Feedback Requested

[Adamir he/him]

Requesting feedback for an interlude for a larger work; I've started out my novel by plotting out the general structure, then deciding to write the interludes before the main chapters to give myself clear points to place key events, directly before said interludes. I've just finished the first one, but I'm not sure about the quality; feel free to tear it to shreds with criticism, as should have been done with quite a few other authors before they got their works out. Remember, don't be critical and you may be unleashing another Eye of Argon on the world...

 

---

 

The only thing that can contrast the calm before a battle is the celebrations that come after. The nine hundred or so men brought with House Estwenth were gathered in a narrow valley just inside the Yadwar border, singing, drinking, breaking discipline. Before a battle, this lack of discipline would have terrified me. Now, it just frustrated me.

 

I was an officer and heir to House Curnow, and General Tobias saddled my squad with guard duty. Thirty of the savages were bound and tied to stakes at the edge of the encampment, watched over by four dozen men, forbidden from partaking in the celebrations. Here I was, forced to listen to lesser men celebrate while I had to remain vigilant.

 

And what were the chances of a rescue? The Yadwar savages had been thoroughly broken at the Nine Valleys, their armies crushed by the Eastern Houses' united military. And the Estwenth encampment was directly in the center of the army; any rescuers would have to fight their way through fifteen thousand men to reach us.

 

'Don't look so grim, Adrik,' Castor said, tapping me on the shoulder. 'We won. Yadwar driven back, thirty of their finest generals ready to be tried, sentenced and executed. Crack a smile!'

 

I turned to look at him. 'Lesser men are celebrating up there, and we are left down here. If Father knew of this...'

 

'Yes, if your father knew of this, House Curnow would petition the Emperor, I presume? It doesn't matter how influential your house is, nor mine. Military ranks have nothing to do with the nobility.'

 

I scowled, unwilling to acknowledge a point. 'That doesn't make it fair,' I replied. 'Why not just bind the captives in the center of the encampment?'

 

'Because General Tobias is a complete idiot,' Castor said, dropping his smile for a second. 'You think I like this any more than you? I'm next in line for the High Seat of House Etorican, and an officer, and here I am, watching over the savages' military leaders.'

 

Castor turned to glance at a gray tent in the middle of the clearing. The entire reason I, Castor and half a hundred men had to stand guard. 'Ossein of the Red Hill clan, the new great threat to Almer. Lucky for you,' he continued, raising his voice so the captive could hear, 'Lord Estwenth wants you alive, to parade around Etoro before a public execution. I'd like to thank you; if you had just died at Nine Valleys, we wouldn't be here watching over you.'

 

'Blame him,' I muttered, trying to force humor that fell flat before it left my mouth. 'Blame Ossein, blame General Tobias. Blame Lord Estwenth. Why not have House Etoro strip their titles?'

 

He turned to me, and the venom in his voice cut short anything else I was going to say. 'I'm not Lord Etorican yet, but nor are you Lord Curnow. And until we are on equal standing, you will display more respect.'

 

We stood guard for a few more agonizing minutes. Finally, I called to my squire.

 

'Yeden!' I yelled.

 

A boy ran up to me, ten years beneath my twenty. Yeden of House Darelock, once great but now little beyond a memory. Until Father told me he would be my squire, I had assumed Darelock extinct. At his age, squiring for a member of House Curnow was the greatest honor he could think of.

 

'Go to the encampment, fetch me a glass of wine.' Castor gave me a light nudge. 'Two glasses.'

 

Yeden ran into the encampment. He was the perfect servant; he never asked questions, understood almost everything I said to him, and didn't complain where I could hear it. I wondered what I'd do when he came of age and started getting ambitions larger than being my personal cup bearer.

 

I turned to Castor. 'Why don't you have a squire?'

 

'Never could be bothered. The only possible result is letting some lesser family climb a step closer to the Etoricans. After all, King Jasin was murdered by and succeeded by his squire.'

 

'And I guess you shouldn't be focused on more imminent threats, instead of reading about dead kings?'

 

'Such as?' Castor scowled at me.

 

'Well, Pollux, for one.'

 

'We've talked about this before, Adrik. Pollux doesn't have the knowledge, will or subtlety to take me out.'

 

This was a sensitive subject, but Castor had either gotten over it, or he was a much better actor than I ever could be. Lying was never my strong point; I doubted I'd have a good future as a politician.

 

'I have a feeling Gabriel said the same thing about you,' I replied.

 

'He was wrong. I'm not.'

 

'Thank god,' I muttered with sarcasm, 'I'm an only child.'

 

Castor rolled his eyes.

 

'And how about Sareth? I saw him once, and he had the eyes of a Satyr. There's cruelty in there; If Pollux doesn't kill you, Sareth will kill both you and Pollux.'

