Battle!

A fight scene from my book 'The Art of Veiling: Awareness'. Themya, a young Apprentice Sorceress barely 13 years old is forced to fight with sword and magic against full fledged, seasoned Outer Rim enemies who have invaded her land.

“Wake! Wake! Wake up! Wake UP!”
The wild command was accompanied by a terrific sound
of destruction and swords clinging together. My eyes opened as
wide as they could and my heart seemed to stop. I didn’t take in
what I saw at first. All I saw was Uncle’s feet standing in front of
me, his shadow shielding me from the sun…
Hadn’t we a canvas over the carriage?

“Take your sword! Wake up, Themya!” Uncle yelled again,
and my body more than my mind responded to his command. I sat
up, gripping my sword, and realised that we were, once again, under
attack. The carriage had stopped, the canvas roof over its back
was blasted away- that had been the sound that had first greeted
me today. I turned to see just who it was my Uncle was battling,
exchanging blows and making the whole carriage shake-

Clang!

I saw my own hand in my field of vision, knuckles
white against the black hilt of my sabre, crossing blades with someone
I did not know and on whom I could only focus on the eyes.
All the rest except his eyes were a blur, but they held me captive:
wide, and almost black with his irises dilated almost all the way. It
terrified me to the point I could not speak and I could not really
think- and so it was my body that did all the thinking. The man
snarled and brought his double edged sword down in a clean sweep
that I could visualise lopping off my head; I screamed in fear in advance
and jumped forward, bringing my sword to the side while his
blow was still being delivered and his flank was open, just like dad
used to instruct me. My blade hit against his thick leather corselet.
The man growled in anger, not in pain, as I withdrew my sword and
saw the metallic tint of blood against the blade.

I had no time to think that I had just willingly drawn blood
from this man. From the left, where my Uncle was fighting, hot
and acrid, the viscous liquid splashed against my cheek and temple,
splattering all over me, and my opponent lost interest in me and
turned towards there- where my Uncle had been standing. I gasped
audibly as I saw Uncle’s opponent on his back on the ground, trembling like a dying fish, his throat cut neatly at the carotid. His blood
was black and crimson, jumping like a geyser at the rate of his
heartbeat through his bloodied, glistening fingers that seemed devoid
of any strength. His breath was gurgling with the telltale sound
of death. I felt only relief that it was not Uncle Aaron in that position,
not pity or remorse.

“Get off the carriage! Find Elsa or Gaescl! Don’t gawk,
GET OFF THE DAMN CARRIAGE!” shouted my Uncle over
the din and screams and shouts. I obeyed and jumped off with
energy I didn’t think I had. But everything seemed still like a dream,
as if I was in the dreaming world where anything was possible if I
could imagine it.

All around the carriage were soldiers whose uniform I did
not recognise except vaguely. They were not many- at the most
twenty… but it was less than half that number that had cost us Cessile.
How I wished she were here now, to protect us magically and
throw them all back with just one single incantation!
A blast from above me whizzed past in the form of an
angered gust of wind and a sword missed my head by inches. I
blinked, wide eyed at the man that had just fallen down- he had
dropped his sword and he was clutching at his throat as if suddenly
air would not be accepted in him. I looked up and flinched as Uncle
glared at me from the carriage, sword in bloodied hand, with the
wildness of the combatant in his eyes and the fear of death in his
voice- fear of my death:
“Don’t stop to think and look! Stop and you di- argh!”
He instinctively jumped back as a wavy bladed dagger, a
kris, came flying towards his chest. He missed a step and fell off
the other side of the carriage, out of my sight as the canvas roof
obstructed the view along with the rest of the vehicle. Two enemies
rushed to where I calculated he must have landed. I clenched my
teeth in anger and spite towards myself, as it was I that had rendered
him in this compromising position. I reasserted my hold on
the hilt of the sword and ran to round up the carriage.

Another man jumped me, his sword diagonally in front
of his body, another dagger at his side, his mouth contorted in a
hideous grimace that bared all his teeth to the gums in a display of
carnivorous instincts against me. He attacked with a terribly strong
swipe to my side which I parried, but it rattled my whole sword arm
to the point I feared it would break. He did not give me the time to
recover- his sword came against me again in a downwards ark that
would split my head in two and I had no chance but to clash blades
with him again. I felt the force of the blow all the way down to my
pelvis, and the momentum threw me backwards. The man snarled
and grinned as he ran towards me. I yelled in fear as unwittingly I
brought up my legs to stop him. He ran into the soles of my feet,
effectively stopped- the force scraped the ground against my backand
lifted his sword up to bring it down for a killing blow.

I have lost my sword! My mind screamed at me. I pushed
as hard as I could to at least somehow augment the distance between
my attacker and my body with my feet. The pant leg silkily
fell backwards and gathered up in folds against my knee, revealing
what Uncle had told me was my last resort… I heaved upwards and
to the side as the man started his deadly ark and leaned forward
against my feet, pulled the dagger out of its sheath around my leg
and plunged it in the first site I thought I could make it bury to the
hilt- the man’s thigh.

