f13.net forums - Workshopping a Novel

Considering the book thread and my tendencies towards writing. I've been working on a novel for quite some time. I've managed to put together some chapters and I am currently working on building them up. I will post the first chapter below. To answer the question, yes, the main character carries my online name. Yes, it is fantasy, but not overly magical and no elves. If you are interested, I am looking for input on chapters as I write them so I can get a feel from the audience. Read what is below, and if you are interested, respond here or PM me with your email address. I will send you the other chapters I have written for critque. You do not have to worry about grammar or such things. I have an editor for that who gets the copies and works with them. You are merely giving input on the ideas or holes you find. Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thanks.

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Paelos didn’t notice the hanging bodies until he entered the courtyard of the Black Keep. They all looked like they were hung recently since the crows hadn’t had a chance to peck at them. He heard the familiar whipping crack of the numerous banners surrounding the Keep as the breeze tossed his long hair about his ears. Paelos had hair that was blonde to the point of being almost white. If not for his young face, he would have surely been regarded as a much older man. Perhaps not so young looking anymore, he thought. Prison collected a hefty toll on his handsome visage.
   The guards ushered him across the courtyard along with two other inmates. The enormous gate at the far end of the compound was their final destination. From Traitor’s Gate, the damned bade their final farewells to all hope. They knew that death stalked the lands of the Soulless Forest on the other side. The groups of gorg would find them all too quickly.
   One of the guards jabbed Paelos in the back with the butt of his spear.
   “Back in line, maggot,” the guard said. “You’ll have plenty of time to stare at the sky when the gorg find you.”
   Paelos opened his mouth for a retort, but the guard was quick to backhand him in the face before he could speak.
   “Save your breath, traitor, you’ll need it.”
   He was right. Paelos guessed that he would probably not be able to outrun the gorg, but that didn’t mean he was going to give up without a fight. Still, without any weapons, it was just a matter of time. Thoughts of his old wife spawned his rage and filled him with purpose.
“Soon, you harlot,” he thought. “I’m coming back to repay your betrayal, in this life or the next.”
   The line of convicts finally reached the yawning mouth of the great gate. The other inmates stood with Paelos in the muddy bottleneck while they waited for the Warden to make his appearance. As was customary, the Warden would appear before the condemned men and give them one last chance to confess their crimes. A confession meant that they would be spared the torturous death at the hands of the vile beasts, and instead they would receive the “mercy” of having their heads removed. They were dead either way. The Warden finally descended the steps from the main tower and appeared above them on the balcony.
   “On this day, the 23rd day of Spring in the year of Tiberious one hundred and fifty-five, your sentence for treason against the Legion of Light shall be carried out. Before you are cast out into the untamed wilds of the Soulless Forest you will be permitted one last chance to confess your crimes. All those who wish to confess step forward to receive your Emperor’s mercy.”
   One man shuffled forward in front of the group. Paelos didn’t blame him. Everyone thought about taking that way out instead of holding onto their last vestiges of pride. If not for the fact that his crime was such a sham, Paelos would have confessed and gotten the ordeal over with. He just wouldn’t justify his murder at the hands of these brutes with a confession.
   “You wish to confess your crime?” the Warden asked the man.
   In response, the man undid his trousers and proceeded to urinate in the direction of the Warden. The line of convicts erupted in raucous laughter. The man smiled at the Warden as the breeze caused it to splash on one of the guard’s boots. The Warden’s face soured and he nodded at the nearest guard. A quick crack across the back brought the man to his knees. Another guard kicked him from behind sending his face crashing down into the mud. The two guards rolled him over as the Warden descended from the platform to the dirt. Paelos saw that the Warden drew free his dagger on the way down. He walked toward the convict with a sneer of contempt across his face. The prisoner’s manhood still was still exposed as the guards wrestled to keep his arms pinned down.
   “Very amusing,” said the Warden. “So, you think you’re funny?”
   “Saying I wanted to piss on your offer didn’t seem like enough!” the man spat back.
   The warden scraped his chin with the edge of his dagger as if pondering what to do.
   “You know what I think?” he asked.
   “What’s that?” replied the man.
   “Since you thought it was so appropriate to show me your stones, I’m going to keep them. They’ll serve as a reminder of how funny you once were.”
   The convict’s smile faded to a look of horror. The Warden moved the dagger down towards the man’s legs. Paelos grimaced and turned his head as he heard the man scream as if his soul was trying to escape. When he turned back the man was convulsing in waves of pain as the Warden wiped his knife clean on the convict’s shirt. The guards stood up and let the man writhe on his own, clutching his groin. He continued to bawl between wracking breathes.
   “For God’s sake, end his suffering you bastard!” yelled Paelos. “There’s no need for this brutality.”
