Sci Fi & Fantasy / Through the Sandspills (Analysis)
Nobu set out along the Sandspills with his father to learn the Dying Way. He knew nothing of the way himself, nor how it was to be taught. All he knew was that it was the only path he could take, his father gave him no other choice.
Before they left the city of Nigura his father presented him with a black palfrey that was more beast than horse, an empty canister of water, and a Kata blade that stood at half Nobu’s height.
The desert valley was a harsh road, travelled mostly by Daimos during the Pilgrimages or smugglers and thieves looking to hide themselves. Tall black mountains rose up on either side of them making the sand more sand-pool than path. The heat burned his face and each breath he took had sand in it. His eyes dripped from squinting, his tongue dried up, and at times the thirst was so fierce he found himself licking the sweat off of his palms.
Nobu was led by a trail of sand and dust kicked up by the black palfrey his father rode upon and the occasional grunt from Amado telling him to go this way or that. Was this silence a part of the training? Nobu wondered. Or did Amado look at Nobu like most others- as a meager little boy with a coward’s wits. He could be sure, he had known his father but ten days before the voyage began.
“I’m thirsty,” Nobu said gliding a finger along his baked lips. His father said nothing. They hadn’t drank since Worm’s Wind, and his stomach felt twisted and wizened. The mid-afternoon haze was a thick purple soup cloud and the sand winds picked up as they moved deeper into the valley. Often one of the winds would crash against Nobu almost knocking him off his horse each time with a hot and heavy shove.
The Hakama he wore made the voyage all the worse. It was not a desert garb, but a Daimos outfit his father had insisted he wear before leaving Hadu. The Hakama was thick, nothing like the thin fabrics the Worry-ladies clothed him in back at the Cloisture. It hung heavy on him, gathering an irritating layer of sweat.
It was another hour before his father spoke.
“We will drink at the Desert’s Foot,” he said without looking back at Nobu.
The Way dictated that they could only travel by two. The Damo warrior took on a single pupil of their choosing, unless the Cloisture granted them a true born son. Nobu had always known his father would come to take him from the towers to learn of the Way, yet everything had happened so quickly.
When his father arrived in Nigura Nobu was told to leave all of his belongings with the Garissa and part with the women at once. When he met Amado for the first time, Nobu had expected his father to take him aside, to hug him and ask him of his life in the Cloisture. He imagined them sitting before a moonlit desert fire listening to stories of his father’s victories in the Battle of Kujo. Nobu wanted to know about the fall of the Heiji, or the Daimos of the Six Swords, of the Tea Trials, or the Black Sunset. Yet for Nobu, his father had silence. This was not at all the man Nobu expected to train under. This was not the way he thought the Dying Way was supposed to be.
As they continued to trod through the endless regs within the Sandspills, dusk came over them and brought forth a strange and searing wind that frightened Nobu. He felt alone for the first time in his life, far from the maids and ladies who cared for him within the walls of the Cloisture. The silence of the desert night was so sad it forced Nobu to wonder if there was any hope for getting to know his father at all.
As a Shajo Daimos, Amado held great responsibilities. His mother warned him of the man. Though she had only known him a single night, she warned Nobu of a harsh, hardened man. HIs leadership over the Hadu province were well known all over Ryuon. Amado was the man that united the warring tribes in Hadu under a single Daimos. He was reputed for hanging a hundred traitors during the Black Sunset, and at Kujo had put another hundred to their deaths by his own sword, so it was said. Nobu had never killed a single man, and the sword he now wore still felt heavy and awkward dangling at his waist.
As they continued to tread through the endless ergs within the Sandspills, dusk came over them and brought forth a strange and searing wind that frightened Nobu.
He felt alone for the first time in his life, far from the maids and ladies who cared for him within the walls of the Cloisture. Mother, he thought. Mommy, mom, mama, mother.
I am a man now, a student of the Way, he thought to himself. I have to force him to see it. He scoffed off his thirst and rode ahead to join his father’s side as the night and dust continued to encircle them. When the moon had revealed herself at last, Amado slowed his horse and turned to Nobu.
