Madora’s Flight to the River: A Scene From My Untitled Fantasy Epic

Day 23

Madora scrabbled down the rough trail. Her feet, unused to the sturdy shoes, were heavy, and she stumbled, pitching forward into the dusty gravel. She caught her fall, scraping the heels of her hands on the cold rocks.

The little trail wended steeply down before her, a faint ribbon of pale gray in the starlight. Save for one dark mound a ways up on the side of the hill, there was hardly a tree or shrub to cast a shadow, or to hide her from anyone who might be seeking her. She felt so vulnerable, like a field mouse scurrying frantically over an open field. The starlight, only slightly dimmed by a few clumps of dark clouds, felt like daylight to her frayed nerves.

They’re coming! They’re already sending men through the gate, and that I just left…how long ago? Too soon!

She stumbled again, but turned it into an awkward downhill run, her legs wheeling furiously to keep her body upright.

The ground leveled out — mercifully — for a short while, so she ran until the next switchback. Small stones went skittering over the steep edge of the path, tumbling down in a shower of little cracks across the hillside below. She felt that surely the whole city was after her now, with the racket she was making.

Her eyes found the river, so far below — the river, where she must get, where the trees were, where she would be safe, somehow. A quick, urgent thought jumped at her from the swirling of her mind, and her heart leapt, but she quickly pushed it away.

I’ll think about that when I get to the river. I must get to the river. I must get to the river…

The rugged hillside on which she ran sloped steeply down to the river, getting more precarious as she tumbled further from the city’s postern gate. Except for a few stubborn trees and patches of tall shrubs, the hill was sparsely covered with vegetation. There was so little purchase on the bare rocks, that shoulder of granite thrust up from the depths of the earth and girded by the roaring river below.

Even from her balcony — now receding slowly as she made her escape — Madora had heard it. So often had she heard it that she was deaf to it, that ever present dull roar, almost like wind stirring the leaves of a thousand trees. And though she was almost deaf to it before, now it was all she longed to hear. She seized upon it with her mind, willing it to grow louder with each frantic step. I must get to the river!

This is a writing exercise in which I work on a potential scene from an epic fantasy novel I’ve had in my head for some time. In this exercise, my goal is to set a scene or a mood.

Originally published at www.zerofoxgiven.net on April 7, 2017