Genghis Khan was of the Wolf Clan. I was alluding to that, but if you’re not a history buff you wouldn’t know.
Sci Fi & Fantasy / Sword Dance
Old Haniel sucked in his breath. The boy was perfect. He had never witnessed such perfection performed in the Sword Dance by
any one before. His every stroke fluid and graceful, every precise move executed with deadly accuracy. He was a marvel to
behold. Old Haniel felt his chest swell with pride. He is my nephew, he thought. And only 16 summers! Soon he can compete in the
Winter Festival, and win it too by the gods! Chuckling to himself, the old woodsman stepped into the glade. The boy’s twin sabers
whirled to a stop.
“Very pretty Sung, very pretty. But pretty sword work won’t stop a Mongol raider, will it?” said Han, arms folded across his chest.
“Uncle Han! You’ve been spying on me! No one’s supposed to see my new routine. I want to surprise the Festival judges. Hopefully
then I can beat Jian.” Grinning widely Sung gripped arms with Han.
“Oh I have no doubt you will win, lad. I have never seen a better sword-dancer in my whole life, and I’ve lived a long one.” Sung
beamed with pride. Uncle Han was a man of few words, and fewer praises. In one swift movement, Sung sheathed his blades. Wiping perspiration off his body, he noticed the old woodsman’s brows were furrowed in thought.
“What’s wrong Uncle? You look troubled. Come with me back to the village. Besides…” he glanced at his feet shyly, “tomorrow I will wed Yun.” Turning in barely concealed excitement Sung gushed, “There will be wine, song and dance tonight! I will not let you miss it!”
Old Han had to grin at his nephew’s excitement. He could see the love and joy shining from Sung’s eyes as he talked on about his beloved Yun. He had watched them grow up together, from childhood playmates to shy lovers, the bond between them growing from friendship to love and to something even more. Old Han could not describe it, but it seemed that when Sung and Yun were together they formed an inseparable whole. He recalled an incident when Yun was still a young girl, and had gone to look for herbs in the forest. She had twisted her ankle and had fallen down a ravine. Somehow Sung had known, and had led a rescue party unerringly to the spot where she had fallen. If there ever was a match made in heaven, Old Han thought, then he has had the pleasure of witnessing one. Ah! To be young and in love again. Then his thoughts darkened.
“I have seen signs of Mongol raiders in the lower hill valleys. It does not bode well. I do not like the thought of those savages sniffing around our mountains.” Old Han confided.
“The last trader that came to our village reported them attacking the plains villages and towns past the Northern Wall, where the pillage is rich… why would they come to our mountains? All we have are goats!” Sung laughed.
“Because these barbarians are never satisfied. They always want more blood. After they have overrun the plains provinces, then who will be next?” said Old Han. “We must take precautions.”
“Put such dreary thoughts aside Uncle, and come enjoy a jug of wine with…” Suddenly Sung clasped his stomach and doubled over in pain.
“What…???!!” Old Han stopped and looked up into the sky. Smoke, great pillars of black smoke were rising into the air ahead of them. “The village!” he shouted, “it’s on fire!”
“Noooo… Yun! She’s hurt!” gasped Sung. He struggled to his feet and started sprinting towards the village. “Wait!” cried the old man, and ran after the boy. As they neared the village, he could hear screams of pain and sounds of battle coming from the village.
The crackling fires cast an eerie glow in the dusk that was settling around them and he could make out battle-armoured barbarians milling around the entrance of the village. With a superhuman effort, Old Han managed to lunge and tackle Sung to the ground, and pulled him into the thick bushes outside the village palisades.
“Shhhhh! Sung! Those are Wolf Clan warriors!” hissed Old Han as he tried to keep the boy down.
“Yun…” groaned Sung. “She … she’s in there!”
“I know boy! We have to warn the other villages! We…” Sung had gone still. Old Han looked down into the eyes of the boy and shivered. The pain was gone, so was that spark of youth and life he had so admired just now. It was replaced by … death. It was not fury or vengeance, it was the look of someone who had lost his reason to live. It was then that Old Han knew he would never see his beloved nephew again.
