Desperate moments - 1,100 words

[Esfires]

Haven't posted any of my WIP for a while, so I thought I'd put up a short scene. This is the first scene of Chapter Fourteen, so a good bit has happened since the last section I posted.

The short of it is that Thomas, Elizabeth and Simon have been driven from Hamlin, fleeing from a man named Marcus Faulks. Faulks is a Herald, a sort of government operative you might say. He killed Mrs. Hill and Elijah Gates, and is now after Simon specifically. Thomas has been thrust into the role of guide and protector, and is trying to lead the Gates siblings out of the country, beyond the borders of Faulks's authority. They're traveling east, through heavy forest, but their supplies are running low and they still have a long way to go. They attempted to leave the forest to resupply once, with disastrous consequences, but they've come down to the line.

Up to this point, from Elizabeth's POV we have seen Thomas as stoic, capable. He was a little nervous in her fancified world, but when s**t got real he stepped up and took charge.

Conversely, from Thomas's POV we see that he's a train wreck. He has no self-confidence and is constantly wracked by shame and guilt due to an event in his past, an event which he has partially revealed to Elizabeth and Simon.

In this scene, that desperation finally comes to a head. This is where things are at their worst for our fugitives, their backs are against the wall and there's nothing and no one to save them. Until a mysterious figure appears, silhouetted by the sun. But that's for the next scene.




[FONT=&quot]Thomas paused in the shadow of a small hill and wiped at his brow with the sleeve of his coat. He was beginning to bake in the heat, one of the first truly hot days of the year. Maridon’s summers had always been humid, so he’d learned to function in the heat. But he’d never learned to like it.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Behind him, Elizabeth and Simon climbed over the fallen trunk of a great oak, steadily making their way forward. He decided to wait for them and leaned against a rock protruding from the hillside. These hills were becoming more common as they drew nearer to the border. He was already having to pick trails that avoided the growing hills, following the narrow valleys that ran between them. He hoped those valleys stretched all the way to the northward bend in the Blackwater. It would not be pleasant to have to climb the hills in this humidity, much less with Elizabeth and Simon in tow.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Not that the terrain would matter much, if he didn’t do something soon. They had covered more than half of the ground from Hamlin to the eastern border of Maridon, where the river turned to follow the Hills. But they hadn’t covered enough. Simon was right. Thomas had brought them out here to starve.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Elizabeth and her brother were both panting heavily as they reached him in the shade of the hill. Guilt tore at him as he saw their exhaustion. He’d been pushing too hard all morning. He was running from them, he knew that. After he’d told them about what happened out east, and the debacle at Daniel’s cottage, he could hardly bear to be near them. Their eyes bored into his back as he walked. He’d thought that their silence over his confession was a good thing, but he was beginning to feel the weight of it, the silent accusation.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] “We’ll rest here for a while,” he said and they dropped to the ground, too weary to speak. He slid the pack form his shoulder and knelt to rummage within it. The old canvas pack had been bursting with supplies when Roth had given it to him. Now, he had to reach to the bottom to find the water skin. He took a long pull and passed it to Elizabeth.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Thomas sat back against the cool surface of the rock and watched her as she drank. Her face was flushed the heat and her hair clung damply to her forehead. She pushed a lock out of her eyes before passing the skin to her brother.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]His admiration for her had grown immensely during their journey. Simon was uncharacteristically silent as they traveled. Lost in grief, Thomas supposed. But Elizabeth had suffered those same wounds without an open word of complaint. He heard her sometimes at night when she thought he was asleep, sobbing into the darkness. But never when her brother would see.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The strength Thomas saw in her made his own shame all the more palpable. She had placed a face in him that he knew he didn’t deserve. He needed to make things right. “We should start heading south,” he said suddenly.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]She blinked in confusion. “I thought you said-”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“I know what I said. But you were right, we’ll run out of food in three days and we’re still weeks from the border.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“But won’t we get caught?”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“I’ve been thinking about that.” His fingers tapped nervously against the hilt of his sword. “You can’t cross the river during the day, there’s too much merchant traffic to get across without being seen, and that’s entirely apart from the eyes Faulks has watching it.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Her brow furrowed. “You mean we can’t cross the river.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Thomas shook his head. “No, I mean you. You might be able to slip across the water by night, but you can’t swim it. You’ll need a boat, and Faulks knows that. He’ll have a pair of men standing watch over everything that floats from here to Meyer.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Simon passed the skin back to him. “Can he do that?”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“He’s a Herald,” Thomas said with a bitter chuckle. “He could take command of the entire army if he thought it necessary, as long as the Senate didn’t revoke his authority.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“So he can watch the river,” Elizabeth said. “Then how are we supposed to get a boat?”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Thomas hesitated. “I’ll make sure that his men have something more interesting to pay attention to.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Her face darkened with confusion for a few heartbeats before understanding, and anger, dawned over it. “Thomas, no.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]“They won’t catch me,” he lied. “I’ll just make sure they have something more interesting to look at than some family’s moldy fishing skiff. I won’t be able to go with you over to Garrowith, but I won’t wait around long enough to be shut away in some military prison somewhere.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]That part was true, at least. The men on guard along the river would be trained soldiers, not fresh conscripts. A bit of mischief wouldn’t draw them away from their posts, but the capture of one of the fugitives they were after just might. He felt bad, lying to her about the rest, but he truly wouldn’t have to worry about ending up in prison. If Faulks caught him, he’d be swinging from a tree by the end of the day.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Elizabeth shook her head. “I won’t let you do it. There’s too much risk in it.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] “There’s too much risk in this,” he said, standing and waving an arm at the wood. His voice began to rise, but he couldn’t help himself. “What are we going to do, Elizabeth? I don’t know what to do, anymore.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] “And what are we going to do without you?” she said. Anger kindled in her eyes. “We rely on you, Thomas. You’ve brought us this far, much farther than we ever would have gotten on our own. We wouldn’t even have made it out of Hamlin if it weren’t for you.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] “And look at where I’ve brought you,” he said. “Exhausted and starving in the middle of nowhere.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] She fell silent. He knew she didn’t want to blame him for their situation, but that was alright. He had plenty of blame for the both of them. His shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve failed you. You trusted me, and I brought you out here to die.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] “Oh, I don’t know about that,” said a voice from above.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Thomas spun and scanned the hilltop as Elizabeth and Simon scrambled to their feet. A figure stood up, outlined by the light of the sun. Thomas squinted and raised his hand, but his eyes couldn’t pierce the brilliance as the stranger spoke again. “You look healthy enough, to me.”[/FONT]

