Happy Saturday after Valentine’s day! I’m off to buy inexpensive chocolate! But I leave you with another SFF Saturday Snippet.
What’s SFF Saturday? It’s 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 (as in, you’re pretty much getting the words as I type em).
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 had just fallen over into the mud in exhaustion. He’s surprised to find the King helping him up.
“Now is not the time for heroic lies,” the King said. “Mitchell, help me.”
Between the King and his guard, Denis managed the walk to the next body. And the next and the one after that. But after he set the soul free, an eerie hush fell over the battlefield–Sunset.
Denis shivered as the wailing started, soft at first, then rising, rising until the sound was a din that bore down on the soul. Then it receded until it was only a whisper of agony that underlaid every other noise on the field.
Now the task would shift to the priests, to exorcise the unnamed dead from the land.
It always hurt, this failure. In war, there were simply too many dead.
Ann Laurel Kopchik 
“…heroic lies…” I like that – great line!
Thanks!
Wow. Slightly chilling scene. Had a shiver run down my spine there. Mournful scene, and the setting sun only adds to it. Brilliant!
Thank you!
Beautiful, Ann. Truly beautiful.
🙂 Heidi
You’re going to give me a complex, Heidi 🙂
Great atmosphere you’ve created here and the release at sunset is awesome.
Thanks!
I wondered what would happen to the unnamed once the sun set.
They leave their bodies. And they’re much, much harder to send on now.
Very nice! Sent a chill down my spine when sunset hit.
I’m glad the mood worked! Thanks!
Brrrr! Very atmospheric, especially after the build-up in the earlier sequences. I was expecting something of the kind, but it still hit effectively, and sent a chill through me. Very nice indeed.
Thanks! I’m pleased the buildup and the release were effective.
If the dead are not named and acknowledged, they will haunt the land. Chilling concept.
Yup. And it’s much, much harder to send them on. No one builds on battlefields…
Ooo! Now exorcisms! This gets more and more interesting.
😀 Thanks for reading!
Wow, great piece. The part that starts with “Denis shivered…” gave me goosebumps!