“You go Uncle. I have to find Yun.” And Sung stood up. Quietly he drew his blades and started walking, slowly, towards the village. “Boy…!” cried Old Han, and he wept.
Sung walked serenely up to the village gates. An Wolf raider left to guard the gates looked up in surprise and died with its throat slashed. Another died before his sword had even cleared his scabbard. He entered the village. The smell of blood and charred corpses was everywhere. Ahead of him, in the middle of the village-square, he saw a huge pile of dead. The raiders were still heaping corpses onto it, preparing a macabre pyre. No one seemed to notice him as he started towards the mound. Then someone somewhere around him let out a bellow of surprise, and suddenly there were Mongol warriors all around him with their axes and blades out. So Sung started to dance.
Like a whirlwind, he tore through the barbarians, his blades slashing, parrying and stabbing relentlessly. In his mind he danced for Yun, a smile on his face as raiders died all around him, unable to penetrate his spinning blades. But for each he killed two took the beast’s place. Sung did not care. They were just obstacles in his path towards Yun. He did not feel pain as their swords slashed his body, nor did he weaken as blood started flowing down his face from a scalp wound and a dozen other places. He just kept on dancing his beautiful dance of death.
A huge, muscular warrior stood between him and the mound, wielding a huge axe as if it was a toy. Grinning at Sung through his mouthful of yellowed teeth, he charged, swinging its axe like a scythe. Sung blocked the axe with his left blade, and felt rather than saw it break in half. Any sane man would have dropped the broken sabre and dived away. Sung let the momentum carry him forward as the axe smashed into his right shoulder, then stabbed the broken sabre into the beast’s throat. He died drowning in his own blood, with a puzzled look on his bestial face. Sung was finally at the mound.
He dropped to his knees and started digging through the pile of dead. A Mongol warrior stepped up behind him, sword raised to finish the job, but stopped as a voice rang out in the press of warriors behind him.
“Leave him be.” The crowd parted to admit a tall, massively muscled Mongol, wearing the mantle of a Khan. “Leave him be!” He repeated in a guttural voice. He and his warriors watched in silence as the youth dug furiously through the corpses.
Sung was oblivious to everything around him. “Yun…” he kept mouthing her name. Then he found her, near the bottom of the pile, her beautiful eyes wide open in death, and her hand still clutching the small knife he had made for her last summer. She had died from a spear wound through her stomach, but she had died fighting. Cradling her body, Sung threw back his head in a cry of pain and anguish that echoed in the still mountain air. The blood from his scalp wound dripped onto his beloved’s face as he closed her eyes, forming tears that ran down her fair cheek. Slowly he laid her body down, then stood up. He turned, gripping his blades, even the broken one. “Come,” he smiled. “Let’s dance.”
The boy killed ten more seasoned warriors in single combat before finally dying. The leader of the Mongol war-band, before he left, ordered a shrine built, dedicated to the memory of the sword-dancer and his love. Here the Mongols buried the couple, and Sung’s blades with him. The raiders left the mountain tribes and villages alone after that incident. They felt that if one boy could kill twenty-two veteran warriors in defense of a dead loved one, the price of invading the rest of the tribes would be too costly to justify. They turned instead towards the soft lowland cities.
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Elim121 reviewed Version 1 -
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revanwithin reviewed Version 1 -
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I enjoyed reading this. It was interesting, entertaining, well-written, and also heart-wrenching. I only have a few fixes to point out.
“And only 16 summers!” (I think you should write out ‘sixteen’, instead of using the number itself)
“You go Uncle.” (A comma is needed before ‘Uncle’. Punctuation should always surround the adressee in dialogue)
“An Wolf raider left to guard the gates” (That should be ‘a Wolf Raider’, not ‘an’)
And that’s all I really have to say, except good job.