 

[JoanDrake]

Really very, very good. Clear, exciting and engaging. I am a little confused at Thomas' relation with Simon but I suppose the backstory would make that clear.

I really like the way Thomas is something of a "train wreck". He's clearly not thinking as clearly as he could or coming up with what looks to me as all that workable or even effective of a plan but who would, given the circumstances. He clearly needs help and this new character seems just the one to give it.

I just hope you integrate him believably into the story. You've already demonstrated your hero has feet of clay.

 

[Esfires]

The stranger is an interesting character. He's not going to be around long, but he's going to have a solid impact on the others.

 

[RJM Corbet]

She had placed a faith in him ...

Nice confident narrative

 

[Esfires]

Nice catch. Not sure how one might place a face in another person, but I'm willing to watch someone else try.

 

[HareBrain]

A couple of other catches: "pack form his shoulder" (from), and "face flushed the heat" (missing from or with). Also, the second paragraph repeats "hills" a lot. In the last line of that para, you could leave out hills by writing "It would not be pleasant to climb in this humidity".

Also, that line I think is missing something to be grammatically correct. To say "much less with condition X" you have to first give the situation with the base condition, but although you have implied it, you haven't given it.

It should read:

It would not be pleasant to have to climb the hills in this humidity [in normal circumstances], much less with Elizabeth and Simon in tow.

But you can get out of this by replacing "much less" with "especially".

Not much else to say really. A few lines could perhaps be tightened if you were of a mind to, but it reads very well. And I wonder if his train-wreckedness would come across more strongly if the narrative voice itself reflected this, rather than just his dialogue and the contents of his thoughts. As it stands, the narration seems rather even and calm. For me, matching the narrative style to the POV character's desperate state would give a tighter, closer feel, but that's a style choice you might already have considered and rejected.

 

[Esfires]

The from/form one is something that I do all the time. And worse, since they're both valid words, spellchecker never catches them.


I've experimented with varying my narrative style with different POV's and different situations, but it never turned out well. I've always had a very structured, almost nineteenth-century voice, and I don't think there's much I can do about it.

 

[Bowler1]

I find myself in agreement with, HB. If there was a increase in the pace/tension during the desperate discussion about what to do next it would have pulled me in more. You have very good writing, Esfires and Chrons is the place test run new things out if you're of a mind to try. Otherwise, very nice again and problems the characters face feel real.

 

[Kylara]

Only thing I will say is that although he does seem stressed about it, he could be a little more, bring the reader in even more to really feel the tension that he is feeling, but that is it, it's very good...