So continues the tale of Sigeas and his mother. The characters, only known as victims of a devastating attack prior to this section of the story, are developed more fully. Furthermore, the gap between the story's main quest and the aftermath of the Thalnion invasion is here bridged. If possible, I'd like feedback on a few things: 1) Are the details of the land overdone, strong, or lacking? 2) Is the dialogue between Sigeas and his mother realistic and interesting? 3) Is the aftermath of the invasion of Faseton satisfying (this is the portion that focuses on Sigeas's mother's escape from the village)?
The better part of a year had passed since that night, but the images were not simply memories to Sigeas; they were palpable, unfaltering projections of the mind, reminders of unabashed demolition and a pilfered childhood. He shouldered his mother’s weatherworn bag and attempted to press the images from his mind as he descended a grassy dune leading to a basin of sand and maroon foliage. In the east, at his left shoulder, strips of cloud smoldered crimson above the unseen sea, awaiting the moon’s hike ere departing from the world’s stage. Beyond his other shoulder, the sun began its ponderous deliquescence against the mountainous western horizon. Sigeas trudged across the spread of sand with drooping eyelids, thumbing the scar that had formed on his side. A breeze that flitted from the sea nestled itself in the basin and tossed his hair in every direction. As was his wont in the months since his escape, he cast a glance over his shoulder to check for trackers from the Thalnion army; there was no one in sight, save for his mother.
Even after numerous rest stops at arbitrary cities along their route, his mother’s present appearance did not widely differ from that upon their exodus from Faseton. Her face was smeared with dirt; her hair was stiff and unkempt; her clothes were ragged symbols of her impoverishment; her eyes, roofed with fear, were still founded upon hope. The only difference was one that could not be overlooked: her stomach protruded ripely against her worn, stretched surcoat, heavy with child. Each step that she took was measured and laborious; Sigeas often had to guide her in difficult terrain and, when she followed, verify that she had not toppled or slipped. She traveled with at least one hand beneath her abdomen, ensuring greater balance. Although they did not travel every day, or for any extended period on the days that they did travel, Sigeas marveled at her ability to journey at all; within four to five months of their escape from Faseton, her belly had grown bulbous. Now, about nine months in, she would give birth any day now. They had traveled over fifty leagues southeast of their hometown; on the final ten leagues east to the city of Ai-Tizuj, his mother insisted, they would have a new travel companion and family member.
The sand melted away into grassland beneath their gradual procession. After a mile or so, the rolling dunes extending from the northern beach morphed into the verdant knolls that characterized the eastern parts of the country of Glaciath. As they crested each hill, they could see a jaw of land clamping around a semicircle of undulating sea, forming the southern border of Gulf of Teriqa on their left. The sun had now liquefied completely against the teeth of the Feirlos-Mirdas Mountains, painting brilliant streaks of pink fire across the sky and the eastern waters, but leaving the travelers with perhaps an hour to find adequate flatland or a hillside nook to set up camp. Sigeas and his mother made note of an abnormal tree bowing elastically toward a huddle of stones, and from this base wandered to find an appropriate area of shelter. The long arms of the hills seemed to force them west, away from their desired goal; but it was not long before they descended a slope and discovered a small cluster of trees and a jagged crown of bronze boulders, large enough to shelter them from wind. Sigeas took his mother’s hand and guided her to a rather flat stone, then helped her sit and went about setting up camp, staking off an area beside the boulders with shaved branches that were bundled against the back of his mother’s belt during the day. As he drove one of the posts into the earth with a rock, she began to laugh.
“Why in the gods’ names are you laughing, Mother?” he asked her, irritation sweeping over his face.
“Why do you think I laugh?”
“Probably because you know as well as I do that I’ll never build a shelter any sane person would sleep under.”
“That’s nonsense, Sigeas. Where do you get this from?”
