hey! this is chance & here’s week 3’s prompt. share an excerpt that you’re very proud of from any of your wips.
Alright, I guess I can treat you guy, gals, and enbies to a little teaser. This excerpt is from before Valthoraxe became a villain and is instead a bounty hunter pretending to be human. This scene describes one of the hunts he goes on. It’s only the first draft of this scene, so a lot will most likely change.
He had reached the town after another 10 minutes. Most of the buildings were nought but rubble, but they where still smoldering and burning, this was recent. Val dismounted the wagon and tied his horse to the only remaining man made object strong enough, the welcome sign. When Val entered the ruins of the town formally known as Corville, he saw that most of the residents of this town were already dead. In his immediate vicinity he only saw 5 people that still held life, 3 of them critically injured with no hope of recovering. Examining some of the bodies he saw that there were only 5 causes of death, burning, a building collapsing, shots from a bow, long cuts from a sword, and deep punctures from multiple knives. Val then heard a voice call out behind him saying,
“Stranger, please help me. My kids are injured, please,”
it was one of the 2 people not on the brink of death. He turned to the man who has holding the motionless bodies of two children, they had been dead for over half an hour. The man, who was still applying pressure to the wounds of children and drenched in their blood, was in shock. Val asked him, “Do you know where the bandits went?”
The man didn’t seem to process his question and continued to plead for help,
Val told the man, “Sir, your children are already dead,”
The man looked down at his kids, he was holding them so tightly that their legs had turned purple. The man stared at his children for about 15 seconds before seeming to snap out of his state of shock, he then proceeded to cry even harder than before and shoved his skull through a sharp piece of debris. He left the body of the man and turned around to see that 2 of the critically injured had died with the third only having minutes left. He walked to the only civilian that seemed capable of speaking, an old man who appeared to be Elven. The man was barely even bruised.
“Where did the bandits go,” said Val less as a question and more as an order.
The man ignored him and was whispering to himself, “My fault,” over and over.
Val asked, “Sir, how is this your fault?” the man looked up and said,
“I’m why they came, they’re all dead because of me,”
Val responded, “Do you know where the bandits are?”
The man looked down again and said, “They said I would be last.”
Before Val could continue to ask the man question, he passed out, seemingly from stress. Val then realized the man told him everything he needed, for they were still here. Val focused on his surroundings and heard some rubble shift behind him and the tensioning of a string.
A male voice spoke out, “Hey lads!, looks like we’ve found ourselves a little hero.”
Val started turning to face the archer, but he spoke once again,
“Stay right where you are, one step and you’re dead. You will answer our questions, if we like the answers, we might let you go,”
light chuckles were heard from two other voices, one male, one female.
The archer hushed them and continued speaking, “First question, what is your name?”
Val now knew exactly where the archer was, he deduced that the archer was about 5’8” and 15 meters behind and 3 meters left of him.
He answered, “My name is Val Faeir,”
The other voices laughed again as well the archer, but Val was not done, he added but one more word to his sentence,
The other two fell silent, he heard the bow string being pulled back further.
The archer asks, “How do you know my name?”
Val replied, “I know a lot of things about you, like how your partners are named Amethyst and Tyran, and that you’re wanted for barely over a hundred counts of murder,”
Thomas’s voice took to an agitated tone and said, “Final question, this town has clearly been attacked, and yet you strolled into here anyway. Why would you come here, did you think you could play hero? Save some lives?”
It was Val’s turn to laugh, but this laugh was cold and dead. Val turned and faced towards the three bandits and the archer let loose his arrow. To their horror, Val caught the arrow midair, snapping it in half, and began approaching them while saying,
“I’m a bounty hunter, and for your violations of human law I am to bring you in. Come with me peacefully, or else.”
Val drew his blade and stopped about 10 meters away from them.
Thomas turned to the other male and ordered, “Tyran, would you kindly kill this fucker.”
Tyran grinned and said, “About time you stopped talking, watch this.”
Tyran drew his sword, he seemed to be quite fast, for human standards. He swung his sword at Val, who didn’t even have his sword raised, but Val easily stepped out of the way. Tyran was cocky and overconfident, Val continued to effortlessly dodge Tyran’s attacks. Val then threw the front half of the arrow he caught through Tyran’s sword hand, making him drop it and cry out in pain. Val, who isn’t even looking at Tyran, knocks him out with the hilt of his sword as he walks past him. Amethyst charges at him with 2 steel daggers, but Val manages to block every single attack. Val strikes at the base of each dagger, causing them to shatter, and knocks her out as well. The archer is now the only one who remains. He fires as many arrows as he can while backing away, but Val deflects each one. Thomas trips on some debris and falls on his side, a loud crack is heard. He had broken at least 2 ribs on a rock, Val then knocks out the archer and everything falls silent.