“Can you hear the water?” he asked through the darkness. “Your grandfather used to call it the Maiden’s Song.” Nobu had never heard words so sweet.
“I hear it,” Nobu said, although in truth he heard nothing but his mount’s ragged breath. As they moved deeper into the chasm, Nobu began to blink in and out of consciousness. He had never rode so far from the city and the day was beginning to take its toll on him.
When he looked up again after a long doze, Amado was gone. His father had slipped off into the darkness, and Nobu looked around in a panic and frantically galloped into the sea of black sand before him. “Father,” he yelled, “where did you go?”
There was no reply.
Nobu held his breath and tried once more to listen for the river. He wondered if this was some test for the Dying Way, or had he just gotten separated from Amado? Getting lost in the Sandspills was nothing if not terrifying. The narrow valley between the mountains was actually a series of a thousand sand ridden basins with paths branching in every direction. A man could easily lose himself forever if he took a wrong turn. Stupid fool, mother warned you not to sleep until Amado said to.
It was another ten minutes before he at last heard the river. When he neared the crying water he saw a glimmer of moonlight shining along the back of some animal- a horse, he noticed as he got closer. His father’s palfrey stood over the river drinking.
“Father,” Nobu called out. “Where are you?”
Again, there was no response. Nobu slid off his horse, his groin burning from the long days ride. His knees were so sore he fell to the ground immediately and huffed in a breath of sand. He tried to spit it out but his mouth was too dry, so he crawled to the river and began to drink madly from the water.
“It may not be the best time for a drink,” a voice said from behind him. It was Amado. Nobu turned his head toward his father like a scolded dog and looked up at the man. Amado stood cross-armed above him, with a solid frown painted on his moonlit face. “There’s blood in the river tonight.”
Nobu nearly gagged as he jumped up from his hands and knees to stand before Amado. The shame of drinking like an animal from the river and the thought of swallowing bloody water at once made him nauseous. His father ignored it however, and continued walking through the darkness.
“Shouldn’t we light a torch, father?” Nobu asked.
“What torch?” the man replied. Surely he cannot see in this darkness, the moon barely squints upon us.
“What kind of blood is this?” Nobu asked, knowing it was a stupid question.
“A man’s blood, not yet finished its pour,” Amado said stepping into the river and letting it wash over his fingers. He began to walk upstream, his shadow moving in and out of the moonlight, ducking down over and over again to feel the river.
Nobu followed along the river-line as best he could. The ground here was more stoney than sand, and he tripped a few times and fell onto his elbows. The day’s ride had taken more out of him than any other feat, and Nobu was paying the price.
At last, Amado stopped and reached deep into the river, this time when his hands emerged from the water they held something, something heavy. Amado carried the thing up a small ghat that had been built along the riverbank and laid it on the sand. Nobu knew what it was before he reached his father.
The body was barely visible in the darkness, but Nobu could see the shape of limbs, the smooth surface of leather armor around its torso.
Amado’s hands moved swiftly along the corpse until it found a small object that had been girt around its leg. He pulled at the object and the thing caught in the moonlight instantly. A Shoto. Amado examined it thoroughly.
“Do you know who this is, father?” Nobu asked.
It was a long time before his father replied. He seemed mesmerized by the dead man’s blade, cautiously examining its engravings in the moonlight.
“This is a Daimos,” he said at last.
The words were cold and brought more silence. A Daimos could not easily be killed, save by another Daimos. Should the killer still be near the river, they could both be in danger.
His father seemed to hear his thoughts, and drew his sword.
“Here is a lesson. Don’t move, don’t cry,” he said. Amado was gone then, a shadow within the darkness.
The air seemed to instantly grow cold and the river ran louder. Nobu strained to listen for some sound, some movement, but when he did hear a faint splash in the water he sank to his knees trembling for fear that it was the Daimos’ murderer.
The waiting felt long, though it was only a few minutes before his father returned. Nobu noticed his father was short for breath and wheezing as he neared. How far did he go? Nobu wondered.
