"Behold! Gladrex – King of Swords! Sword of Kings!" The King held the magnificent, shining sword straight above his head. 1
The army around him raised their single voice in clamorous shout, "Gladrex!"2
"To Victory!" cried the king turning on his metal armoured heels and, pointing Gladrex, led the charge into the snow-covered valley.3
With vaporous breath the soldiers replied again. The armoured knights and nimble archers fell in behind their King. With pierce of arrow and crash of steel the armies smashed together in the snowy vale.4
So close-matched were the chivalrous army and the barbarian horde that the sun grew low in the wintry sky. With courage, skill and resolve the army re-grouped and charged forth upon their barbarous foes and turned the tide of battle.5
Facing defeat the barbarians sounded forth a bugle-horn and, fresh from their hiding place, a wedge of riders broke upon the army's rear and, at their point, mighty axe gripped between clawed fists, black armour chinkless from claw to horn, a terrible steaming demon.6
Through the knights swept the hellish beast, sweeping all before it like a reaper harvests corn. The army of Civilization fled the field in terror save their king and a company of the bravest men. As the sun was setting the delirious barbarians, foretelling victory, fell looting among the dead.7
The demon lofted its axe with vigour and ferocity, but the king stood forth in single combat to bar its way. "Death or glory!"8
Ducking an evil blow he thrust Gladrex into the side of the black armour, shearing through metal and demonic flesh. Smoke and sulphur poured forth until, the beast was just a pile of ash.9
An honourless barbarian, feigning dead upon the field, stabbed forth with cursed spear and struck the King a vile thrust from below. No sooner done, the evil deed was repaid, by arrow from the captain, bravest of the archers. The king swooned and fell; by grace into the arms of that very venging captain who, taking up his sire, made good his escape from the field of hope's defeat.10
All that night he trudged through snow and darkness until, at last, he brought his King to the gates of the City – and then he fainted.11
The next day the archer-captain woke and heard a voice, “Poor soul, he carried his King many hours after he had already died.”12
Author notes
A mediaeval epic tale about a magic sword of legend.
And, before commenting, I know much of the spelling is different in US usage, but I'm British, so do consider possible alternate spellings before commenting.
A contest entry
- Pay It Forward- Really, Really Late but ready to go! by Miss Hanako Megumi.
294 points, ended January 2, 9 entries
Silver trophy winner
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Comments
1 - 22 of 22
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Wow. The way you wrote this flowed very nicely. it kind of reminded me of the way the iliad flows. overall a very well written piece that could be great if it was a short story or even a chaptered work. thank you for entering.
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I hardly ever notice the difference between our spelling and the US anymore
Didn't exactly notice much in grammar mistakes either, to be honest.
Anyway, this sounds like something i've got in mind for War Wolf story
Nice to see some good, old fashioned medieval brutality! This was good for it's word limit, although i still can't help but feel that the ending was a bit rushed because of it. Still, i'm sure that you could fix that if you ever did a longer version
. Rewarded 8
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Honestly I was a little lost in some parts of it. I didn't think it flowed as well asI would have enjoyed, but it was still kind of nice to read this. It's a break from the tragedy, love, and death stories that I read so much. There were also a few grammar mistakes, but when I ignore those I think it's a fairly okay read.
. Rewarded 6
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Thanks. Most of the issues come from writing to a tight word limit; but grammar mistakes? Please point these out, I'm normally ok at grammar and always want to learn to improve.
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Good story. I enjoyed it but for the contest, I was looking for more details on the battle. More magic and such. That's for the contest though, because I really enjoyed it. I will still judge you though. Good Luck in the contest.
. Rewarded 4
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This is a good piece of writing, and I realise it was written to a word limit, but it just seems without a point to me. Nothing drew me in or made me want to read more. It was the climax of a battle, but to me, it's the lead up to that battle that is most interesting. The writing itself is good, but the plot lacked interest and reason.
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Honestly, you are my first to be reading about medieval epic tale and all that, haha. I find it intriguing. BTW, I love British writing because they are so different than US grammar style and usage. I am fan for Wuthering Height, woo. Wow.
I enjoy this.
Keep writing!
