Excerpt from work in progress

Submitted by Clare on Sun, 02/21/2010 - 02:19

**PLEASE NOTE: This part is gonna make no sense but i wrote it a while back, stumbled on it, loved it, and decided to share this part. This part is from a long saga of randomness, but to sum up, currently these mismatched people are trying to find a knight who has gone missing. They were all in a previous book i actually did finish but do not exactly find worth sharing, but i suppose if you read THAT this would actually make sense...ANYWAY, i thought THIS part was really good, and just wanted to share it.

They set off quickly, heading for the Sap Forest, where Alec was last seen. Despite the seriousness of their expedition, Selena was simply too cheerful to be back with her very best friends to keep from smiling, and May was excited enough about Muriel having a baby that even she forgot for a moment the grave possibilities that lay before them in trying to find their missing knight. It would have been just like when they were traveling towards the Antanerack Mountains, had it not been for the absence of Alec and Muriel, the two that had caused them to come together. Hannah was the only one who wasn’t very cheerful. She missed Alec so much it hurt and she prayed he was safe.

The trip was rather uneventful save a few visits to towns recently rebuilt after the war. It seemed people were finally settling down, though certainly one or two rabble-rousers can be found in any town, and these they only briefly encountered. It seemed that most of the people of Trinidad could see what the new king was doing for them, which was a good thing, too, because otherwise they might have agreed with the opinion of those rabble-rousers…who claimed that the king was destroying their way of life and must be stopped by force if necessary. May had to wonder once more if the threats of that strange man in the castle garden were real. She shivered a little, and wished she had not turned into a skittish, silly girl all of a sudden. If she had told any of the others that she felt this, every one of them would have told her in some form of words that she would never be skittish or silly, and they loved her just the way she was even if she wasn’t as adventurous as she used to be. But she didn’t share with the others, and tried her best to act like her old self, while her current self feared and fretted her sick on the inside. There had to be a point where she would be the real May again, she just didn’t know when that would be, or who the real May was. Certainly not the same sword-wielding girl from not long ago, but not far from that, either. When they arrived at the Sap Forest, they sobered up considerably, because, like the other knights, there was just no sign of Alec anywhere. It was vital that they find some sign of him soon, lest he needed help. Their second day of searching the large Sap Forest, they found something interesting. The remains of a campfire…and the knights didn’t light campfires while searching or running from something, lest it should give away their position, and this campfire had been a considerably large one. “Probably from those arsonists the knights were chasing,” May said, her eyes wide and frightened, uncharacteristic of the usual May. They searched around some more, not really knowing what to look for or what they’d find. Deep down inside, Dylan was personally terrified of finding some bloody corpse…of anything, but…generally of the person missing, but being a little ashamed of such an irrational concern, he didn’t share it with the others. Then, they found a real clue. Hannah discovered an arrow from the castle, abandoned at the foot of the tree. “See?” She said. “It has the castle crest and Alec’s name carved into it…its how they keep track of arrows,” Suddenly, Selena screamed. “Look!” She cried. She was pointing up into the tree. “What, what is it?” Raphael asked. “Up…up there!” Selena cried. The others looked harder, and May gasped. “There’s an arrow stuck in this tree!” Raphael frowned, and wordlessly and quickly climbed the tree and yanked the arrow out of it. “Hmm. This isn’t an arrow from the castle. This is a simple one, probably thrown together in not very much time, but strong and well made. No marking,” He jumped out of the tree. “Strange. It’s pretty weathered…but it couldn’t have been up there for too long, judging by how hard it was to pull out,” “So?” Dylan said. “What does that conclude?” “I wasn’t finished,” Raphael replied. “It smells like smoke,” They were silent. “Do…do you think…” Hannah said. “Do you think the arsonists…ambushed the knights?”
“None of the knights mentioned it,” Dylan said. “And I’m thinking that’s something you would probably mention in your report to the king,”
“True…unless they were ashamed,” Selena said. “Well that wouldn’t make them very good knights,” Raphael said, looking thoughtful. He looked the tree up and down, and then focused down on the ground. He slowly dropped onto his stomach and frowned at the soil and brush below. “I will never understand you, Raphael,” Dylan said, leaning against the tree. “What are you doing?” Raphael didn’t answer for a while. Finally, he got up, his face grave. “Blood,” He said bluntly. “There’s blood on the ground,”
“Blood!?” Selena cried. “What do you mean, blood!?”
“You know…it’s that red stuff that gushes out of you?” Dylan said sarcastically. May glared at him. “Stop being a morbid boy.” Dylan didn’t think he’d ever been called a morbid boy before. “You people are all missing the point entirely!” Raphael shouted. “Now, put two and two together, and consider what this means,” He quickly climbed the tree again, and settled himself on the branch where the arrow was lodged above. “Imagine, if you will, this situation. For some reason, the knight climbs into the tree, when the hoods start shooting at him. What does he do?”
“Shoot back?” Dylan asked, shrugging. “No.” Raphael replied sternly. “He dodges.” He illustrated his point with a few exaggerated dodges from imaginary arrows. “Now, what if an arrow hits right here,” He thrust his finger at the hole where the unmarked arrow originally was. “What does he do?” “Dodges?” Dylan offered. “Indeed,” Raphael replied. “And far this way!” He thrust himself sideway and fell out of the tree. May and Selena jumped aside as he landed like a cat right where they’d been standing. Then he fell over onto his back. “What happens?”
“He…dies.” Dylan finished. “Not necessarily,” Raphael replied, getting to his feet. “There would certainly be more blood if he did indeed die and some animal came along and ate him, and there certainly wouldn’t be one of his arrows left here if those who killed him wanted to get rid of the evidence,”
“But what if he safely dodged that arrow up there, and another one hit him?” Hannah asked. “That goes along with the him not being dead theories,” Raphael replied. “However, none of this tells us anything, really, because all of my theories were actually guesses, and we still have no idea where Alec is or if he’s even still alive,”
“Maybe he met a girl in the woods!” Selena cried dramatically. “And they ran away together, to live happily ever after!”
“Wouldn’t that be going against the code of a knight?” Dylan said. “And isn’t it a little farfetched?”
“Well, it would be terribly romantic,” Selena replied. “Just sickening,” Dylan said, not in the least bit romantically inclined. “Besides, do you really think Alec would run off with just any milk maid who crossed his path?”
“The heart is mysterious,” Selena said, smiling a bit dreamily. “So is your head,” Dylan replied. Raphael hit them both on the back of the head. “Stop fighting you two!” He growled. “Are you both so selfish and uncaring that you’ll endanger finding Alec by being hardheaded and uncooperative!?”
“Ow!” Selena replied. “No, Sir,” Dylan grumbled. Raphael turned to Selena. “See, his answer was much better,”
“No sir,” Selena replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “He rejected my idea, though,”
“Have you ever heard of any male and female agreeing on anything entirely?” May asked. “It doesn’t happen too often,” “Alec never really noticed girls that way,” Hannah said, rather sadly.
They were quiet for a short while, and then a unanimous sigh went up. “Well, I guess we’re back to where we started until we find some other clue,” May said. “So…should we keep looking?” Selena asked. “Certainly,” Raphael replied. “We’ll look until we find him,” May had never felt so grateful that someone else was taking charge of a situation. She just couldn’t do that anymore…at least for now.

Author's age when written

Genre

Fiction