Kobe Nathan Wade
One Thousand Club
Hi there. I'm Kobe, and this is a sample of my first attempt at a full length novel. Of course this is only chapter one, and I didn't want to post something so lengthy that noone wanted to read it. As such, the communication I'm looking for on your part in this first chapter is simple. Does this translate the scene well? Can you really picture what I've laid out here in such a way that it is interesting to you? Would you like to read more based on this first chapter? I genuinely hope to hear from you, please enjoy. If any titles come to mind as well as you're reading, let me know.
"What, really, do you have to prove Gallan?" Said Brianne. She was writing down notes and looking through a modified spyglass she designed to 'look at very small objects, and the things that make them up.' Whatever it was Gallan had seen when he looked through the spyglass he didn't understand and he hadn't given it much thought since. Some sort of roundish blocks fit perfectly together with little dots in them. Brianne still had that same oak leaf in the little glass tray beneath the spyglass.
"He's my little brother and next heir to father's chair after me. Turning down his challenge would be the first que for the public that their ruler is weak." Gallen ran his palm over the hilt of his sword awkwardly. It was the only part of his body not covered by armor save for his head. He held his helmet by the cuff at the bottom which was molded comfortably to his shoulders. His helmet was abnormally wide and pointed. The tops of his hands were armored but his palms and inner fingers had only thin leather straps to bind them to the metal like a glove with only one side.
Gallan had made the armor himself, claiming he used a greatsword better if he had no gloves on. He also claims there's no need to have armor on his hands if both his hands are on his sword where they should be.
"And are we trying to convince the public or ourselves? What are the rules to this duel? That's another thing. The whole ordeal sounds a bit odd." Said Brianne simply, beginning to draw a diagram of one of the little rounded boxes. She wore a simple blouse, with a long leather duster and trousers tucked into thick hardened boots. She reached inside her jacket and thumbed around in one of its many pockets and pulled out another inkwell, throwing away the nearly empty one she had been using thus far. She tossed the other in the wire waste bin Gallan had made her for her birthday last year. It was quite well crafted, not woven but many small wire strands laid against a mold and melded together.
"Come now Brianne, he's my flesh and blood. I hardly think he plans to kill me, nor I him. Like I said, it's publicity. We used to spar against each other as boys every day! It'll be a workout at most." Gallan hated when she did things like that; said what he didn't know he was thinking. She had a way of explaining how he felt before he knew how to put it into words.
"Just don't take it too far. Mathew has been in Rudan a long time. And he schedules a duel with you for the seat on the Alliance Council as your first meeting? He could be a completely different person." Brianne put paper weights over the corners of her wet pages and looked up from her creation blinking from the change in focus. Just then the kettle started whistling. Gallan walked over and poured the tea over the leaves he had brought up to her room from the dining hall.
"What did you bring me today?" Said Brianne, her face aglow with amusement.
"It's called a sapphire frost tea. Its leaves are blue, and they say the tree grows no higher than your knee, yet looks like a mighty oak. Chef Michael even mixed in some dried blueberries. 'For taste,' he said." Gallan had always loved tea. So delicate yet pronounced. Hot yet refreshing. Brianne got him a tea set when he was a boy, barely learning to swing a sword. He had been embarrassed to have this small hobby at first, but she encouraged him saying "If you don't have any passions what can you fight for, little knight?"
She smirked at him as he handed her her saucer and cup. It smelled delightful, like a light frost in late fall.
"So if you didn't fight him, you retain your seat and there is nothing he can do? By law you are the heir?" Said the woman brushing back her black hair and placing her cup on the desk to wait patiently for it to cool.
"Yes, but are you even listening? I'll be a laughingstock." Gallan held his tea to his face and blew on his tea, leaning against the higher counter next to the desk with many beakers, burners and concoctions on it. He took a sip and still burned himself, so went back to cooling.
"Yes yes, politics." Brianne got up and walked next to him eyeing the flame on a small pot of a boiling crimson red substance which had the metal red hot. She put a few more coals on it's bed close to the pot in a ring around the miniature fire pit on the table.
"What is that?" Gallan asked, trying his tea again and wincing at the heat.
"A trial run. An experiment I know will certainly fail." She said in a sort of bored tone.
"You've done it before?" Gallan said, finally able to drink his tea.
