Happy Groundhog day! Half of my family is from Punxsutawney, PA, so I’m rather fond of the day that puts the little town on the map. Here’s hoping that Phil doesn’t see his shadow, as I am quite done with winter.
Now on to SFF Saturday!
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’ve put all the previous snippets together here, if you need to catch up.
When we last saw Denis and the enemy King of Angth, Denis has just encountered a corpse of a fellow countryman, only he doesn’t know the man’s name. The King’s guard manhandles Denis to his feet, but the King tells his guard to let Denis be.
The guard released Denis and he sank back down to the sodden earth, his joints creaking like a bag of bones and his heart lodged at the back of his throat. The sky had taken on the colors of fire. Not much time left until nightfall and so many names he did not know.
Another touch, this one softer and on the crown of his head. “Search the body, Denis,” the king said. “Perhaps there’s a trinket or something that might help name him.”
The dead man was cold and stiff, but his pocket yielded a folded piece of paper–a letter from a sweetheart–and a single name. Gervais. Denis prayed it would be enough to name his soul.
“Gervais of Revena, be remembered.”
Also, if you’re curious to know more about this project and from whence it came, I posted about it as part of the Next Big Thing blog hop.
Ann Laurel Kopchik 
Ahh this is a touching piece – nicely done 🙂
Thank you!
I’m really enjoying this sequence. Your descriptions are great – I liked the sky the colours of fire. Great snippet.
Thanks Peter. 🙂
Glad he’s dealing with a benevolent king…great snippet.
Well, at least benevolent at the moment…
Always interesting what you find on someone’s body – what they hold dear. That he must speak a name to free the soul is a really intriguing detail. Great Snippet – Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for reading!
ARGH!! Ten sentences is not enough. Finish this already!
I’m working on it. Albeit sloooooooooowly.
Very nice! I’m with JC…I want more!!
🙂
The enemy king doesn’t seem like such an enemy.
At the moment, no.
Oh I love the imagery. And that line about “enough to name his soul”, very touching. Get a move on and finish this!
😀 It’s in the works. But I do have a bunch of stuff in the queue ahead of it…
Very touching, indeed. And, I agree with JC – ten is not enough!
🙂 Thanks! It *is* hard to just post 10 lines…