COG Scene 1 Chapter 1

Well a fragment of the novel that I'm writing. It's a new part I added to bring out one of the characters and show an event that I had only hinted at (well hint more at an event...)

Cog 2 Chapter 1

                She promised rain.

 

                Angelique dipped her head back and let the rain pour down her face.  She found water to be an unacceptable substance, but she was already soaked to the bone. Her undershirt was hard and heavy from the downpour making movement with her armor stiff.  She sheathed her twin swords and wiped the blood off her face.  The rain was soothing the hundreds of small cuts on her body, but she would have preferred being dry, to less pain. Pain was the only comfort she was allowed, it kept her focused on the moment.

 

                She had promised to do her final battle in the rain because it would give Mai the advantage. Angelique didn’t have any abilities, only a mastery of Umbra warrior methods, while Mai was faster and could weld water into any form.  She had calculated a defeat with a narrow chance of success, but now that she had won, she stood there wondering why she felt so unsatisfied with the end result.  Her arms and legs were burning from pushing them too hard while blocking Mai’s onslaught of hail and ice, but she was at least still standing.

 

                The healers had rushed Mai away as soon as the battle was over.  All that was left of her was a splotch of blood where Angelique had taken her down and forced her to yield or die. She had said ‘yield or die’ so many times, to so many people and seen so many puddles of blood that she didn’t foresee how it would take her breath away when she uttered them to Mai.  She meant it, but it twisted her inside once she looked at gash she had opened across Mai’s thin torso.  She couldn’t breath as she waited for Mai to reply, she didn’t know what she would do if she didn’t.  As time stretched out, she reasoned Mai would have handled it better; she reasoned it should have been Mai asking her to yield.

 

                Mai looked up and smiled at her, “Yield.”  Her response left Angelique both angered and puzzled. From her studies, smiling at your opponent when you were bleeding to death was not a correct response, but from studying Mai over the cycles, she couldn’t pinpoint a pattern in her behavior.  She rolled off of Mai before she did anything more damaging. She saw the ruthlessness in Master Demas picking Mai as a final opponent, but she didn’t see it as an efficient choice. 

 

                She glared at her valets as the boys approached her and gave them her swords, “I want these properly cleaned and taken to my room.” She stripped her armor off and handed it to them.

 

                She looked around the courtyard.  There was a set of healers waiting to herd her to the nearest hospital ward and Master Demas with two warriors waiting to finish the Umbra ritual.  Besides those two groups there was cluster of speculators still waiting and watching her.  She stood before her master and took the bowl he was holding and put it to her lips, “I feast on the flesh on those who fall before me. I am one with the darkness and the darkness is me and I feast on the flesh on the ones who oppose me.” She looked into the bowl and licked her lips before swallowing its bloody contents.  Warm blood and something sharper burned down her chest as drank it all. She licked the bottom of the bowl and fought off the sickness that rolled around her gut. She had to show them she was capable. Everyone believed she was a monster, now she could prove she was a capable one. She looked at the speculators and licked the blood off her face.  She looked Demas in the eyes and nodded, she was ready for the final step.  She realized what she tasted mixed with Mai’s blood was some sort of narcotic draught, as she half stumbled to the table where she would be marked.  The table was ancient, made of wood and stained time and usage.

 

                Angelique laid across the table and the two warriors held her down.  It was unnecessary she thought, she couldn’t lift herself up again, if she wanted to.  Demas rolled back her undershirt and heated his tools.  Her skin presented a unique problem because of her royal blood, she healed faster than a commoner would. He pressed heated marker into her back, applying pressure to sear her skin, before taking his ink tool and filling in the burn with red ink. She wet her lips and sighed at the pain, the pain was more rewarding than the mark itself.  When he finished he brushed the mark with flame oil and lit her skin on fire.  The grasps from the onlookers was the last thing she recalled before she succumbed to the call of the pain.

Author's Note

Feel free to rip it apart...I need the feedback.

Reviews

[Entertainment Enterpris..]

Very descriptive. It made me want to read more.

[Gerard Harrison]

I loved every word of it. my email is [email protected]. Remember me? Please hit me up.