SFF Saturday is a group of authors who post snippets of SFF prose and poetry for comment. You can check out other SFF Saturday posts, too.
My snippet is another few lines from a work in progress called Herald (at the moment). Eventually, the project be a fantasy loosely based on the Hundred Years War, but it’s in the very early draft stages.
I posted the few lines two weeks ago, here. These lines follow those.
The others, those conscripted to die as fodder for the archers and horses? Their names mattered not, only their number. Their bodies would be turned, nameless, into the sodden earth unless a love one claimed their body and asked a pursuivant to speak the name of the dead. Weeks of marching and the sea stood between these dead and their families. There would be no such requests.
A necessary shame, the prince had said. Too many souls to name before the sun touched the horizon, before their ghosts rose and voiced their anguish.
Despite the order, the names Denis knew, he voiced. All pursuivants on the field did likewise, for they did not answer to the prince but to Soleil d’Or Herald.
Ann Laurel Kopchik 
An interesting snippet…
I love this sense of reverence for the dead and the respect they need to deserve before they rise a ghosts. Great contrast between this uncaring prince and careful others.
’tis a sad shame that people are forgotten in death.
This is what the military call “Collateral damage.” Except this time it’s their own people, with the dead of the enemy totally forgotten or even rejoiced over.
You really capture the horror and heartbreak of a battlefield slaughter. Great snippet.
I like the invoked emotions and setting of this. The prose was a little repetative and slightly clunky, but the reader definitely gets the point you are trying to make.
What a great snippet!! Very visual (and in some respects, spiritual) and showing the true nature of battles. I look forward to more and cannot wait for you to finish and release this!!
What a beautifully written snippet!!
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