I was rewarded with a maddened scream of pain from the
man and a shuddering of all his muscles against my feet- I had
clearly broken his impetus. I grinned wildly myself and twisted the
blade as I pushed violently with my feet, making the muscles of my
belly protest in tiredness- but the man fell. I sprung up and noticed
my sword next to the man that was gripping the hilt of my dagger
that was still inside his leg. I rushed to get it. As soon as I was near
enough, I felt the burning of metal against my own leg. The man
was trying to still get at me with his own dagger, in rage that disregarded
everything else.

But I, too, was enraged. I stepped on his arm by literally
jumping on it and I liked hearing his groan. I put all my weight on
that arm until I heard the bone snap and just as he rolled to get at
me with his other arm, I kicked him with all my force in the face.
His head jerked backwards, his face blossoming in blood, and he
remained motionless. As soon as he didn’t move anymore, I bent
and picked up my sword, panting, and looked around in a second
of uncertainty about what to do next:

Ustyan was not actually fighting with sword or dagger,
but he did cooperate well with Gaescl who was protecting him by
shielding him from blows, just like he had done when they had
been attacking us not more than a day ago. Gaescl was fighting with
two swords that gleamed with magic resonance- he had engaged as
many as four of the enemy, and as soon as they were touched by the
blades he was wielding, much less actually hit by them, armour tore
and flesh split painfully, all sorts of liquids except blood sprinkling
around as the wound was made.

Elsa surprised me: she was fighting with a scimitar, trying
to hack her way through another four or five enemies and try to
get to Uncle that was still behind the carriage, hidden from view by
the fallen, destroyed canvas roof. Her motions were fluid like water,
and her eyes blazed with urgency and anger. If her opponents
didn’t stumble or yell or fall, I would not have believed her movements
to be anything but choreographic- that was how smooth and
aesthetic she looked in her frenzied deadly dance of both defence
and attack.

But in her urgency to move, she sacrificed perception and
she did not see what I did: A large, burly man brandishing a flail ran
up to her from the rear.
“Elsa!” I screamed and I realised that I, too, was running
although I didn’t remember either deciding it or starting to do so.
The man swung the flail in a deadly ark towards her head, but Elsa
had heard my scream and instinctively ducked. The swinging ball of
metal flew well past over her head and struck one of her opponents
who was thrown back several meters and remained there, forever
frozen in a horrid, faceless, deformed grin highlighted by crimson,
scarlet and black. As soon as he fell, viscous blood spread like a halo
around his head on the ground. My momentum stopped because I
stabbed with my sword at the man- I hadn’t aimed for anything in
particular, in a foolhardy wish to draw his attention away from her.
I succeeded.

The man growled like a beast and turned to me, the flail
whistling over my head in a heavy, ominous way. The stab wound
my sword had afforded him in his back did not seem to even bother
him, much less impede him. I clenched my teeth, realising that I
could very well be the next one lying on the ground deprived of a
human face by that ghastly ball that he moved around with the ease
of a child shaking a rattle. I could be the one spilling my blood and
brain to form a halo around my head, as a grotesque symbol of the
sanctity death granted. He leered at me, with glistening white teeth
that seemed eager to taint themselves in my flesh. I back stepped,
bringing my own, tainted blade upwards. I felt my eyes so wide that
they would allow for my eyeballs to fall out of their sockets and…
I froze.

I saw him coming against me and all I could do was back
step, hoping that nobody behind my back would stab me to my
death. I could do nothing else but stare at that great flail that had
done so much damage with one blow, and just imagine myself dead
by it. I felt my knuckles tighten painfully around my sabre’s hilt, I
felt my knees go rigid, as if bracing for the blow would make it any
less catastrophic. I couldn’t even shout for help, and suddenly the
din of the battle, the yells and sword clashing and thuds and growls
and howls of pain or victory or despair crashed down on me and
deafened me- the odours of blood clotting, blood spilling, excrement
being exposed in the air along with other body fluids and
intestinal tissue suffocated me.

“STAB HIM!” I heard a shriek that seemed to rattle my
brain and I whimpered and shut my eyes while flinching and swinging upwards in the clumsiest way that would for certain irritate my
father. My sword flew from my hands like a trapped animal finally
jerking free with a loud clang and scraping of metal against metal.
I fell to the side, my arm screaming in pain, but the blow from the
flail had ricocheted away from me in a clash that had more luck than
skill.

But the man was not stopped, and now I was unarmed,
staring up at a mountain-sized man that was feeling all too glad
to step on someone that compared to him was the size of a bug.
I had found my resolve again, but now I had no way to defend
myself and to get up with the man looming over me meant almost
certain death. He laughed triumphantly, assured that now his soldiers
would not allow Elsa to come to my help, as I could deduct
from the sounds of fierce sword-fighting going on that were heard
behind him and Elsa’s agitated cries for me to hold on. I crawled
backwards on the ground to put some distance between me and
him, but all it took was a stride to cover it. He slurred something
and kicked- I felt as if my stomach shot out my back as I was
thrown back a good more distance away than I had achieved on my
own. The pain nullified anything else that I was feeling- and in that
sense, it was very, very helpful, because it gave me the opportunity
to focus and do the one thing that could save me from this foe:
I raised my hands and coaxed the Balance to protect me,
and willed myself not to shut my eyes at the flail coming down on
me with force. My blood heated with the effort and my flow became
intense and almost magnetic in its density- I thought I saw the
atmosphere flicker around me as the shield formed seconds before
the flail hit.

