But in the last week I have made progress on Northern Warriors. The Blue Swan has launched for Revunia with Brittany Stevens on board. Hooray! And now I am following up on the excitement in Revunia as Alexia and her family face the goblin and troll armies that have invaded their country.
I am a very tangential writer. That is, if I get stuck on one detail it will get me off track for the rest of the chapter. So walking a very delicate line, I tried to describe the chaotic, unbalanced lives of Princess Alexia, her sister Caroline, and their brother Dmitri while trying to illustrate a scene. And I think I did an okay job of it. I like the way it weaves in and out of the setting to Alexia's mind and then into her memories and a description of events. The flow felt sort of like an essay. Here is the excerpt from Chapter 8, in which the Opposition camp followers are preparing to flee an army of trolls that has come to aid the goblins in destroying them:
The Revunian Opposition was camped
along the Meikalon Ridge, a maze of small canyons in the south of
Revunia made from numerous outcrops of volcanic rock that stretched
from the flanks of Mount Telvi through the South Plains almost to the
Nymph colony of Samasvvara, destroyed by goblins in the invasion
three years ago. The few surviving nymphs had given shelter to the
Opposition in some of the larger canyons once in their possession.
While the goblins had attempted to attack them from the north and
east, the Opposition armies had held them off at the northern
boundaries of the ridge country while the camp followers—their
families and friends unable to fight for themselves—waited in the
center. They had moved every so often to keep safe, staying close to
the villages in the north so the Opposition armies could defend the
Revunian villagers from goblin mauraders, straying from civilization
for safety when the goblins pressed too close. Over time, the army's
numbers had dwindled, and engagements with the goblins became fewer.
Now, however, the situation was different. Alexia sensed as she
followed Caroline through the camp that the tension in the air was
strong enough to break glass. Tents were being ripped from their
pegs, possessions bundled and packed without further organization,
wagons stocked haphazardly as the camp followers prepared to leave.
In spite of the confusion, Caroline was trying to run at full speed
down the ridge, dodging bags of food and braying mules, sometimes
grabbing Alexia by the hand and dragging her at the same breakneck
pace. Alexia wanted to protest, but she had experienced emergency
relocations such as this before. She knew that speed was of the
essence.
Now the tricky part: Introducing the nursemaid.
They found Gladya with the Yulyanov family cart, holding Tatiana
Yulyanov's baby as it cried and the worried mother dressed her fussy
children. Alexia assumed that the father was already out with the
gathering army.
Gladya was a tall nymph with a round face and dark curly hair stuffed
behind a scarf. The blue eyelids indicative of her race appeared gray
and green in the light of the camp torches now being extinguished.
“Do you have your things, Caroline?” she asked Caroline in her
reedy voice.
“Yes, Gladya,” Caroline gasped.
Gladya looked at Alexia, who was
moaning. “My feet hurt,” Alexia groaned. “And my stomach
hurts.”
“Did you drag
her here?” Gladya gaped at Caroline.
“She was already out of bed!” said Caroline. “I thought you
wanted us here as quickly as possible.”
“Yes, but you can't rush the young, dear, why do you think this
baby's crying? Here, you take it. Alexia, put yours and Caroline's
things in the Yulyanov's cart.” Gladya shoved the baby into
Caroline's arms and helped Mrs. Yulyanov dress her two-year-old that
was currently in the throes of a tantrum. “You could have left him
asleep for this, Tatiana.”
Alexia looked at the screaming boy. She was reminded of her
unfortunate two-year-old brother Ivan, who had been killed by the
fairy Televokov. Not wanting to dwell on her traumatic memories, she
turned to the packs that Caroline had dropped. She threw them into
the Yulyanov's small cart, not yet halfway loaded. The oldest son,
Nikita, was helping his sister Margaret take down the tent. Their
mule was being quickly combed and bridled by Margaret's twin sister
Maria. Alexia sighed. The Royal Family had never had a cart of their
own. They had always traveled with other families, shoving their few
belongings into other vehicles, walking with other camp follwers,
sometimes losing track of the wagon that had their bedrolls and
having to search everyone else's things, sometimes finding their
parcels discarded like rubbish or sometimes not finding them for a
night or two until after making camp, sleeping on borrowed bedding.
The autumn following the invasion,
Grand Princess Yelena and her surviving children were rescued by
Nikolas Morhanat, who had escaped capture, and the Opposition, and
they had taken them to safety in the Yeri caves on the northwest
shores of Revunia. Yelena took most of her children to Canada to live
in exile. Dmitri had to remain behind, however, to help lead the
Opposition, and Caroline chose to remain to look after him. Alexia
had volunteered to stay as well. She had no desire to leave her
homeland, not even when it was almost completely conquered by
goblins. She told her mother that she wanted to stay and help, and
although Yelena was reluctant she decided Alexia would be happier in
Revunia for the time being.