The Blue Road -
Excellent start. It's hard to see exactly where you might be taking this, but you've described the battle very well. The idea of naming swords has been a popular one in fiction in the past, but it seems to have fallen out of favor a bit (I wish I knew why - I rather like it). Two things I will suggest, both of which are very minor: first, you tend to take a very archaic narrative voice, which can be useful but can also make it sound like you're trying to hard. Just make sure you work on balancing it. Second, what you have so far is both excellent and very well written, but you haven't introduced anything yet that is new or striking, something that makes a reader want to pick out your story from the millions of other stories out there to read. Please don't take that as criticism - just a suggestion. Think about it a little and see where it takes you. Overall, I was impressed with your strong imagery and willingness to roughen things. Good luck writing further!
I always keep track of small things (grammar etc) that I notice while reading. If you're interested, the list is below; if not, feel free to ignore it:
* Paragraph 3: This sentence isn't grammatically sound. You could try breaking it into two sentences, like so: "To victory!" cried the kin, turning on his metal-armoured heels. Pointing Gladres, he led the charge into the snow-covered valley.
* Paragraph 6: I'm not sure if this technically is a run-on sentences, but it comes off as sounding like one. *shrugs* Maybe try playing around with it a bit.
* Paragraph 7: "Through the knights swept the hellish beast" - the syntax feels backwards in this phrase. It might just be me, but it sounds a bit awkward. The more conventional syntax would be "The hellish beast swept through the knights." Something to consider.
* Paragraph 10: Be careful of how you use semicolons. I'll warn you now, they're one of my pet peeves, so I'm sorry if this comes off sounding like a lecture lol. Semicolons separate two complete sentences; usually, the two sentences are very related in topic. They are never used to separate fragments, or a full sentence from a fragment. They can also be used to separate items in a list after a colon. For example, there are three things needed to correctly use a semicolon: two complete sentences; sentences that are intimately related in subject; and a lack of connecting word (ie and or but). I'll stop now lol.
Hope you found something in all of my ramblings helpful. lol. -
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Wow - that's what I call a review
Thank you for your thorough and complete review. I think it might even be longer than my story.
I wrote the story in response to a competition limit of 400 words. It's not meant to be a beginning but a complete story (although people often say that of my stories).
Anyway, I really appreciate your insights. I think you've already helped my writing skills quite a bit with what you've said here.
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< Not just a start
This wasn't intended to be a start (although people say that of a lot of my short stories!). It's an entry in a 400 word limit competition, so this is the whole piece.
Thanks for all the applause. -
This was excellent! I was there with those soldiers the whole way! Mwah ha ha! I love how you took this concept and I'm amazed that you were able to pack so much, in so little a word count! Awesome job!
. Rewarded 4
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I think it needs a bit more discription, and I got a bit confused at some points. The ending was a wonderful, yet tragic twist. Maybe you were going for an old legend style, but I still think it could use just a bit more detail here and there.
. Rewarded 4
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Thanks for commenting
This is a 400 word limit competition entry, so it had to be very brief, otherwise I would have added a lot more detail and description.
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This was quite a powerful, moving tale. I feel you did an excellent job of giving a good sense of the environment the characters found themselves.
There was one word at the beginning of paragraph 7 I was unsure about. It says 'Through', but the context looks like you meant to put in 'Though'. I'm not sure if this is a UK/US difference, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.
Of course, that was just a minor bit that kinda caught me off guard. I really didn't have any problems figuring out what you had meant when I read the rest of the sentence, and I was soon caught up in the narrative again.
All in all, an enjoyable read.
. Rewarded 8
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Thanks for the feedback
Thanks a lot. I appreciate your comments. The intended word was "through" as in, "The hellish beast swept through the knights" but I just rearranged the word order for a more olde English sound.
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Wow.
I really enjoyed this. It was sort of sad, but it's got that original, great style of old fighting war stories to it.
Sorry if that sounded stupid, I don't read this stuff too often. But I really enjoyed this, actually.
I think my favorite part was the ending: "The next day the archer-captain woke and heard a voice, 'Poor soul, he carried his King many hours after he had already died.'"
What a twist!
I enjoyed this, indeed. I think you did a really nice job with it!
I'm Taylor, by the way
I found this on the group list and decided to give it a read.
And I'm glad I did.
It was written wonderfully, and you had a great plot.
Nice work.
xoxo
-♥-
Tay
. Rewarded 8
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Thanks
That's exactly what I hoped to achieve.
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Prompts Are Up!
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Story's up
I couldn't decide on a prompt, so I took several.
Magical Sword
Write your own legend
Poetry - Bring me home / A wounded soul
A Prince with an amazing sword
Probably some others too that sunk in subconsciously.
I enjoyed writing for this competition. Thanks for running it.
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