“We are alone,” Amado said, “Whoever did this has fled through the river. I cannot track him.”
Nobu was relieved. Amado turned and began to rip palegrass from the riverbed. “Go to my horse and get the flint and steel shard. The first thing any Daimos needs to do is learn to make fire.”
An hour later they sat eating and warming along the fire. They had wrapped the dead man in dry clothes and lay atop the flames and Nobu watched and ate silently as the fire melted away the leather scales of his armor and licked at the man’s flesh with a song of crackle and hiss.
They ate dried fish, cheese, and black bread with a bottle of pale wine Amado had found upstream amongst the dead man’s belongings. Not much else had been of use. The killer had taken the man’s sword, food, and mount. Nobu was permitted a thick woolen blanket found amongst the possessions but Amado insisted the Shoto and everything else be given to the flames.
His father seemed disinterested in both the man on the flames and the boy sitting with him. Nobu had heard of the great feasts that were had when a Daimos died, but supper in front of a burning man gave an odd taste to the food. When he finished his meal, Amado sat quietly and polished his Odachi blade.
Nobu watched his father as he finished his meal. Amado was a broad shaped man with muscles that filled out his Hidori. His skin was the brown of baked clay from all his desert riding and his hair hung in a single black tail behind him, straight and thick. The eyes that gazed upon the fire looked both predatory and serene. Nobu noticed his father had a slowness about him; a pace that gathered calm during that strange campfire scene and warded them from danger. Sitting next to a burning dead man, Amado was at peace.
When you kill so many, perhaps you lose your ability to feel for the dead, Nobu thought to himself as he chewed on some bread.
“Who was he?” Nobu asked, watching the smoke from the pyre join the clouds. “Did you know him?”
“I did,” Amado said. “He was…a friend. His name was Rusai, and he was from the Yuso province. We once travelled to Dardia together, with some others, chasing after the Ghost Knight. Rusai was much older than I, he served as an advisor to Emperor Heiji as well as Emperor Yejojisa.”
“How could Rusai serve both? Yejojisa killed all of Heji’s Daimos in the war,” Nobu said.
“Not all. To kill a Daimos is a terrible thing. After Yejojisa took control of Ryuon, each Daimos was given trial. Rusai was one of the few whom the Emperor still thought useful.”
Nobu was confused. He knew so little about the history of Ryuon, and less about the Fall of the Heiji. It was a time of many deaths, a war against the Dark Tribe of Heiji people. Ryuon was said to bathe itself in blood every generation, it was called Blood Born. Nobu himself knew nothing of death. When a woman of the Cloister died, she was wrapped up and taken away, and naught would be spoken of her from then on as if she had never existed.
“When we arrive in Kadori, we will tell the Council of this at once. We do not know if the killer was traveling west, like us, or east. Whoever the killer is, he is a danger to the Realm.” The thought made Nobu shiver.
At that, his father stood and walked over to the fire. He held his sword before the flames and spoke words in a language that Nobu did not understand. Some of the flames dared to lick at Amado’s wrists, but he did not seem to notice. The words sounded ancient and beautiful, and yet there was a sadness to them, some old and long forgotten tone. To sit and watch a man that only hours ago walked the lands, and spoke, and breathed at once became unbearable. Nobu began to sob and Amado’s silence after the prayer made him weep all the louder until the tears gave way to sleep.
When he awoke, stars hung bright over the sky. Nobu could hear the fire’s crackle and the sound of the horses breathing softly upon the desert river. When he turned, Amado sat beside the fire, still looking out beyond the desert.
“Son,”he said. How does he know I am awake? Nobu thought. “You must not be so sorrowful with the dead.”
“I can’t help it,”
“This is the Way. A man who clings to life, lives only to lose it. You’ll find only sufferers upon any other path. The Daimos do not care for life, no more than we care for pebbles or fallen leaves or sand. We seek out Death. We pray for it.”
Nobu was scared. He began to shiver under a blanket his father had covered him in and said nothing. I must not cry again.
