Page critique 3/30/23

Offer up your page (or query) for Nathan's critique on the blog.
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Nathan Bransford
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Page critique 3/30/23

Post by Nathan Bransford » March 27th, 2023, 1:21 pm

Below is the page up for critique on the blog on Thursday. Feel free to chime in with comments, create your own redline (please note the "font colour" button above the posting box, which looks like a drop of ink), and otherwise offer feedback. When offering your feedback, please please remember to be polite and constructive. In order to leave a comment you will need to register an account in the Forums, which should be self-explanatory.

I'll be back later with my own post on the blog and we'll literally be able to compare notes.

If you'd like to enter a page for a future Page Critique, please do so here.

Title: Born to Battle

Markus staggered under the weight of the dead body, finally falling to one knee in exhaustion. After two days, his fur and armor were stiff with dried blood, its copper tang lingering in his nostrils. Around him, the rest of the band walked in respectful silence, not looking at him, having learned not to offer help to their captain. Two other dead bodies floated in mid-air beside them, the magical strain shared among the group, but Markus would let no other help him with Gravin, nor invoke the assistance of magic to lessen the load. This burden belonged to him. The weight on his shoulders, the buzzing of the carrion flies, the aching and grinding weariness in his muscles, the pain of his severed tail—all of these only the start of the penance that lay on him much heavier than any corpse. He gritted his teeth, bracing himself to stand once more, trying not to think of the final confrontation that lay before him—the presentation of the body to Kess, Gravin’s wife.

Kess, the only love Markus had ever known over the centuries of his life. The pain on her face, the cries of their children would lay his grief and shame bare far worse than any whip flagellating his flesh. Worst of all, he dreaded the questioning doubt in her eyes when he knelt before her, soaked and stinking of her husband’s blood.

A suspicion he could not deny, for he was responsible for Gravin’s death. A life he had already tried to claim once before. So now he forced protesting muscles to obey and stood with his load, ignoring the flies that buzzed about his head and crawled over his gore-streaked fur, and resumed the long march under the relentless summer sun. The weight of memories and his brother’s body bowing his once-proud back. After all, Gravin wasn’t the first member of his family whose death lay at his feet.

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