Part of the prologue to a book in the works. Feedback pro or con is welcome.



She laughed at him.

Her mirth rang out in bright, jagged peals that savaged what remaining patience and restraint he might have been able to exercise. His lips clamped into a bloodless slash. Eyes the color of the mud his party had made of the small farm patch narrowed and splotches of angry red rose high on his sallow cheeks.

"A Royal, are ye?"

She delivered a mock curtsy with all the aplomb a Lady of the Court might have shown. One leg stretched to the side, the other bent at the knee and with a delicate flow of skinny and dirt-splotched arms she bowed low in an exaggerated parody of respectful grace.

"Oh, do forgive me my brashness, Your Highness," she said with all the gravity of a penitent groveling at the feet of her betters.

She then collapsed onto the soil of her tiny vegetable patch and a fit of laughter severe enough to cause hiccups took her. She wrapped her dirty arms around her waist, howled gales of amusement as her hands clutched at her filthy clothing and torrents of tears the no-color of crystal slid down her cheeks.

"Take her!"

*****

"Michaela, GO!"

The shout cut through her sudden shock at the rider's order to his men. She scrambled on hands and knees away from the man who had dismounted to carry out his command. Power from she knew not where energized her frantic attempt to escape, she heaved herself into a panic filled run. Tearing away from the attacker's grip on her flimsy and soiled blouse, she left him with a ragged swatch in one hand as she fled in blind terror.

Her pursuer was cut off as the rider proclaiming royalty kicked his steed into the chase. She turned to look over her shoulder and tripped, falling then rolling onto her backside and scrabbling backward as the horseman approached. Her heels kicked madly in the softened soil of the garden and she screamed in horror as the rider urged his horse into a rear that would end with the woman's crushed remains staining its hooves.

The rider's face bore an awful grimace of rage and triumph as he stood in the stirrups and leaned forward over the brawny horse's neck.

Strength failed her as she looked at that gaze, spiteful and petulant as any stripling denied ~ 'just one more sweet, please, Mama.' She sat, shocked into immobility, as the warhorse neighed a battle cry and its rider bellowed a heart-stopping growl of his own.

Her eyes were squinched tightly shut in the face of the horrendous doom she expected to befall her and thus she was spared the sight of the arrow piercing first the left forearm of the rider and then the neck of the rearing brute. Neither did she see the next arrow, but she heard it as it whistled past her to pin the dismounted man's left foot to the churned ground.

Horrible sounds filled the air around her. The horse collapsed and the rider was thrown, breaking the arrow off, leaving only the brightly colored fletching her husband used to craft his weapons sticking out of his arm. The dying horse bellowed labored breaths from its massive chest as it lay on the ground with eyes rolling in pain. Mortally wounded, the mount kicked its legs in a useless gallop and whinnied in agony. Its rider howled his own pain from nearby, shock written on his face as he looked at the yellow-fletched arrow remnant skewering his arm. The other man shouted curses mixed with piteous wails of pain as he sat heavily onto his rump, looking at the projectile stuck through his foot. The remaining two riders sat bolt upright in saddles, hands out at their sides. Her own torturous breaths burst from her in a ragged pant.

"Michaela?"

She didn't answer. Pale and sweating, she shook as though in the grip of some grim and terrible ague. She looked around with wide eyes incapable of making sense of her surroundings.

Her husband brushed a hand tenderly through her hair. She jolted and looked up with wild eyes and a surprised gasp.
"Kayla, it's me. It's alright, now."

With a mewl an abused kitten might have uttered, she wrapped her arms around one of his strong thighs, the worn-smooth deer hide darkened with the tears that leaked from her tightly closed eyes. Her chest rose and fell with shuddering gasps as she cried.

He cradled Michaela's head with one large hand, his thumb moving in a gentle soothing rhythm that in no way matched the anger and malice in his voice as he motioned to the two still sitting their saddles.

"Jonsai, get those things off their horses. Marku, skewer the first one to balk."

"Aye, Col," answered Jonsai. Turning to the mounted pair he drew a knife as long as his forearm, it might have easily been mistaken for a short sword save for the handle, which was fashioned from the bone of some large animal. "On the ground, you curs. And you'll be moving careful like, won't ye?"

The two men dismounted and resumed their submissive postures. Marku, bow fitted with a bolt and ready, motioned them a short distance off and ordered them to sit, back to back. Jonsai cut lengths from the reins of the horses and then bound the two captive's wrists together and did so with no thought as to whether or not they suffered in the experience. The two winced but said nothing. Jonsai and Marku returned to Colryn and his wife.

