Lately my time has been taken up with writing--in fact, there are many days where it seems like it is all that I do. At this point I have a solid 3032 words on my high fantasy novel, which I am very excited about. I am so excited, in fact, that I am going to be just a little silly and post a bit of it for you. After all, if I can't share with you what's the point in writing? It's still got a lot of editing to go through, but I'm happy with it. This is just a segment of the first chapter.
He had not expected to die.
Not that way, at least. Taking his own life or dying in the war sounded a great deal more palatable than the mockery of an execution that awaited him. Then again, most anything seemed better than being drawn and quartered.
With his hands caught in the strangely reassuring grip of the manacles, he could not even tap his fingers to match the rhythm of the horse’s deliberate pace. The tightly shuddered walls of the carriage prevented him from having much of a view--there was not even enough light for him to see the myriad of bruises and cuts that transfigured his pale skin into a macabre parody of lace. He did not even have the benefit of a sneering guard to give strange looks to since the vehicle was practically a moving cell. No, the only company he had on his final ride was sound: the clomping and chomping of the horse, the shifting of the chains, and then there was Selen Plaza. At first the roar of the crowd was nothing more than a distant ripple at the very edge of his perception. Slowly it expanded into a furious rainstorm of noise until at last sensation exploded into his world with the opening of the carriage door.
Vicious sunlight slammed its way into his unexpecting eyes, causing the poor man to try and pull his head back into the comparative safety of the dark half of the carriage. The Sentinel in front of him gave a harsh command that could not be heard over the soundless screaming of the masses--only the movement of his lips suggested he had said anything at all. Confusion turned the skeletal lines of the prisoner’s face--he did not know what the guard wanted--but the answer became clear as he was yanked to the cobbled street. Ahead of him stretched what seemed to be a writhing tunnel of humanity, and at the end he could see a point where the crowd gave way to what looked to be blessed freedom. But that was not the case. At the end of that tunnel waited the horses, the chains, and the executioner.
With the half-hearted resistance of one hopeless of salvation, he let his feet drag as the police escort of fifteen Sentinels formed their ranks around him and tried to hurry the man to his death. “I wonder if they will run on time,” the prisoner wondered. “It would be awful if they were late getting home to lunch.” And yet his pace remained agonizingly slow.
The semidarkness of the gauntlet was nothing compared to the absolute brilliance of the stairs. Breaking free of the crowd was like surfacing from beneath a wave: there was simultaneously too much and too little going on around him. With no crowd to protect him from the sun, he was basked in the unforgiving noon sunlight and even more thoroughly blinded. A soft silence subdued parts of the crowd: prisoners had been brought to die at Selen Plaza countless times, but few had looked to be so near death upon arrival as the man standing before them. Everything from his glassy blue eyes to the traces of fresh blood on his clothing suggested the most extreme violence--both mental and physical--which was a new level of soullessness for the Politicians to have reached.
The prisoner did not care for the audience’s newfound awe for their government as he had a different battle to face in the form of a sharply angled staircase. He squinted at the faintly blurred shapes of the steps in an attempt to see them better, but misjudged his next step by a few inches. Biting pain--the one constant in his life since his arrest--crackled its way up his arm as the lip of the wooden step gnawed at his palm. Oxygen struggled through his bruised lungs as he tried to push himself upright, but the world seemed to twitch violently to one side at the simple attempt. Fighting back a gasping laugh, he lifted his gaze in order to share the cruel joke with the crowd.
But they did not matter. Nothing did in that moment--even the pain melted away. Caught by a certain green gaze, the prisoner felt everything fall away from his bony shoulders. “Why did you come?“ he was tempted to yell, scream, cry, anything to get his friend to flee to safety. Slowly, panting like a dog caught in the summer heat, the man pushed himself upright and stood tall on the creaking step.
Silence.
For a timeless moment he felt free. But, as always, Lord Time shoved his way back into the forefront, this time in the form of a rough push from one of the Sentinels. As he stumbled up the remaining stairs he lost sight of who he considered to be the most important person in the entire world. The sliding clarion call of trumpets was nothing in speed compared to the flickering of his gaze as he tried to find that one face among hundreds. Left, right, near, far--nowhere. Words proclaiming his crimes were ignored in favor of hunting for that beloved face, and his heart seemed to double the time of its beats with every fruitless moment that passed. Sweat streaked its way through the dirt and gore on his face as the executioner attached the chains first to each ankle and then to each wrist.
And then, there towards the left of the fountain, the man found his refuge. His breathing slowed, and his hands fell limp in the executioner’s cold grip. Even as the growing roll of drums filled the air and the chains bit into his skin, the man smiled just a little. The whiny of a restless horse punctuated the din, and then his world erupted into a myriad of sensations yet again.
Anything.
Everything.
Nothing.
Well, that's it for the moment being. Let me know what you think?