   “I’LL NOT TOLERATE ANY MORE INSOLENCE,” roared the Warden. He motioned to the guards. “Patch him up and put him back into his cell. Let him sit there for another month in agony before we finally cast him out to the gorg.”
   The guards lifted the groaning man up and dragged him back towards the cells. Paelos shook his head. Such unchecked misery ruled this land, he thought. Death would be a welcome release from anymore time in this place.
   “Enjoy the last taste of freedom you bastards. We could have spared you the pain of being devoured by the unholy monsters, but you seem to prefer to hold onto your foolish pride. So be it. I relish the fact that you will all die screaming. Such a fate is fitting for those who betray the Light,” remarked the Warden.
   “Traitor’s going in!” shouted the gatekeeper from atop the wall. Four guards began to work on the turnstile that brought up the black iron lattice covering the gate’s entrance. Paelos and the two remaining prisoners marched under the rising door and stepped out into the open land beyond.
   This is it, he thought. Night after night he sat in his cell, knowing full well that there was no escape from the Keep. Traitor’s Gate was the only way out, but it never seemed real. Death was just a word. This was the reality. He resigned to the fact that he would soon meet his end within the walls surrounding the forest.
   The two of them marched out from under the gate towards the decaying trees in the distance. Paelos was determined that he would hold his head high until he was out sight. After that, well, who knew? A giggling noise from behind caused him to take a glance back at the other man. He was chuckling to himself. Paelos waited until they were under the limbs of the first trees before confronting him.
   “You mind telling me was so goddamn funny?” he asked in an annoyed tone.
   The man patted his right hip and lifted his shirt a tad. Paelos saw the hilt of a small dagger resting snugly against the man’s side. The convict smiled at him as he lowered his shirt.
   “Parting gift,” he said.
   “And how the hell did you manage to get that past the guards?” asked Paelos.
   “Didn’t need to get it past anyone,” replied the man slyly. “I paid off one of the guards to get it.”
   “What in the world could you offer a guard that would be stupid enough to give a convict a knife?”
   “Guards are lonely men, my friend. They don’t often get to enjoy the pleasure of a young woman for free. Let’s just say that before I was arrested I did a fair trade in the area of providing certain men with that kind of company.”
   “So you’re a pimp,” Paelos said dryly.
   “Wrong, I was a pimp,” replied the man. “Now I’m just a convict stuck in this god-forsaken wood. The important thing is that I have the only weapon.”
   Paelos rolled his eyes. “And I suppose you know how to use it?”
   “I know the pointy end goes in the thing you want to die. That should be enough for now.”
   “Right,” replied Paelos. What an idiot, he thought. A dagger would do just as much good against a gorg as a thumbtack.
   “Don’t get all high and might on me, Captain. I know who you are. You sent a fair amount of my customers through the gate. I would imagine that sweet Lady Irony is laughing her ass off at sending you to the forest.”
   “Well I’m glad you know me. Should I just call you Pimp, or do you have a name?”
   “Call me Cassius,” replied the pimp.
   “Well Cassius, I’m going to get some food. I haven’t eaten in days. You start gathering some wood for a campfire and I’ll meet you back here under this dead oak before nightfall. The gorg shouldn’t bother us while we still have the light.”
   “Who died and made you queen?” asked Cassius.
   “No one,” replied Paelos. “Do whatever the hell you want. Go wherever the hell you want. I think we have a better chance of not having to die tonight if we have a protective fire and some food, but you if you have another plan, enlighten me.”
   Cassius just glared at him and finally stalked off into the brush. Paelos began to forage for any grubs or berries he could find. The forest was thick with close-knit evergreens that kept vision to only a few meters at a time. He felt claustrophobic as he searched through the underbrush pushing limbs and bushes out of the way. From what he had seen on maps before his capture, the forest was probably about twenty miles across in either direction. A ten foot thick stone wall surrounded the entire expanse, and at its northern head sat the Black Keep. It was the only way in. There was no way out.
   They met back under the skeletal boughs of the large dead pine. Darkness was quickly approaching as Paelos collected the semi-dry twigs to start the campfire.
   “I’ll need the dagger,” he said.
   “I’ll bet you do,” replied Cassius.
   “For starting the fire, you twit.”
   “And what tells me you won’t just cram it in my ribs after you’re done, or keep it to protect yourself?”
   “Nothing, but do you know how to start a fire?” Paelos asked.
   “No.”
   “Then I guess you are either going to have to trust me, or this is going to be a dark night. I hear the gorg love to hunt in the dark. I doubt your little pin-pricker is going to do you much good then.”
   Cassius pondered this for a moment, and then he reluctantly handed over the dagger.
   “I want it back,” he said indignantly.