Jonsai scratched the day old beard growth on one cheek with the point of the knife and gestured to the wounded horse with his chin, "Col?"

Colryn just nodded and Jonsai moved to the horse, which still galloped in futile denial as it lay on its side and puffed pained snorts. He drove the knife into the horse's chest and pierced its heart. The animal let out a loud gasp and kicked all four legs once more, then died.

Col held a hand out for the knife and Jonsai gave it over to him.


"Help her up, Jon. Marku, see to that other thing over there then get it off its *** and over with the others."

He traded places with Jonsai, who took Kayla's hand and cooed soft encouragement to the shaken woman then supported her with an arm around her waist.

Marku kicked the arrow in the captive's foot, breaking it off and smiled when the screech of pain rang out. "On your feet, mutt," he growled as he grabbed a fistful of the man's hair and yanked him up. He then kicked him hard in the *** and the momentum pulled his foot off the pinioning arrow. He yowled again, whimpered, and stumbled over to his fellows. Jonsai tossed another length of rein he had cut from the dead horse to his partner. Marku bound that one's wrists then kicked his legs out from under him. The wounded man flopped onto the ground with an agonized groan. Marku moved a couple of paces away and stood watchful.

Colryn stalked toward the man who had ordered the attack on his wife. If the three of them had been moments later on the scene, Col would be a widower.

Malicious anger radiated from the buckskin-clad hunter in waves that caused sudden silence around them. No bird squawked or cawed or chirped. The horses stood uneasily, the palpable tension in the air caused muscles to ripple along their flanks, but not the slightest breath or hoof tap broke the silence. Even the insects quieted. For just a moment, Col stopped to listen. He had noted this at other times; strong emotions seemed to affect the environment in ways he did not understand. He shrugged off the musings and approached the thrown rider.

"Who are you?"

He asked this at the same time that he pinned the wounded arm to the ground with one foot then ripped the broken arrow from it.
With a squeal that caused birds to take wing from the nearby wood line, the man on the ground fainted dead away. Col went to the dead horse and retrieved a canteen then coated Jon's blade with more blood from the mount's wounds. Returning to the unconscious man, he painted the wounded arm with horse blood. It made the injury appear far worse than it actually was. Col dumped the canteen's contents into the man's face.

Waking, that man spluttered, coughed, and shied away from his large and menacing interrogator.

"Get back! Get away! You do not know who I am. I will have your heads! All of your heads..," he muttered incoherent threats until he noted that the big man was shaking his head with a thoughtful purse of his lips. His teeth clacked together abruptly. Cradling his arm, he took note of the wound now aparently bleeding a copious and alarming flow. He began again his diatribe and what stopped him was the remorseless face and fierce glare of the hunter.

Col pointed to the arm wound with the knife and allowed a predatory smile.

"Oh, I do not believe that. Look. You will not live long enough to see to your threat; looks like you will bleed to death right here in my potato patch, youngster."

He bent and the disabled man flinched away as Col wiped the bloody blade clean on his pants leg, cutting the material in a long slit as he did so.

"If I do not kill you, myself, before that. Now, I shall not ask again. Who in all the fiery hells are you?"

Shaking so hard that his teeth chattered like bones in a bucket the youth made a visible effort to regain his calm and told him, "I am Crown Prince Italo, son of King Turgenev of Faust. My men and I are emissaries on assignment from His Royal Highness. You would do best to render us what care you might. My favorable report would likely mean you escape with your lives after only a decade of forced labor followed by the amputation of your dominant hand. Harming a Royal is punishable by death and that sentence is carried out by scourge..."

Col cut the babble off at the roots by placing the tip of the knife hard enough into the hollow of the arrogant pup's throat to draw blood.

Once the irritating little cur gets going he falls in love with his own voice, thought Colryn.

"Hush, now. Little Kinglet, hear me. You and these mutts you travel with are close, so very close, to never seeing Faust or Papa the King again. These lands are sworn to no man, nor will they be unless we will it so. Faust is far from here and we like it that way."
"
You have a choice to make, young Royal. Live or die. You will go on from this place, on foot and armed with a single dagger. Bullying scum such as yourselves deserve naught else. Those that threatened my wife have paid with blood. If you survive to reach Faust, so be it. If you balk, you die here and your carcasses will feed my swine. Choose. Now."