 

'Sareth is different; he's too soft. Find me a Satyr to compare him to, then. I always thought he had the family eyes.' He said it, but his heart wasn't in it; a Satyr was the last thing Castor needed after Gabriel.

 

'Well,' Castor replied, 'I am filled with envy for you. An only child? It must be so relieving not to have to murder for your position, or to keep an eye open behind you every second of every day. I spoke to Pollux. He doesn't want the High Seat.'

 

I snorted. 'I'll believe it when I see it.'

 

'You won't have to wait too long, then.'

 

I stopped, considering the implications. 'You aren't going to... Ebris...'

 

'Of course not. Father's getting old; how many people do you know who have lasted until sixty? At most, ten years; plenty of time for me to learn how to rule. Probably less. Why would I want to nudge him along? Time will do the work for me.'

 

I cut short my reply, seeing Yeden walking towards me with two wine glasses on a tray. We both took our glasses, Castor gave a muttered word of thanks, and Yeden scampered off.

 

The world looks much better when seen through wine. I've never claimed to have a high tolerance, and one glass was all it took to dull my reflexes. It was an unfortunate fact that Lord Estwenth chose that moment to interrogate Ossein.

 

I first noticed the vaguely blurred shape when he stood directly behind Castor. I then squinted, and made out the details, tuning out Castor's intoxicated rambling. The grey hair down to his neck, the sigil stone on the band around his forehead, the scarlet robes.

 

'Castor...' I whispered.

 

He stopped talking. 'What is it?'

 

Lord Olidan Estwenth coughed, and Castor spun around.

 

There were no real rules for interaction between a Lord and a Lordling who would one day outrank him, and so Castor performed impressively for the situation. He stuttered, gave a half bow, remembered his own rank, stood up straight again, and dropped his wine glass, before snatching it as it fell to the ground, spilling half.

 

'Relax. I'm here to interrogate the prisoner; to keep up appearances, your squad has to stay here. But that doesn't mean you can't join in the celebrations; I've had the men bring down a cask of wine and ale for the soldiers.'

 

If I were fully lucid, I might have thought his informality was odd. Instead, I nodded, muttered my thanks, and called Yeden to refill my glass.

 

A few minutes later, Lord Estwenth went back into the main encampment. By then I had decided to stop after my third glass, when I started seeing the world from under a pond.

 

A guard went into Ossein's tent to deliver food. Meanwhile, I decided to sit at the foot of a tree, trying to recover from the drink. Castor, meanwhile, was still standing, and mostly lucid after four glasses, ready to start his fifth.

 

Castor noticed it first. 'Adrik,' he whispered to me, 'the guard hasn't left Ossein's tent.'

 

'What?' I muttered.

 

'Just, why don't we take a look?' Castor suggested, strapping on his sword.

 

I nodded, trying a few times to reattach my own weapon. In the end, I had to call for Yeden to attach it for me.

 

After a minute, with Castor's confident walk and my own drunken stumble - how was he still lucid? - we reached the tent. Castor pulled out his sword, but I just pushed through the tent flap.

 

There was a two meter stake hammered into the ground where Ossein would be tied, but that wasn't what held my attention. The guard was dead. A knife had gone in the back of his neck, slipped between the bones, and come out the other end. I felt the sudden urge to un-eat my last meal.

 

Castor walked in, and seemed to notice the same things I had. He pointed to a cut in the back of the tent, and the guard's missing sword. 'Ossein has escaped,' he muttered.

 

'He won't escape alone,' I replied.

 

'What?'

 

'The captives we have, they are all from the Red Hill clan. He's going to free them, and then they will escape.' That was what I tried to say, but it came out slurred.

 

Castor grasped my forehead. 'What did you say?'

 

I repeated it, but once again, it came out slurred.

 

He squinted, and suddenly, my head felt clear. As though the three glasses of wine I'd drunk had no effect on me. Father used to dunk my head in a freezing bucket when I had anything to drink, and this felt much the same, down to the unpleasant cold.

 

'What... was that?' I asked, clutching my head.

 

'I'll explain when I can, but what was it you said?'

 

'Ossein won't escape alone. The captives we caught are from the Red Hill clan. He will free them, then escape.'

 

'Or he already started,' Castor muttered. 'We need to warn the soldiers.' A second later, he had leapt through the cut in the tent flap. I ran after him.

 

After around a minute, we reached the stakes where the other prisoners were kept. Hands tied behind them. But where was the rope?

 

'Guard,' I said to the clearly intoxicated man watching over them.

 

'Yes?' he muttered. 'What is it?'

 

'How long have they been untied?'

 

he squinted at me. 'What?'

 

'I said, how long have they been untied?'