   “Yeah, yeah,” replied Paelos, and he set to scraping the stone he had for some sparks. As smoke began to rise up from the kindling, Paelos blew softly on the embers to create a small blaze. Within ten minutes, despite the wet conditions of an earlier springtime shower, they had a passable fire going.
   They ate the small stash of berries that Paelos had found growing between the trees. They were green and bitter, but he didn’t believe they were poisonous, so they would have to do. Cassius chewed loudly as he worked on the tough outer skin of the berries with his teeth. Juice occasionally shot out of his mouth with a moist squish.
   “Did you find any water?” he asked.
   “No, I’ll have to search deeper in the forest to find any pools that the rains have formed. I’ve seen a map of this place before. There aren’t any documented ponds or lakes inside the walls,” replied Paelos.
   “I’m sure they would know,” said Cassius sarcastically. “I highly doubt they are sending in trained cartographers to scope out the area. Nobody would ever know if the middle of this place was one huge lake. Anyway, I’m going to take a leak now that the Warden isn’t here to cut it off.”
   Crickets chirped in the forest as he walked off into the gloom behind some bushes. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted. The forest was alive with sounds of the night. Paelos let his mind wander as he stared off into the small flames of his campfire. He had to consider the possibility of escape from this place. Just because the Legion said something couldn’t be done didn’t mean that it was the truth. His stint in the army taught him that a long time ago.
   As he mentally returned from his pondering, he noticed how peaceful the forest was. It was quiet and serene. Forests aren’t quiet, he thought to himself. The crickets he had just heard were now deathly still. The bushes rustled where the pimp had gone to relieve himself.
   “Come on back to the fire,” Paelos yelled. “I think something is wrong.”
   A dark figure emerged from behind out of the night. Paelos never saw the attack coming.

* * *

   Paelos woke up to a dripping sound softly bringing him back into consciousness. He had no idea where he was or what had happened. The last thing he remembered was watching something emerge from the bushes in the forest, but what was it? He lifted up his head to look around. He was in a small cell, no bigger than ten feet in either direction. There was a small table with an oil lamp glowing dimly. It cast awkward shadows off the ceiling where small rock formations hung down. The room seemed to be carved out of some sort of cave, and it was moist with small droplets that ran down the back wall.
   Orienting himself wasn’t easy since he fully expected to die when he saw something come at him in the Soulless Forest. However, Paelos realized that he was still very much alive if not a little groggy. His head felt weighted down with an invisible force on his eyelids. His loud yawn echoed around the small room. With great struggle, he managed to lift himself up and look out of the small mesh opening in the iron door that held him in the cell. A few iron sconces holding torches were visible on both sides of the opposite stone wall, but Paelos couldn’t really get a good view of the hallway outside his prison.
   “So,” he thought, “I’ve traded one dark hole in the Black Keep for another one in a place I don’t recognize. How very depressing.”
   He sat down on the edge of the table and picked up the cold steel mug of water that was next to his oil lamp. He felt very dehydrated. It almost felt like all the times he’d awakened after a hard night of revelry with his army buddies. Except this feeling his head now wasn’t just a simple hangover since he hadn’t had a drink of ale in months. No, he reasoned he had to have been drugged and left in this new prison. Now, if he could only find out why.
   As if in response to his thoughts, he heard footsteps begin to resound off the stone from a seemingly long distance down the outside corridor. They grew closer and louder with each step. Soon a masked figure appeared before the mesh grating of his door and slid a key into the lock. When the door opened, Paelos got a full look at his jailor. The man was tall and wore long black robes that disguised his figure. The mask over his face left only his dark eyes staring back at Paelos. He held the keys in his right hand that were connected to a black belt cinched at his waist, and in his left hand was a thin stiletto dagger that he held at the ready.
   “Move,” he said and pointed down the hallway. Paelos didn’t need another directive. He walked out of the door immediately. As they walked, Paelos almost felt the stiletto point directly at his back just in case he decided to make any false moves. He stiffly kept up his pace towards what looked like another door at the end of the row. When they arrived within five feet, the door swung open automatically to let them pass into the room beyond.
   Ten men in similar robes were gathered in the center of the room around a large brazier burning hotly. They did not wear the same black robes as the jailor. Nine of them wore deep purple shrouds, and the man with his back to Paelos was adorned in blood red fabric.
   “The traitor Paelos Padreas, summoned here by the council, has arrived for his training masters,” said the guard. “He is now in your hands.”
   The guard walked out of a door on the far side of the room and closed it behind him. Paelos waited. The men in the middle seemed to be praying together around the fire. Their words were quiet but fluid. Finally, the man in red raised his right hand and beckoned Paelos forward without ever looking over his shoulder. The men in purple stopped chanting and picked up their heads to stare at him. Again, like the guard, they all had masks that only revealed their piercing eyes. Those eyes weighed him carefully as he ascended the few steps to the platform in the center.
