Untitled Prologue

A man walked on the narrow dirt path.

He was cloaked, and hooded, and his head hung low.  His face was lost in the shadows of the hood, and his threadbare cloak was clean of any clue as to his identity.

The symphony of the cicadas and the sparrows accompanied the crunching of earth beneath his worn, dirt-covered boots.

All of a sudden, two men materialized out from behind two trees.  They were armed; one with a giant, two-handed axe, the other with a bow.  Black, shrouds covered their faces, and dirty green capes draped across their backs.  With slow, purpose-laden footsteps, they stepped onto the path.

The stranger walked on, unperturbed.

The stranger was three metres away when the one with the axe spoke.  “You can stop there, traveller.  Until you give us what we’re owed.”

The stranger came to a stop.

“What my companion means,” continued the second one, “Is that you should give us a fee.  One for ensuring your safe passage through the mountains…”A lilting, half-mocking smile.  “…unmolested by bandits.”

The stranger was silent.

“You should be more direct with them.  Idiot travellers have no idea what you’re yapping about.” The one with the axe sighed, impatience writ upon his face.  “Look, in fool’s terms:  give us what you have, or lose your head.”

The sounds of the cicadas were subdued; and the birds had long flown.

The stranger finally spoke.  “I have nothing to offer you.”

The man with the crossbow smiled softly.  “You have nothing, you say?  Well, that’s a disappointment.”  With a practiced sort of nonchalance, the crossbow was aimed at the stranger.   “I’m afraid that we cannot allow you to pass.  Awfully bad for business, I’m afraid.”

The stranger bowed his head.  The tattered cloak swirled around him in the light breeze, and for a brief moment, a glint of steel winked at the duo from underneath the cloak.

“You think you can force your way past?”  The axeman began to laugh.  “The Hidden Dragon Sect owns these hills for a reason.  It's because we're the best."  Slowly, the axe moved from his shoulder to his hands.  "You don’t stand a chance.”

The stranger did not react to the laughter.  Slowly he began to walk onwards, head hanging low, almost as though the two men did not exist.

“That won’t work.  Bandits around these parts aren’t so easily scared away, you know.”  The second man sniggered.  “Without our protection, you don’t stand a chance.  It would be our solemn duty to give you a merciful death.”

The stranger took another step forward.

The quarrel shivered, shimmered, and disappeared from sight.

When it reappeared, it was in pieces, by the stranger’s feet.

The stranger continued to walk, neither quickening nor slowing his pace.  His billowing cloak was the only clue that any movement had been made at all.  But for one moment, a sliver of steel laughed silently from behind the dancing cloak; then, with a shiver, the cloak returned to its position, and the steel was concealed once more.

But all three present knew what had happened.  The stranger had cut the quarrel into two; so quickly that the two men couldn’t even see what his weapon was.

“Impossible.”  The man with the crossbow took a step back, fumbling for a second bolt.

The axeman cursed and began to charge, his huge axe swinging around in an rock-shattering arc that would have downed a sapling with a single chop.

But the arc stopped short - barely several inches away from the stranger’s neck.

With a clatter, the axe - and the hands attached to it - fell to the earth with a dull thunk.

Then a head - with an expression of shock, fear, despair, and above all, disbelief permanently frozen onto it - fell to the earth with a wet thud.

A minute later, about a hundred meters from the first head - a second head fell.

A month later, two bodies - mangled and half-eaten by wild beasts - were found on the Twin Dragons’ Pass.  Torn though it were, tattoos on their arms confirmed that, barely recognizable as they were, these bodies belonged to two disciples of the Hidden Dragon Sect.

The strange thing was, nobody in the entire Underworld ever discovered who the perpetrator was.  The only clue was their way of death; decapitated by a single, clean stroke, carefully angled to cut between the bones, slicing cleanly through the joints.  It was quite clear that these two were executed with perfectly aligned strokes; after all, nobody could have pulled off two perfect decapitations like that.  Not in the middle of a fight.  It’s impossible.

Right?

Author's Note

I'd like to know more about how to pace the story. If anyone has some advice, I'd be very grateful.

Please be honest with the reviews; I know that a lot of this is bad, but I can't quite put my finger on WHY it is bad. And if I can't understand what's wrong, I can't fix it.

Reviews

[Clovis Kabongo]

You underestimate yourself; it was a well-crafted, albeit rushed, opening. I felt as though you could've expanded on the world around these characters -- not to the point of tediousness, but so much so that we had a clearer image of what was going on. The dialogue could've also been changed a bit to better suit the time era I'm presuming this takes place in. lastly, you should've taken the opportunity to be more descriptive -- though I'm a stickler for description so I may be wrong -- but aside from that it was entertaining to read. Don't be too hard on yourself.

[Wyrmspawn]

Thank you for your help. I'm actually not sure about the dialogue. If I was actually trying to make a historically accurate representation, then I'd probably have to use something from AD 0 - AD 800.

As an extra language barrier, this exchange takes place in Ancient China. I thought it would be best to give the characters an unusual speech pattern and keep things vague, because I'm not capable of re-imagining a medieval English translation of Ancient Chinese speech patterns - not that many people would be interested in reading that anyway. I think.

As you said, the entire scene felt entirely too rushed. I tried to conceal that through liberal use of paragraphing; but I guess it's ultimately a lazy method that doesn't work.