the frigid air. Twelve paces and his hand brushed against a head of stiff, smoldering hair. Thirty paces and he was crawling over an unseen carpet of bodies, some of them still whimpering softly as his he clambered over them. Another twenty paces and he was free of the vile smelling dead.
His fingers skimmed over something cold and wet and his feet crunched into an invisible blanket of white with each step. A moment later the snow was gone and his palms brushed through sticky blades of grass. He stopped for a moment and then continued slower than before. His mind was a maze of emotions as he crept ahead on his knees. He hated himself and despised the things he was thinking, but also took a sick pleasure in his complete miserableness. His mind patted his soul on the back and they reveled together in their shared misery like good friends, jilted on the same day.
He stopped short as the breath was sucked out of him and he felt a taught cord pressing against his outstretched arm. He slowly stepped over the trip-cord that could set the entire field alight and inhaled deeply when he was safe on the far side of the lethal string. He moved more quickly again as his mind rejoined his soul in their celebration of misery. Perhaps he didn't really hate her, perhaps he just wanted to see her suffer a little.
A monstrous scream erupted from the darkness off to his left. It was a rattling, guttural cry of an animal terrified of its death. The young man shivered and walked on towards the outline of a low hill just a little darker in his eyes than the black sky behind it. He heard the beast scream again as he started up the hill picking his way between more bodies and a forest of arrow shafts sticking into the frozen soil. The beast's final shriek ended in a choked gurgle, and the biting air was silent again.
He stopped on the crest of the little hill as a new sound came to his ears. A girl's voice, her voice, a little way off was repeating over and over amidst muffled sobs, “Wake up. Wake up. You have to get up. We have to go. Please wake up.”
If only it were all a dream. Perhaps it was just a nightmare and he could get up and go back to the happy way things had been. She was telling him to wake up and forget his hate. Wake up and love me like you once did. But hope hurt more than his misery.
The thick clouds retreated in the winter sky and the moonlight came rushing down on the torn landscape. He looked down and he could clearly see her kneeling over one of the dozens of corpses at the base of the hill. She was white like a ghost in the moonlight.
The girl threw her head back and her piercing cry echoed off the hills, “Breathe!”
This is the intro to a fantasy novel I have been working for a while. If any of you have comments on the flow and style I would love to hear them. Is it too dark? Does it get you interested for more?
Moonlight
A single ribbon of fire danced for an instant in the blackness ahead. There was a blinding flash and flames exploded from the pitch soaked grass with a bloodthirsty roar. Pitiful, screeching figures of men and beasts filled the young man's vision as the burning field consumed them. His head reeled with the overpowering stench of charred flesh and burning hair, and his ears were assaulted by the cries for help and the hideous voice of the greedy fire. But worse, he could hear laughter and he knew it was his own. Some twisted part of him felt that those poor souls deserved it. They were fools to blunder into the trap.
Deeper down, something inside, nourished by his pain, wanted to see her burning. He hated her for every time she had hurt him and he blamed her for all the things he had done to himself. And then he could hold her small, dying body next to his and whisper in her ear, “I could have saved you if you had not run from me. If you had listened to me.” She would weep and beg for his forgiveness and he would give it, and she would die thinking the world of him and hating herself. No, life would give him no favors.
The flames starved and his laughter died with them. Blind again by the blackness he stared out into nothing as the smell and the moaning went on. Soon the cries stopped and he crept forward feeling his way with groping hands low to the charred dirt and ashes. He could feel waves of heat fleeing into the frigid air. Twelve paces and his hand brushed against a head of stiff, smoldering hair. Thirty paces and he was crawling over an unseen carpet of bodies, some of them still whimpering softly as his he clambered over them. Another twenty paces and he was free of the vile smelling dead.
His fingers skimmed over something cold and wet and his feet crunched into an invisible blanket of white with each step. A moment later the snow was gone and his palms brushed through sticky blades of grass. He stopped for a moment and then continued slower than before. His mind was a maze of emotions as he crept ahead on his knees. He hated himself and despised the things he was thinking, but also took a sick pleasure in his complete miserableness. His mind patted his soul on the back and they reveled together in their shared misery like good friends, jilted on the same day.
He stopped short as the breath was sucked out of him and he felt a taught cord pressing against his outstretched arm. He slowly stepped over the trip-cord that could set the entire field alight and inhaled deeply when he was safe on the far side of the lethal string. He moved more quickly again as his mind rejoined his soul in their celebration of misery. Perhaps he didn't really hate her, perhaps he just wanted to see her suffer a little.
A monstrous scream erupted from the darkness off to his left. It was a rattling, guttural cry of an animal terrified of its death. The young man shivered and walked on towards the outline of a low hill just a little darker in his eyes than the black sky behind it. He heard the beast scream again as he started up the hill picking his way between more bodies and a forest of arrow shafts sticking into the frozen soil. The beast's final shriek ended in a choked gurgle, and the biting air was silent again.
He stopped on the crest of the little hill as a new sound came to his ears. A girl's voice, her voice, a little way off was repeating over and over amidst muffled sobs, “Wake up. Wake up. You have to get up. We have to go. Please wake up.”
If only it were all a dream. Perhaps it was just a nightmare and he could get up and go back to the happy way things had been. She was telling him to wake up and forget his hate. Wake up and love me like you once did. But hope hurt more than his misery.
The thick clouds retreated in the winter sky and the moonlight came rushing down on the torn landscape. He looked down and he could clearly see her kneeling over one of the dozens of corpses at the base of the hill. She was white like a ghost in the moonlight.
The girl threw her head back and her piercing cry echoed off the hills, “Breathe!”