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JTstories reviewed Version 1 -
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The opening paragraph uses too many “He” and “His” pro-nouns. In a couple places it takes a small bit of effort for the reader to distinguish whether the He refers to Old Haniel or the boy. Even though a reader can still understand what you are trying to say after a little bit of thought there is still a slight delay in the flow of the story because of the required pause in action while the reader thinks it through.
You want your story to flow as smoothly as possible, even the smallest distraction will weakenyour work.
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It seems overly common for fantasy writers to refer to summers and winters when parsing out years and months and seasons. The issue here is that it makes your story seem too commonplace. Common wording and common descriptions will often keep readers from being fully absorbed into a story because there is a part of their brain that realizes they’ve seen this all before.
The same can be said about statements like “by the gods!” and “beamed with pride” “one swift movement” etc. They are too common.
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Consider splitting up the sentence:
“Oh I have no doubt you will win, lad. I have never seen a better sword-dancer in my whole life, and I’ve lived a long one.” Sung
beamed with pride.
Into something like this:
“Oh I have no doubt you will win, lad. I have never seen a better sword-dancer in my whole life.” Sung said with pride. “And I’ve lived a long one.”
Although it still isn’t perfect this will help readers see that the pride he feels is for his nephews swordmanship and not the fact he has lived a long time. The first sentence comes out sounding a bit ambiguous.
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“Wiping persperation off his body” What is he using to wipe himself, and what part of his body is being wiped? I sure hope it isn’t his buttcrack or something hehe. Try to paint a more vivid picture for us.
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Many of the issues I listed above carry over into the rest of the work. You do have the ability to tell a lucid story, and you did a fine job with spelling and punctuation. I think what needs the most work is simply your choice of descriptives, try not to use descriptions we’ve all seen used before over and over, like bladesmans that kill in a ‘whirlwind’ of swords etc.
Also, if you do a google search for “Wolf Clan” you’ll get over 88,000 hits. Just about every beginning fantasy novelist has one.. Try to call them something new :p
JustGeneric reviewed Version 1 -
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I really enjoyed this story alot. Most people do appreciate a tragic love story though. :) I love that you used the word “guttural”. It’s such an awesome descriptive word. My only real complaint is that the story seemed rushed and sort of…incomplete. If this were expanded on and maybe if a little more background were provided on the characters, this would be one kick ass story! I think you have the foundation of a brilliant work of art here. I also like it because it reminded me of some anime stories I’ve read, and I love anime. Thanks for sharing!
ckbailey reviewed Version 1 -
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as i read this story, i couldn’t help but imagine it as an animated cartoon. perhaps this tale could be effective if well-rendered in that format, but as a piece of writing it doesn’t really connect. the characters seem stock, stereotypes we’ve seen many times before. the attempts to involve the reader emotionally are rote and fall flat because the characters don’t have any true human dimension. the descriptive passages are also a bit lacking at times; for instance:”... (he) stabbed the broken sabre into the beast’s throat. he died…with a puzzled look on his bestial face.” it seems a bit redundant to use the adjective “bestial” right after referring to the character as a “beast”; seems like you could find another way to put it. i also noticed that when referring to the mongols, the subject wavers between “he” and “it”, sometimes in the same sentence. so, are they persons or not?
i think this story could be salvaged with more a more attention to character and less cliched dialogue and description.
hesir reviewed Version 1 -
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Hi,
I enjoyed that… The plot is tight and I like he idea of the Mongol warriors building a shrine to honour a revered enemy.
I’d liked to have read more of the characters dress/armour and appearance in general. You seemed to have concentrated on the emotive content of the story, and left the idiosyncrasies of the scenery and the smells and sounds to the readers imagination.
One more thing that might have made it all the more poignant could have been if you set it on the actual day of the wedding… perhaps our hero is practising his dance in a moment of private contemplation before he marries… That is why his uncle is there… to take him back to the festivity.
Anyway, enjoyable none the less.
Cheers,
h.
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