“Look at this desert,” Amado continued, “So many times have I crossed it. This is dead land. Nothing lives in the Sandspills; here death surrounds us.” He pointed to the river. “But look. In front of us, life. Her water is the most nourishing in Ryuon, her flesh is cool and pure.”
Nobu closed his eyes.
“The Dying Way is the true way. When you learn to pray for death, only then will you be of any use in this world. Only then will you be able to protect our people. Do you understand?” Nobu was afraid to speak, everything he thought of seemed so foolish. To pray for death was unnatural, to live a life seeking only your own end seemed so pointless and futile. Nobu said nothing and lay back upon the sand and fell asleep leaving his father’s first question unanswered.
When he awoke the next morning, the grass-fire had burned out and the dead man’s body was gone.
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was that it was the only path he could take,-pg.1 You need to close the space between “was” and “the”
He could be sure, he had known his father but ten days before the voyage began.- Did you mean couldn’t be sure?
As they continued to tread through the endless ergs within the Sandspills, dusk came over them and brought forth a strange and searing wind that frightened Nobu.
He felt alone for the first time in his life, far from the maids and ladies who cared for him within the walls of the Cloisture. Mother, he thought. Mommy, mom, mama, mother.- You mention this twice on pg.3
These were a few things that I found. Over all I thought this was a good read. Very convincing. I saw several sentences that could use commas, but didn’t want to waste your credits putting them on here. Nice work. Good luck and thanks for the opportunity to review.
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This was good. I’d read more. You do a great job with the characterization. I feel like I know both characters. I liked how gradually Amado starts giving us more and more information.
Good opening line. Pulls the reader right in and the starts right in the middle of the
action.
“the sand more sand-pool” Not sure what you mean by this.
“and each breath he took had sand in it.” and with each breath he took in sand.
“His eyes dripped from squinting,” I’m not sure how squinting could make your eyes drip.
“Nobu was led by” Nobu followed a
“from Amado” Who’s Amado. So far you have painted a picture of Nobu traveling with his father. Mention Amado earlier or it will seem like he materialized out of thin air. Or is Amado the father? If Amado is the father the way it’s phrased sounds like Amado is telling the father where to go.
“He could be sure, he had known his” Did you mean, ‘He couldn’t be sure, he had only known
“his stomach felt twisted and wizened.” I think it takes more than a few hours for your stomach to shrivel up.
“The mid-afternoon haze was a thick purple soup cloud” Suggestion, ‘The mid-afternoon sky was thick with a purple haze
“each time with a hot and heavy shove.” Delete this part.
“ Nigura Nobu” Nigura, Nobu
“Yet for Nobu, his father had silence.” Awkward
How old is Nobu?
“province were” was
“Amado was the man that united” Amado had united
“endless ergs” I’m not sure what you mean here. An erg is a unit of energy. Is this what they measure distance with?
“His father ignored it” Ignored what? How would his father know he felt nauseous.
“small ghat” I don’t know what this is. Could you describe it. I’m guessing it’s a Japanese word.
“lay atop” laid him atop
Unless they’re used to the smell of burning flesh I would think it would be difficult to eat. Also they’d need a really big fire to burn a body. How would they find enough fuel for a fire that size in the desert?
“stood and walked over to the fire.” Earlier you said they were warming themselves by the fire, how can he then get up and walk over to the fire?
“began to sob” seems like a rather strong reaction over someone he never knew. He would be shocked and saddened over the loss of a human life, but I don’t know about sobbing.
I’m not sure if this is the best place to end the chapter.
Here are a few points:
Why “the” Nigura city? “Desert” throughout.
There are a few instances where i think I know what you mean – but then I realise I dont. E.g. The dessert valley path was a harsh one, even by early morning. Now the ‘even’.. should qualify it, but doesnt. If its because its cooler in the morning say so – although what difference would that make to a ‘path’? A journeys comfort, yes. Whats the sense of pool in “making the road more of a pool”?
Wizened?
Often “one” of the winds?
Pruritic?
The way dictated that they could only travel by two? Is the ‘Way’? Travel in pairs?