"Only three times, but many people have spent their entire lives trying to perfect it." Said Brianne, walking back over to her desk, sitting down, and sipping her tea which was just right to drink. "It's the recipe for the alchemist's stone. That which can turn lead into gold, water into wine, and produce the elixir of eternal life."
"You're making something so powerful?! My goodness Brianne I knew you were a genius but truly I had no idea!" Gallan looked shocked and marveled at the substance in the miniature cauldron.
"I'm afraid I've taken advantage of your ignorance of my craft my friend. The alchemists stone is a joke. Or at least this recipe is. Most alchemists say the so-called 'recipe' that gets passed around the circles of us is little more than a bored potion spinner's pet project. It's never worked to anyone's knowledge. Not like it's supposed to." Brianne went back to her drawing without looking down the small telescope she had modified with extra lenses.
"Watch." She took a glass eyedropper and took some of the boiling substance into it, dropping it on a dead rat she had begun dissecting on a wooden tray on the table. The thing's internal organs twitched and squirmed before it began to squeak and convulse. It then fell silent and still after a few moments. Gallan went white like he would faint. "You can use more but it never lasts more than fifteen minutes from what modifications I've made to the recipe. Not to mention it needs to boil for days while you add ingredients to even get to this state."
"Perhaps the Gods intend everything that has died to stay dead." Said Gallan, regaining his composure and drinking his tea.
"I would say for the most part the laws of nature agree with them." Said Brianne, finishing hers. She then went a little starry eyed again, looking at nothing in particular on the other side of the room. "Gallan, if you weren't born a noble, what would you be?"
Gallan thought hard a moment before he answered. "I should like to be a Chef I think. Chef Michael says my tongue is delicate enough. Why, do you long for a different life?" Brianne turned towards him and smiled.
"I was asking you, little knight."
After Gallan and Brianne had met with the Lord and Lady Dundress in the great hall and taken their seats on the front lawn, Mathew's carriage had pulled around the lane. The people of the court looked on eagerly wondering about how the younger prince had grown.
He stepped out of his carriage and looked into the air as if noone in the yard was at all worth looking at. He was taller than Gallan, his shoulders broader too. He was lanky, however, and his armor made him look like a giant puppet of sheet metal. As he pulled himself out of the carriage drawn by six horses it lifted up on it's frame, and almost seemed too small to hold him.
Despite this he pulled his spear which was as long as he was, with a very heavy looking spike rather than a blade on the end. It seemed to be made of a single piece of metal, which while not weightless was easy to swing around for it's size by the man whom was Gallan's younger brother.
"Hello, son." Said Lord Dundress across the way in a sort of half hearted shout. He was a large round man with thick arms and a shiny ceremonial battle axe in his burly grip.
"Hello Lord Dundress." Said Mathew with a cold stare.
After Mathew somehow came out a young girl slightly younger than he with black hair and chestnut skin followed by an older man who looked much like her. Mathew kept looking at the Lord Dundress, and smiled a wry smile..
"Lord Dundress. As your flesh and blood I have come to assert my claim under the laws of our homeland to challenge my older brother, Gallan Dundress, to a duel for the title of first heir to your throne. To the death if necessary." As Mathew spoke the advisors and representatives of the people eagerly whispered amongst themselves. Two more men even climbed out of the carriage that was clearly too small for all of them combined. They were shorter than Mathew, identical, and taller than their father who was King Rudan of the Rudan province. Their family has controlled their territory since before the alliance was formed, it is well known.
"Please, son. There's time for all that later. I've got a feast awaiting the return of my second boy hot on the table right inside! I assure you my fine people could hardly be held back from eating it. Allow them dinner before the show?" Laughed Lord Dundress heartily. The crowd laughed along with him because he had told the truth. They were very hungry. Lord Dundress knew hungry cranky nobles do not get along as well in meetings, as fed, recently entertained nobles. "Besides, you will need your strength if you truly intend to take on your brother today! I assure you Gallan did not spend these past ten years eating bread and going on walks!" Added the Lord with a shout.
"I intend to beat my older brother now, thankyou." Mathew said, sucking the air out of the conversation with the dryest venom. All the while the noble family of house Rudan simply watched. The boy twins smirked and gripped their blades, chests out like stallions. The girl who was likely Mathew's wife Isaboe had a blank expression. King Rodan smiled proudly.