The metal ball slammed against my shield and the man
couldn’t pull it back anymore. He yelled in frustration and anger
as he tried and tried to release his weapon from the clutches of
my Flow, but to no avail- before his very eyes, the flail’s swinging,
deadly ball sizzled and popped and shuddered, shrinking and growing
smaller and smaller until it was gone. The man bellowed some
word I couldn’t understand and raised his arm, unsheathing an odd
sword-like giant kris, his eyes flashing eerily with the cold void left
when all human emotion is completely evaporated. I coughed and
with it liquid came out, and from my nostrils I couldn’t anymore
breathe, but I was determined not to let my odd shield falter- if it
was the last thing I did.

And then, it was as if the man suddenly stopped, and his
mouth bubbled and overflowed with black, thick blood. His eyes
widened and the spark of life left them so quickly that that in itself
was shocking. He fell to the side heavily, making the ground shiver
slightly- or perhaps that was just my idea. The hilt of a sabre was
all that protruded from his back, implying the angle in which it
had entered, destroying as many organs as were possible in one
stroke. Behind him, slightly tilted to the side, teeth clenched and
bared, eyebrows so furrowed together that his eyes seemed black,
with blood splattered against his face and clothes and his one arm
completely drenched in the substance, was standing Uncle Aaron.
I let my shield disperse and whimpered as he rushed to me. I didn’t
want him to come and nurture me now just as in the same time I
wished for it madly- but there was battle raging all around us, and
he couldn’t afford to have his back exposed, he shouldn’t let himself
be caught off guard.

But was there any battle waging around us anymore?
Alarmed voices seemed to come all around mixed with the metal
clangs of swords and other weapons being dropped, and the quick
language spilling from mouths all around without me able to understand
a single thing- was it truly over? I peered around just as
Uncle paused to do so as well. All the standing enemies- about five
of them, had abruptly stopped fighting and were standing, arms
spread to their sides, having dropped their weapons, pleading with
us in their language that we could not understand… or at least most
of us couldn’t understand.
“They surrender! We have won!” Ustyan said and I felt
relief wash over me.

Author's Note

I have cut and pasted from the pdf file. Please excuse formatting problems.

Reviews

[Jimmy.]

I like how theirs action right from the beginning. Best way to get people interested. Now i would like to see some more magic, because from your desrciption shes a wizard?
also, read mine if you have the time, espically " The Waging War"

[newm]

I liked the immediacy of this scene. It sucked me right into the fighting. I felt the pounding of the mc's heart as she's startled awake, and her confusion as she tries to piece together what's going on. I like her reaction to being attacked, the rage she feels rising and the need she has to strike back. The way she sees the battle in snatches, catching and losing site of her allies lends realism and the brutality of the action comes through loud and clear.

[Tantz Aerine]

I have to answer publically at least a little bit :) You raise some interesting points and I think I can use them:

This is chapter 36 out of 40 in the book. Battles in the first book of Art of Veiling come in the last quarter.

I am happy you read this out loud: "I sat
up, gripping my sword, and realised that we were, once again, under
attack- Read that one outloud, and I think you'll see that there's lot of unneeded pauses."

The girl, Themya, is panting from stress and shock at the time she says/narrates this. That is the reason for the several unnecessary pauses. It's supposed to make you stressed- or frustrated ;) This is an instrusive, violent moment for her.

Thanks! You were indeed helpful.

[Hector Acosta]

I'm sorry, but I ended up loosing interest about halfway through. Battles are always hard to write and read, because I'm in the mindset that the reader never finds it as interesting as exciting as as the writer does. It also doesn't help that as I read this, I really knew nothing about the characters. If this is your first chapter, I would advise you to reconsider the placement. If it isn't, try posting the chapters in order, that way the reviewer cares about the characters.

Some of the writing in the beginning is really awkward. An advice everyone always gives is to read your work outloud, and I think that could help you here. Some examples of the lines I found;

Hadn't we a canvas over the carriage?/My eyes opened as
wide as they could and my heart seemed to stop.

Also, watch out for comma placements;

I sat
up, gripping my sword, and realised that we were, once again, under
attack- Read that one outloud, and I think you'll see that there's lot of unneeded pauses.

And it's "arc", not "ark".

Hope this helps somewhat.

[Michael]

Well, this isn't actually my kind of writing, I don't really care for the violence, but over all it was a good write.

[Constance]

The story has excellent imagery in parts, but there is a problem with sentence fluency. There are too many sentences written in the subject/verb order. If it were changed up a bit, to make it less repetitive as far as sentence structure, it would make an incredible difference.
That being said, it is entertaining, well painted, and I liked it.