(1 rating) Rate this Story (5 best) 1 2 3 4 5

SUMMARY: The first segment of Ghost in Blood, my attempt at a novel of the type I enjoy. Very rough. I would really appreciate feedback/critique.

GHOST IN BLOOD


Prologue


All around the creature attacked, ferociously biting and howling like a rabid animal free to torment a world which had tormented it for too long. Concealed under a bleak, oppressive darkness that reached its smoky tendrils deep into every crevice, the wind ate at foliage and buildings like a famine ravaged child. If you listened closely maybe faint tones of a mocking laugh would pierce the beast's shrill shrieking, but to listen would suggest belief of something darker than even the night herself.
Knowingly the darkness feared what was to come and reflexively the moon shone it's reflected brilliance down onto a shuttered, locked and barred hamlet where a lusty infant expelled his first breath, trumpeting annoyance at the release from his security in the womb. Another, fainter echo of the previous wail quickly impaled the following silence, as in tandem the two lusty new-borns continued to test their mighty lungs on an unexpecting world. In respective reproach a shrill shrieking from outside extinguished the incessant ball as the candles shuttered out, revelling in an inky darkness that caused as much anxiety as inconvenience.
But soon, all too soon, flames reflected off life and death, the bloodied babes heads lying silently in an embrace of life and also off the now unseeing eyes of the woman who was but for a brief few seconds their mother. Tears of joy had little time to mingle with those of grief as thunder quietly echoed off the surrounding hills, curiously the sound rapidly gained intensity yet remained constant, when it soon merged with screams of terror the hamlet's occupants had no time to hide from a very human storm.


Chapter 1-Begin at the beginning

Somewhere on the border between Calashan and Chian , thirty years later

A grim smile snaked quickly across his face, his avatar blade sang as it rose to meet the attacking arc of the horrifically sharp salther sword his enemy carried. The smile emanated from the desperate mien and offensive move of his opponent, all thoughts of balance and defence lost in a single, hopeless strike. Rising up and away from contact the soldier's salther sword offered no threat as Kater's blade splayed the Chian warrior's ribs in a visceral reverse stroke.
As yet another corpse offered itself to the unforgiving muddy hillside, Kater eyed the scene with something bordering on contempt. Thunder rolled across the storm clouded skies as rain fell with intense ferocity, washing away thick red stains that added paradoxically both colour and horror to the morbid scenery. Bodies strewn like a child's toys merited not even a single glance, corpses left unburied maintained whatever position they had been slain in. They too were guilty of creating many more of their kind, such that compassion, the first casualty in every war, was not forthcoming.
Though his trained eye continued to study the disposition of the battle his mind wandered around the teachings of the man who had been his sole friend in this world.