Lord Dundress waved him off and began to turn to walk inside. "Don't be ridiculous, I'm starving. You have to be famished from your journey. Come inside." He had lost all frivolity
The Lord and Lady Dundress took their spots at the head of the table, Gallan directly to their right and their advisors to their left. There was an empty chair to Gallan's right where there hadn't been in ten years. Gallan suddenly was made aware that his mother and father hadn't had any more children after Mathew. He felt more like an only child who was seeing his cousin after a long time, than meeting his adult brother. Regardless he raised his hand high at Mathew and motioned him over.
"COME! Brother. Please." Gallan smiled at his brother from across the room. In the middle of the rounded table which stretched all the perimeter of the room was a large fire pit over which rotated a massive boar. Mathew looked immensely frustrated at having to endure the meal, and sat down next to Gallan without looking at him.
"Mathew." Said Mathew flatley.
"Er. Mathew. You don't want me to call you brother?" Asked Gallan, confused.
"I'd rather not be reminded."
"You called me your brother outside."
"That was to state my claim to the court." Said Mathew, growing irritated as if explaining something complicated to a child.
"But that's what we are." Said Gallan, as if Mathew were the stupid one.
"Are we?"
"Yes!"
"What's my middle name? My birthday? Or even my favorite color?!" Said Mathew, suddenly shouting. The room was tense with whispers beneath the music of a quartet in the corner of the room. Lord Dundress pretended not to hear the ordeal happening a few feet from him. He chewed rather angrily on a turkey leg as his eyes darted around the room at the nobles of his court questioning the sanity of house Dundress.
"Mathew, please." Gallan asked in a hushed tone. Mathew looked away fiercely. Gallan cut into his steak silently and began eating. It was a perfect eight ounce medium rare filet with potatoes on the side, like he'd been eating for almost every meal for years. Mathew cut into his and looked like he hadn't had meat of this quality in his entire life.
"It's good, huh?" Said Gallan. "It's from Azael." Mathew ignored him and kept eating. He kept scarfing the food down until his plate was clean without a word.
"Finish eating so we may fight, brother." Said the taller man with a snarl, leaning in close to Gallan's face. Gallan stared into Mathew's eyes, and was met with the coldest hatred he had ever been addressed with. Gallan solemnly ate the rest of his steak and pushed his plate away without eating his potatoes. He stood, his face dark with seriousness. If Mathew truly wanted to test his right as head of the family, he would be met with only Gallan's best effort.
The shorter knight gripped his greatsword in his right hand and stepped onto the table. The nobles looked on in silence, the band stopped playing, and Gallan looked down at Mathew who was still seated.
"Mathew Dundress. I hereby accept your challenge." Gallan drew his sword with his right hand from its sheath and jumped into the ring created by the circular dinner table. Mathewed followed him straight over, denting a plate he stepped on on his way.
"Come now boys!" Shouted Lord Dundress sternly.
"Lord Dundress I implore you to let them finish. Mathew has thought about this fight a very long time." Said King Rudania from the far end of the room. Brianne fiddled with a small vial in her right coat pocket. Mathew twirled his large javelin in his hands. Without warning he stabbed at Gallan's chest. Gallan caught it along his large sword and side stepped to brace himself. He slid his greatsword up his opponent's heavier weapon and stepped towards him. Mathew in return smacked him in the head with the other end of his long metal pike. Gallan instantly regretted not wearing his helmet.
Gallan did not let the heavy blow throw him off tempo, though now his head hurt. He twirled and lay his blade into Mathew's middle with all his might. The breath left the taller man's lungs and a crack could be heard beneath his padded armor. Mathew stumbled backwards.
"Withdraw!" Said Gallan sternly. Mathew simply smiled and thrust out his spear, which Gallan easily backstepped. He was just out of range of the weapon's point. That is when the point grew in length suddenly, and stabbed Gallan in the forehead. A look of shock painted his face, and he limply dropped his sword. The spear retracted and Gallan's body dropped to the floor like a sack of meat. Lord Dundress exclaimed some things Gallan could not hear. He could hardly hear anything all of a sudden. Mathew laughed, and Brianne screamed.