The para “Nobu had known his father but ten days … Yet for Nobu, his father had silence” could probably come sooner, e.g. when Nobu thinks about the silent father earlier.
What are “”endless regs”?
‘Tales’ are not ‘legendary’. The sword does not feel ‘laborious’. Who “began to blink..”?
‘sea of black sand’ do you mean its black because its night? on a black surface- a horse. Is confusing. Sounds as if its the water. ‘walking through the darkness’ – surely moonlight?
‘Something big’ really doesnt suggest a body – and so is misleading. “but still reluctant to return to the river and finish his drink. It was full of blood, anyhow.” Seems very out of place
“He knew so little about the history of Ryuon” is at odds with Nobus earlier blythe comments. “To sit and watch a man.. was unbearable” The man is a corpse and Nobu never saw / knew him?
Overall I found it a bit confusing and not entirely convincing in parts. It need a bit of tightening of the Boy vs the Man in thought and deed.
his stomach felt twisted and wizenED.
“The mid-afternoon haze had grown purple and gloomy and the heat grew as well.” in this sentence you use grown and grew, the same verb, to describe two different things. Two different verbs meaning close to the same thing increases the quality of your writing.
His hakama drew in drew in the heat. got a repetition there
pruritus? the spell check doesn’t even recognize it. using a varied vocabulary is one thing but using a word almost no one’s ever heard before sticks out in a bad way. plus pruritus is a noun. you should have used pruritic. ahem.
whelp, as a verb, means to give birth, most often used with dogs. you use to describe the action of making a sound. I’m seeing a lot of questionable word choices. like confess. you confess to something you’ve done, not something you’re pretending to know. it doesn’t fit the context.
well, besides the above, you’ve painted a pretty good picture. The text flows smoothly for the most part, and the characters seem realistic in their own reality. It could have used some action, but the writing makes up for it. The dialog fits well, also.
This is a good story, good beginning, strong characterisation and strong visual imagery. However, the style of writing I found stilted. There is the introduction of a new(ish) culture and with that I think the storytelling has to be clearer and dare I say it, simpler. Most of this I think will come with revising the story a few times, but I’m asking if you need to tell this story with words like ‘pruritus’, ‘brought forth’ and ‘naught’ and whether the language has to steeped in the past when the imagery and new context/culture already does so?
Then a few points: spelling of desert not dessert; a bleeding tongue would not react at all well to salty sweat; the cloisture granted – tense ; and sitting in front of a burning dead body, having dinner- sorry without an accelerant, that’s a pretty big and fairly unpleasant fire to sit in front of.
I think there is a really good story here, I question the choice of the language used in telling it.
Cheers.
There are some real nice things about this. The world building seems to be strong, though it’s hard to say how well you’ll flesh it out this early. The hints at things are very good, though, and got me interested in more. The writing is clean for the most part. There was some use of larger words early on that seemed unnecessary. Too much effort. The plot seems a little cliche at this point, but it might be you do different things with it later. The Dying Way, for instance, seems very different from some of the fantasy I’ve read before, but the set up and the way you treat it in these first pages is not. I think the only thing you need to be careful of is that, is falling into things that have already been done to death in fantasy. And the writing needs to be tightened. It is interesting, though. There’s a lot there.
Straight off I’m not a big fan of overly fussy adjectives that you use here and there, (and I mean ‘overly fussy’ in the sense that there is a much more obvious adjective to use that will get meaning across more effectively). It can make writing seem pretentious, your readers won’t know what you mean, and it will make it seem like you sat there with a thesaurus next to you trying to make your writing sound more intellectual. On this last point, this may or may not be the case, but it is what I imagine when I read words like ‘pruritus’. Why not just say ‘itchy’?! And ‘burdensome’ – this is okay, but it might be better to just say heavy.
Nobu had known his father but ten days before they began the shameful voyage.
Yet for Nobu, his father had silence.
This was not at all the man Nobu expected to train under.