 

'They... My Lord, they are still bound. They can't escape, just watch!' He walked over to one of them, staggering. I cursed Lord Estwenth for bringing in ale. And why had he done that? Didn't he know what it would have done to the soldiers if we were attacked?

 

'Stay away from them,' I said to him, but the guard didn't listen.

 

Castor spoke again. 'Go warn the others, I and Adrik will deal with this.'

 

I turned to him. 'We will? I don't think I agreed to that.'

 

The guard raised an open hand, and I realized what he was going to do.

 

'Stop!' I yelled, but the slap came down onto a savage's face. His face remained impassive, just the slightest recoil that told me I hadn't imagined the blow.

 

'Get away from them,' I said again.

 

'What? My lord, these savages are harmless,' he replied, before kicking another in the ribs. 'They won't even raise a hand to defend-'

 

One of them grasped his upraised arm, stood up, and twisted it behind his back. The crack of breaking bone. The guard tried to scream, but the Yadwar savage's hand was around his mouth, before a sharp twist of the arm broke the guard's neck. Faster than I would have thought possible, the savage flipped the guard's corpse, pulled out the sword and let go. The other savages stood up. Twenty nine, not including Ossein.

 

For a long moment, we stared at one another. Then, the lead savage took a step forwards.

 

'Run!' Castor yelled, before bolting for the main encampment. I turned to follow him, as the savages split to deal with my squad. I could worry about them later, for now, I needed to escape.

 

A few minutes of running, and we had nearly reached the main encampment. I leaped across a small stream, duck beneath the branches of a tree, and slide down a slope twice my height, before springing back to my feet. I needed to reach General Tobias, he-

 

A moment later, I saw a shadow sitting on a branch above, in front of me but behind Castor. Another moment, and that shadow leaped down, one knee pinning my arms, a hand across my mouth to cut off my air supply. First, I tried to scream, but Castor was already a hundred meters ahead and the grip only tightened as I tried to bring out some noise. Thrashing was ignored as though I were struggling against a wall rather than a man, and with each passing second my vision dimmed. Thoughts began to cloud as lucidity fled.

 

EDIT 1: Switched present-tense to past tense.

 

EDIT 2: Not meaning to be racist, that's the character's opinions on the 'savages', not mine; bear in mind that he hasn't actually seen their civilization, and all he knows about his opponents is that they have armies.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Adamir

[A Joe in the Bush]

That first sentence is Beautiful. As is the whole first paragraph to a lesser extent.

 

The only typo i caught while reading it aloud was a switch in Tense, from past to Present:

 

 

 Faster than I would have thought possible, the savage flipped the guard's corpse, pulled out the sword and let go. The other savages stand up. Twenty nine, not including Ossein.

All before this, the story is past tense, after this, it becomes present.

[Kipper]

I've got quite a few items, but I really do think that all of these are things that could be improved upon. My edits are either red or strikethroughs.

The only things that can contrast the calm before a battle is are the celebrations that come after.

OR

The only thing that can contrast the calm before a battle is the celebration that comes after.

One of these, or something different, needs to improve the disagreement between subject and verb. I want to echo what Joe said, though, and say that it's a fantastic first sentence.

Thirty of the savages were bound and tied to stakes at the edge of the encampment, watched over by four dozen men, who were forbidden from partaking in the celebrations.

In its current form, the sentence makes it sound like the savages were the ones forbidden, and thus creates a serial verb form disagreement.

The entire reason I, Castor and half a hundred men had to stand guard.

I don't know what your position on serial commas is, but this nagged at me a bit. As long as you stay true to one position, though, it shouldn't matter.

A boy, ten years beneath my twenty, ran up to me, ten years beneath my twenty. Yeden of House Darelock, a House once great but now little beyond a memory. Until Father told me he Yeden would be my squire, I had assumed House Darelock extinct. At his Yeden's age, squiring for a member of House Curnow was the greatest honor he could think of.

I think this whole paragraph could use a bit of work. My edits are self-explanatory, I think. Honestly, the only serial mistake that you make is failing to put proper antecedents for your pronouns. Anyway, I think that sentence 3 might be switched with Sentence 2, and the mention of the POV's thoughts about House Darelock be made more of an aside.

'Sareth is different; he's too soft. Find me a Satyr to compare him to, then. I always thought he had the family eyes.' He [who is he?] said it, but his heart wasn't in it; a Satyr was the last thing Castor needed after Gabriel.

I then squinted, and made out the details, tuning out Castor's intoxicated rambling.

I believe the comma is unnecessary here.

By then I had decided to stop after my third glass, when I started seeing the world from under a pond.

This sentence needs to be reworked in some way, imo. It doesn't flow very well.

Well, that's all. I could find some more, I'm sure, but I've already been about a hundred times more harsh than your other critics. Overall, though, excellent story. I really had to look for the mistakes.