He stood over the cowering youngster, arms crossed, one fist brandishing the sword-length knife. The early afternoon sun shone on the blood that snaked down the blade and went on to flow over fist and forearm, leaving serpentine streaks of vivid hue behind. Colryn's dark eyes communicated the awful truth and inevitability of his bargain.

*****


The actions we take today form the consequences of our morrows.

Pretty good. Great start I would say.

"The actions we take today form the consequences of our tomorrow's"

Thank you for editing the quotation marks...they were getting distracting...
Seems like a period piece...scotland...ireland..maybe?
Where is this kingdom of Faust?
I have this tendency of wanting to know the setting to be able to put the people in context...
:)

Ack! Good catch, Lu. I have it as 'morrows in the working version and blew it here.

Thanks! What else? You've got a good eye.

Sorry 'bout those. The working copy is in a format that didn't come over to Mingle well

Faust and the locale described in the passage are loosely based on European shores, likely England, Ms. PT.

It's not a period piece per se. It's to be a sword 'n' sorcery fantasy in which the 'magic' is all going to be based on science. I've been having fun with it. There are rudimentary lasers created with mirrors and prisms, a bad guy wizard with knowledge of quantum physics, sound waves, tectonics and geophysics, chemistry doo-dads, even some biological warfare, lots of oddities that I've been having to play with trying to mesh things into a tolerably crafted story that doesn't become Frankenstein meets the Hobbit.

Let me guess.......
She is a beautiful woman that was born in a small village.
Probably living near you.

Yup, those quote marks don't transfer properly.
Lol...i took a reading again...if you push this in the right direction, i just might fall in love with Colryn..

Passages

Come points in our lives.
Those things that should not be,
Aches, some pains, internal strife
...and care? Not necessarily.

It isn't a requirement; to care,
to hurt, to dream thoughts of ~
what else is there?
Passionate friendship need not be love.

A touch need not be romance,
kindness not an anchor.
And music can urge us both to dance
without changing into the rancor

of broken pieces, unwanted space.
It only takes some back and forth
between friends that see your face,
for dreams to fly, to see your worth,

to wake to what might be,
to look and really see,
to ask the one who'd answer, 'See?
You mean the world to me.'

I'd hold your hand and dry your tears,
make you laugh until you pee.
I'd help you banish life's big fears,
and walk beside you 'til you see

Oracles can lead you on
and friends can do the same.

If only you'd just asked me.

: : i can relate to that ^
You'll get asked to be part of that, one day by the right person

Good evening Scribe...

I dig the premise and read it through (the sword and sorcery piece).

Unlike Tilly, I was missing the quote marks, especially to denote thoughts vs spoken words.

There were some "flow" issues in my mind that caused me to have to read a couple of paragraphs a few times to fully comprehend. (That could just be my mind, however )

And one suggestion, provided you are targeting a more mature audience, would be to add a little "sex" to the story.

Nothing filthy, XXX, or weird. Just some a hint.

Maybe having her blouse ripping full off and her cradling her breasts with one arm as she ran out of innate modesty and necessity. "Her terrified mind still cognizant of modesty..." something like that.

Throw in a "heaving bosom" during her interaction with the man on the rearing steed.

You can have someone, Jon, drape her when Col orders him to tend her.

Is there more of this story or is this what you have so far to write around? I would be interested in reading more as it becomes available.

Hey, partner...Going bottom to top: There is more done on this story. In fact, there's more of this prologue and it's more polished. This is working copy from an outline.

I hadn't really thought about making it saucier. In my head (and in the stuff that's already written), it's more rough and tumble than that. Your idea makes sense; sex sells. I'm nowhere near done with this critter. I'll keep that in mind.

Your comment about having to 'go back and reread' in some places is precisely why I put this out here. Be more specific? You won't hurt my feelings. I put it here for feedback. We've talked, you know I value your input.

I'm looking forward to your thoughts. Criticism is not a negative im my eyes; it's a tool to be used.

Hey, you. Long time, no see. How's Lb?

.

Smooochy li'l critter.

Have a good day

How is Lb?...meh...I think she must miss you,
Don't waste any time on her,she is not here for a relationship...just friendship only.
She said,that's all she can offer....right now.
......and she has at least three sides..and one,is.. bat shiiiit crazy






Enjoyed your read,btw
We all three did
Have a great Memorial weekend.

Dear Scribbles...

I just had the most amazing time reading your words!...Thank you for sharing...

Leigh~