   “So, this is the famous Captain of the Eye in Sarta,” the man in red said as he turned around to face Paelos. “I must admit I wasn’t expecting such a young man. Your ability and fervor in serving the Legion is impressive even for a person of twice your age.”
   “No need to kiss my ass, why am I here?” asked Paelos.
   “And to the point also, I see,” replied the man. “I am Berek, and you are my guest here in this humble place.”
   “Do you normally drug your guests and throw them into cramped cells with no food?” asked Paelos.
   “Regrettably, we had to let the Legion believe that you had perished beyond the wall, and because of our order we could not reveal the way to our secret location once we found you. The drugs were for your protection as much as ours.”
   “I see. Then again, why did you bother to bring me here?”
   “Your question is a difficult one to answer because you are not ready to hear the full truth of the situation. However, I do promise you that if you make the correct decision that we present to you, all your questions will be answered.”
   “What decision are you talking about?”
   “You have an opportunity here to be trained by our order. Why you are being trained will become clearer the further that you advance. Your mission will be revealed to you at the end of this training period. As with all our recruits you will start off in the darkness of ignorance, and you will slowly learn how to crawl your way into the light of understanding.”
   “Spare me the philosophical bullshit. You saved my ass from the gorg. Thanks a million. Now I’d like to get out of here and go pay a visit to a few vile Legionaries and my soon to be dead wife!”
   “You can’t hope to succeed on your own. You may hate what they did to you and your old life, but hate alone won’t grant you retribution. Let us train you and I promise you will get the chance to strike back at those who wronged you.”
   “And what do you hope to train me in? I’m a soldier, and I was the Captain of the Eye. I’m pretty sure I can handle myself in a battle.”
   “Then by all means subdue me,” said Berek as he stepped off the platform. “If you can remove my mask then I will let you go free immediately.”
   “Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Paelos with a smirk.
   He readied himself in a battle stance as Berek stood three feet away from him with his arms crossed. Quickly, Paelos shot out his hand and went for Berek’s face. Berek twisted away with his red robes spinning and delivered the back of elbow to Paelos’ neck with a mighty force. Berek was faster than any man Paelos had ever seen, and the blow to his neck sent him down to his knees choking for air. Berek leaned over him and put a hand on his chest. Paelos felt warmth that entered his body and eased his breathing. The pain of the blow dissipated as Berek removed his hand.
   “All your training in the Legion’s army and you were on your back before the battle had hardly started,” remarked Berek ponderously. “If it had been I who attacked you instead of defending myself, do you believe that you would be dispatched even faster?”
   Paelos nodded yes.
   “Good. Then you must now realize that we do in fact have some things to teach you here. I would suggest you consider learning all you can as a way to improve yourself. We intend to remove the stain of your previous training and build you up again as a true warrior. We can teach you to heal life as easily as you take it. We can teach you to break down barriers or sneak past them in the night. We can teach you to crush your opponent with brute force or beat him superior tactics. You must decide if you are ready to learn.”
   “And if I choose not to partake in your training?” asked Paelos.
   “Then we will not interfere with the punishment that the Legion seemed so insistent on giving to you. We will put you back in your previous place in the Soulless Forest, and you can take your chances inside the walls.”
   “So, either I learn from you, or I go back to certain death. Forgive me if I don’t think that’s much of a choice.”
   “It’s more of a choice than you had when you walked through Traitor’s Gate. You will have 30 minutes to decide. If you choose to join us and train, then you must walk through the door on your left. If you choose not to join us, then you must walk back to your cell and we will take you back. Do you understand?”
   “How do I know that you’re not just as evil as the Legion? How do I know you won’t just use me for some foul purpose for your wicked agenda?”
   “You don’t know. Search your heart and see what it tells you. Pray to God and see if he enlightens you. They can discern what your mind cannot.”
   With that, Berek and the other nine men walked out of the door on the left leaving Paelos alone in front of the brazier. When they had been gone for a few minutes, Paelos sat down and weighed his options. The last thing he wanted to be was dead, but being a prisoner was hardly better than dying a quick death.
“What if these men can help me get back to Sarta and make things right?” he thought. “Then again, what if they are just using me as their puppet the same way that the Legion did?”
Paelos didn’t want to be anybody’s puppet anymore. He wanted to be free from every other obligation so he could seek his vengeance, but deep down he realized that Berek’s way was the only option he had to stay alive and succeed. He could train here or die in the Forest. Paelos stood up and dusted off his hands on his already filthy pants. Then, he walked towards the door to his left.