Now, almost two years after her mother had left, Alexia wondered if
she really was happier. She had found a few friends among the camp
followers' children, but contrary to her expectations she was
spending less and less quality time with her family—unless, of
course, quality time meant peeling potatoes and doing laundry with
Caroline and Gladya. Dmitri, busy with training and conducting the
military operations of the Opposition, was frequently busy during the
day. Caroline sometimes lamented that he worked too hard to be a boy
anymore. And too many of the other boys in camp, she would complain
next, were trying too hard to be men. While she was obviously
bemoaning the fact that the boys Caroline's age were all too busy
being soldiers to be lovers, Caroline never said this, even though
Alexia clearly knew she meant it. And in turn, Alexia wondered, and
wondered if Caroline wondered, if they were too busy being women to
be girls anymore. Or if, perhaps, they were too busy being peasants
to be princesses.
Princess. She hardly felt
like royalty anymore, she thought to herself as she saw Caroline
rocking the fussy baby and getting burped on. She wondered if she had
ever felt that way before in her life, if being a refugee for too
long had taken all the royal bearing out of her. Caroline still acted
like a princess the way she lorded over Alexia sometimes and walked
tall with her hair in a bun the way a grown-up did. Or, rather, she
was more like a governess. In the absence of a mother, it was clear
that Caroline was taking after the bossy and demanding Gladya. Gladya
was a distant cousin of their mother's, too distant to be considered
royal and too distant to be called an aunt. Alexia honestly had no
idea how their mother had known Gladya at all. She had been with the
camp followers since the beginning, one of the Nymphs displaced from
Samasvvara, with apparently no family or relatives or any reason to
be there other than for protection. She had helped Yelena look after
the family while she remained in Revunia, and when the Grand Princess
left she had Alexia, Caroline, and Dmitri placed in her care. It was
her job to make sure that Dmitri stayed fed and watered, that
Caroline helped her to run the camp and the royal household (or
whatever was left of it), and that Alexia pitched in to help when
called for. She was very serious for a nymph, almost as cold-humored
and sober as an elf elder. Whenever she opened her mouth, it was
usually to give some sort of command or to converse about ducks and
chickens or laundry and babies. She only used magic to fix, mend, and
cook, but never for display or decoration. She appeared heartless
enough to remind Alexia of a school headmistress she had read about
in a book a very long time ago. The Revunian Royal court was not
known for taking on governesses, but Gladya was in line for breaking
that tradition.
But when Dmitri was not there to answer Alexia's concerns, as he so
often was, it was Gladya to whom she would turn for answers.
“Gladya,” Aleixa asked, “Why is the camp moving now?”
“Because we are under threat of attack,” Gladya told her curtly.
“All I'm hearing is that trolls from Siberia are attacking the
south coast and they're coming after us.”
“My husband heard there were at least five hundred of them,” said
Mrs. Yulyanov.
“Five hundred!” gasped Caroline. “Surely our armies aren't
enough to stand up to them.”
“That's why your brother-in-law has gone to the elves,” said
Gladya.
“He has?” asked Mrs. Yulyanov in surprise. It was apparently news
to her.
“He has indeed,” said Gladya. “General Allhin has offered help
to us numerous times before. Dmitri has declined, but now the need is
urgent. They need the elves to help drive back the trolls until we
reach safety.”
“But where are we going?” asked Caroline, who was rocking the
now-sleeping Yulyanov baby.
“To the Feir caves,” said Gladya. “The Dwarfs have offered us
shelter there. It will be a much more secure place to hide.”
Alexia privately agreed with
Gladya's statement, although she would miss living in the open
country along the Ridge. After her mother had left, the Opposition
had left the Yeri caves for the Ridge in order to protect the
outlying villages and confront the goblin army head-on. Although
Alexia and few others knew the full implications of the sudden Troll
attack, she had a feeling, and could tell by the looks on Gladya's
and Caroline's faces, that the goblins would now have an advantage
over them.
The mule was hitched to the cart. The camp followers assembled
themselves into their respective families. Torches were doused. It
was now completely dark except for a faint light outlining the
distant volcanic peak of Mount Telvi.
“I wish we would get going,” Caroline muttered. “I thought we
were in a hurry.”
“I thought we were too, but apparently not everyone has the same
idea of a hurry,” said Gladya. “Apparently Henry Wilian kissed
his wife and children goodbye in bed but forgot to tell them the camp
was leaving.”
Caroline grunted in disgust, rolling her eyes. Alexia leaned against
the cart. It was going to be a long day.
And no thanks to a dark shadow hovering over them in the darkness,
watching them, it was going to be even longer.
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