He shook his head and hammered the branch farther into the ground. “Remember my first shelter, two leagues south of home? Me neither. It blew away during the night. And the one a month later? All four of the posts managed to fling themselves directly onto my head. There wasn’t a breeze that night, by the way.”
A warm smile spread over his mother’s face. “That is hilarious, but no, that isn’t why I was laughing.” She gestured toward the west. “Can you see it?”
“What are we looking at?” Sigeas quit his work on the post and came to her side. On the western border of his vision there snaked a massive flame, rising before the hazy outlines of buildings. “A city! If we begin now, we can make it there within the hour!”
“I’m afraid not,” she replied, brushing a hand across her stomach. “Even if I had the energy to walk there, we would spend most of our journey in the dark.”
“We have supplies to make a fire.” Sigeas’s furrowed eyebrows indicated his intractability. “We could use one of these wooden posts as a torch.”
“A quest to Harvidol would just add more miles to our long trek. We sleep here tonight, and then continue east in the morning.”
“East?” The young man looked again at the western city, and then into the bluing eastern sky. “Then Harvidol must be the capital of Glaciath. You said the capital was directly west of Ai-Tizuj.”
His mother nodded. “Indeed, it is.”
“Then we’ve almost made it! We’re almost finished!”
“Yes, we’re almost there.” She breathed a long sigh, and her hand stopped on the center of her belly. “Our family will have a new home.”
The moment her strength returned to her that night nine months ago, Sigeas’s mother rose from the earth beside the desolation of her home. Her head throbbed, and the pain that flared inside her and across her skin was ineffable. At first there was a mist of unfamiliar images: smoke darker than the night sky; wood, cobblestone, and limbs jutting from the grass; fires blazing on the horizon; men nearly beyond her sight, arms waving in lethal patterns. She took a moment to find her balance and allow her vision to realign itself as she attempted to recall everything prior to her unconsciousness. Violent shouts in the night; the need to escape with her son; her marriage bracelet; Sigeas standing with a gore-riddled blade before a Thalnion soldier. She remembered her anguished shriek when the seeking stone of a catapult blasted her home to pieces, tossing her son to the ground like dead weight. Splinters of glass and wood sprayed into her skin the same instant that the blast from the projectile knocked her onto her back. Then came the hands, forcing her down, stronger than steel. It was useless to resist, he said. She was his. Then a burning sensation, and darkness came.
She remembered everything, and even as she mourned, she staggered to the rubble of her house and began to throw wood and kick glass away from the region in which she believed her son was located. He was beneath a flat piece of wall laden with feathers, and to her surprise, he only had a few nicks and a lump on the back of his head. She managed to drag him from the wreckage and drape him over one of her shoulders; she also found her bag of supplies and tethered it to her belt. Fortunately, she had not far to go before leaving the eastern edges of the village. There was a pond nearby that the denizens had often used for fishing, and it was well known that large stones surrounding its stream source formed an alcove ideal for a temporary shelter. It was here that she halted for the night, setting Sigeas down in soft grass beside the stream and stumbling to the other side of the pond to weep. She remained there for some time before her son awoke and came to her side to comfort her.
When they had enough energy to travel, they made toward the Coast of Feldor at a brisk pace; then they turned south and began a journey that would take months. She suspected some weeks into their quest that she was pregnant with the child of Emlenor’s most hated king; for it was he who had forced himself upon her, he who robbed her of city, home, and will. And when four months had passed, and her stomach began to grow, she no longer doubted her suspicions. She attempted to hide her rage from Sigeas during their travels, but when she found a moment to herself, she unleashed her fury on everything around her, and on the Gods themselves. Her fury faded into deep grief as time passed, and her grief faded into reflection. In that reflection, she discovered a peace that had been foreign to her for months. It was around this time that Sigeas learned of the baby she carried, and his reaction was far from favorable. He vowed both to her and to the heavens that King Pavius of Thalnon would fall under his blade.
Thank you, sir. I will definitely take a look at it.
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