The word order in these sentences is wrong. If you read them outloud in a very melodramatic Shakespearean or Lord of the Rings style narrator voice they sound okay, but they are not good English. Are you writing in this way to give your story a sense of gravitas and otherworldliness? If so, I’d advise you to restrict such langauge to dialogue between characters, not narration. Corrections:
“Nobu had only known his father for ten days before they began the shameful voyage.”
”..., yet his father did not speak to him.” (Don’t begin a sentence with Yet or But if you can help it)
“This was not the man Nobu was expecting to train under.”
The silence of the dessert night - as a geography teacher I always enjoy this one – it’s ‘desert’, otherwise it means pudding, as in cheesecake, or jelly and icecream!
“What torch?” the man replied. Surely he cannot see in this darkness, the moon barely squints upon us. - I’m not sure about the moon squinting. Squinting is too associated with eyes. I think I understand what you mean – there’s barely any light from the moon – but it would be better put…
“there is hardly any light from the moon.”
You also need to seperate Nobu’s thought onto its own line and add a reference so we know that this is a thought. You are right not to punctuate it as with dialogue though…
“What torch?” the man replied. [why ‘the man’ – it is his father is it not?]
Surely he cannot see in this darkness, Nobu thought, there is hardly any light from the moon.”
On second thoughts, why mention the moon at all? You’ve already said it was dark. The reader will assume that means no moon.
Amado’s hands moved swiftly along the corpse until it found a small object that had been girt around its leg. - overly fussy adjective again! Why not just say ‘tied’?! I’m not even sure ‘girt’ is used correctly here since it means to moor (as a boat) or to bind and encircle (like a bandage or swaddling on a baby), whereas here you seem to mean more that something has been tied around his leg. Unless you mean it was strapped to his leg with a more complete binding, but if so, why not just say ‘strapped’?!
The dead man lay atop [urgh! Not keen on ‘atop’ – too Biblical or Shakepearean] the flames, melting away his armor and licking away at his flesh with a song of crackles and hissing. – this is a bit gross and doesn’t work for a variety of reasons. Firstly no one would do this – find a corpse and then use it on their campfire. Not even the bad guys. Why? Because a wet corpse would not burn, it would smoulder and smoke and be highly unpleasant to sit near. Secondly, given this wet smouldering corpse, or even without it, the fire would not be hot enough to melt armour. Think of a blacksmiths and how how they make their furnace, then they leave the steel/iron in it for ages and when it comes out it’s glowing, not melting. In fact I just looked it up – the campfire would have to be around 1400 degrees C to melt steel. Unless they’re burning napalm, the fire wouldn’t be nearly hot enough.
“Son,”he said. How does he know I am awake? Nobu thought. “You must not be so sorrowful with the dead.”
- again, Nobu’s thought needs to be on its own line.
Is this going to be the first chapter? If so I have issues with the amount of back story you have here. Back story is so dull to read, it should be left for later when the reader is well and truly hooked onto the story, and emotionally attached to the characters. There is not a lot of back story here, but there is enough to make this chapter seem a little passive in style (because you are constantly talking about past events), and by the end I was left feeling like not much had happened (in the present that is). It was more eventful towards the end, but there was still a lot of internal monologue about Nobu’s feelings about his father. I would be inclined to make your first chapter a real action packed suspenseful page turner, focused on Nobu. This difficult relationship he has with his father is not a great way to open the story. It is something you can hint at in this chapter through dialogue and actions (which you do anyway), and which develops in later chapters, as you impart bits of back story piece by piece.
One thing I liked was that you resisted the temptation to describe everything and were happy to drop in terms like Shoto without then describing it and saying what it was for. I have no idea what it is for or what it looks like, but I don’t need to know really, and what’s more I don’t care, so you were right to leave it at that! These key terms give your story a cultural basis and a more realistic setting.
The environment was also quite clear in my head and you didn’t labour the writing with excessive description.
The main issues I think you need to tidy up are overly complicated adjectives and strange sentence structures, but also give some thought over the pacing of your chapters too. There’s nothing like backstory to kill of my enthusiasm for a story!
Nobu set out along the Sandspills with his father Amado to learn the Dying Way. He knew nothing of the way himself, nor how it was to be taught. All he knew was that it was the only path he could take; Amado gave him no other choice.
