Tuesday, May 21, 2013

[rough stuff] Burial Moon

Here is a little bit of something I just wrote, and did a quick edit of. I told Kevin about a new writing technique I've been trying and while I like the results, I would like to hear what you guys think of it. Is it more interesting than the way I'd been writing before? Worse?

Uhm, anyway, here it is.



“Shyama!”

His eyes opened, taking in flickering red and orange light. His ears picked up on a coarse crackling sound, and his nose burnt with the acid smell of ash.

“Shyama!”

He pushed himself up onto his arms and lifted his heavy, pounding head. Blood dripped to the ground from his nose as he tilted his head upwards, tracking the movement a moment later with his eyes. His sword lay half-buried a few feet in front of him, halfway up the blade in dirt.

Beyond the sword he could see crumbling, burning wooden homes and stables aflame with the crying of horses and cattle. He crawled until he could grasp his sword’s handle, and tore it from the dirt as he shakily rose to his feet. A wave of smoke passed and stung his eyes. Blinking at tears, he wiped his face with the back of his left shirt sleeve.

Shyama remembered the village and the attack. Indistinct dark shapes on the ground focused into bodies as he stared, the dust and dirt staining as it soaked in blood. He turned, surveying the rest of what burned around him. Sweat poured down his face and his lungs felt scorched. I have to leave.

He spotted an opening in the flames; a road bending from around a pair of houses to come towards him and, he thought, towards the town square. Fearing an injury to his legs, he stepped lightly forward, increasing the pressure when he felt nothing but the dirt giving way soft under his boot.

He shuffled forward while he regained his balance, his head still swaying as he picked up speed, managing a jogging canter. His sword swung from side to side in his grip as he ran, his left hand held up just in front of his face to ward off the worst of the cinder choked air.

He sped around the bend, hurrying down the center of the street, taking in blurred glances of the crumbling buildings on either side of him. Corpses littered the street before him, and he struggled to overstep all of them, his boot toes catching on a leg or outstretched hand. Swearing under his breath, he sighted the end of the town.

Panting, he staggered past the last of the two burning buildings. He slowed, inhaling and grinning at the fresher air and, as he looked up to see it, the cloudless blue sky overhead. Wind cooled his skin, save for one thin band where it stung rather than soothed. He lifted his left hand to fee the pain’s origin, and winced, bringing his now blood spotted finger back into view..

With safety fresh in his mind, he turned and looked back onto the street. He could only spot a few uniformed corpses, a few fallen swords, spears, and axes. The rest of the bodies wore dusty clothes and carried no weapons at all. I was hit, he thought. Someone threw a stone. He brushed the wound again. And Arlei left with the platoon, thinking I died.

Staring at the fallen bodies, he wondered if he even wished that General Arlei had waited.

Who cared about Shyama? Arlei didn’t. Just as he didn’t care about his witch; he didn’t care about his fallen soldiers. Shyama looked away from the town, at the road trailing off into the distance. He couldn’t remember if they’d been heading there, or if they’d been heading in some different direction.

The sun held zenith in the sky, denying him an easy point of reference for where to begin his journey. The rest of his life. But to where (and to whom) would he go? After Arlei? Assumed death provided Shyama with an excuse to desert. He would only need to find a set of clothes that disassociated him with the army. Once lost his previous identity, he could wander. But the question returned to his mind.

Who cared about him?

Someone cares about me. They called my name. It’s why I woke up.

He spun around to face the town, his eyes wide and breath short. He realized, in his flight, he hadn’t stopped to see who’d called his name.

They could have been calling for help, he thought, taking cautious steps towards the inferno. But I can’t go back in there. Into the flames. His shoulders sagging, he cupped his left hand to his mouth, and called, “I’m sorry! I’m so very sorry!” He gazed into the flames, feeling his heart falling deeper and deeper, for a few minutes.

He left to look for shelter, somewhere close enough to keep an eye on the pyre.

He found a crack between a stone and the earth, a place to wait for the fires to die to allow him first opportunity to find food and water when the town was safe. The day grew dark and Lady Moon rose overhead. The dead seemed numberless in his mind. He looked up. A burial moon, he thought. A burial moon and only I to do the burying.

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