Good beginning.
I don’t have much to say, but I’ll over this, get a thesarus and try to make the words more intresting, trap your reader in the story so they are helpless to stop.
within the darkness. The air seemed
No space.
It was good, I just didn’t find the need to keep reading, I didn’t feel that pull.
Certainly an interesting and unique piece.
You sound like you’ve really done your research into the stories and history that this piece focusses on. It seemed that there was a lot of reference to the life and code of the Samurai in the piece. The nobility and honour found here is refreshing since it is such a rare thing to see nowadays.
The character of Nobu is interesting in the ‘lived in an ivory tower’ kind of way. Here is a young individual who has known very little of the cruelty of the world yet must now face its diisturbing reality head on. He finds fear and confusion not only in the journey but also in the events of the evening. For a person who has never experienced death or has had it ‘sugar coated’ this brings many unnerving feelings forward.
He seems very uncertain of the world around him and of the father before him. His life seems to have been one of seclusion and innocence and now he must learn the Dying Ways from a father who barely acknowledges him. To be more or less thrown into a situation such as this must play heavily on his fear of the unknown, and you have done well to express that in the feelings Nobu has towards his father.
Amado certainly seems to embody the code of the Samurai in its truest form. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Work for that perfect honourable death. It almsot makes you feel like you would trust him. He will protect that which is important, yet if the time ever came where he could no longer protect it then he would destroy it to give it honour and maintain his own.
The Dying Ways training sounds like a right of passage for Nobu. Learning the ways of the sword and the world and how to survive and die well within it. It would certainly be interesting to learn more of what is involved with these lessons.
One thing I would like to see more of in the description of the characters. I wouldn’t have known that I was reading a piece derived from Japanese history if I hadn’t read the notes at the top. The Samurai were known for grandness with their armour and weapons. Maybe put some description in regarding these aspects. Help the reader see the detail on the armour and swords.
Also a little more description of Nobu himself would go a long way I think. It’s not really clear on the age of the individual, physical appearance, similarities to his father etc.
A very, very interesting beginning.
’...kicked up by the black palfrey his father rode upon and the occasional grunt from Amado…’ Amado and his father are one and the same, correct? If so theis scene could be made much clearer that there are only the two and not a third person present….’...by the black palfrey his father, Amado, rode upon…’
‘His Hakama drew in drew in…’ Ooops ;)
I like the little flash to what Nobu expected meeting his father would be like; and the harsh contrast to that in reality. I still don’t understand why it was considered a ‘shameful voyage’, though?
‘“I hear it,” Nobu confessed, although in truth he heard nothing…’ I see that he is trying to please his father here, but a confession implies something of the truest intent. Nobu was not being truthful….perhaps, ’”I hear it,” Nobu lied; in reality he heard nothing…’
‘Surely he cannot see in this darkness, the moon barely squints upon us.’ Nice line! Effective and good imagery :)
‘“This is a Daimos,” he said at last. The words were cold and were followed by another silence. A Daimos could not easily be killed, save by another Daimos. Should the killer still be near the river, they could both be in danger.’ The thoughts of one man should not be contained in the same paragraph as the dialogue of another. Seperate Nabu’s thoughts from his fathers words; it will remain much clearer whose POV we are closer to.
‘“We are alone,” Amado said, “Whoever did this has fled through the river. I cannot track him.” Nobu was relieved, but…’ Same as above; I will quit pointing them out, you get the idea now I hope :)
‘Daimos needs to is learn to make fire.” ’ to do?
‘The dead man lay atop the flames, melting away his armor and licking away at his flesh…’ As this reads, it is an incomplete sentence. If you were to change it right at the comma, it would help…’...atop the flames which melted his armor and licked at his flesh…’
You did a really good job creating your world and rules and I am interested in knowing more, so good job on suspense.
I like Nobu’s reaction to death as being the opposite of his fathers refreshing. I wonder will he change his mind during his training or always remain so rebellious? It leaves open doors for you to toy with the plot and character’s coming of age.
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