Scales

Chapter Eighteen (Part II) | Table of Contents | Chapter Twenty (Part I)

NRSG: A good day, everyone, and welcome back to BattleAxe! Last time, the Sentinels pressed Faraday into marrying Borneheld, and things were generally unpleasant. Before we begin, let me attend to the reader post:

On part II of chapter 18, Chessy notes that the Sentinels act as if Axis cannot control his desire for Faraday, and so Faraday has to bear the responsibility.

No-Wave Feminism: 20

And, of course, there is her fic, this time featuring time-travellers.

Epistler also notes that Yr giving headbutts to Faraday once she’s caved to the demands is typical abuser behaviour.

ASWLT: 16

Well, at least the story should pick up a bit now, if I recall correctly.

Chapter Nineteen: A Cloudy Day

That is quite an understatement given what happens here, I would say. I think Douglass intended this, but I am honestly not sure.

We open on the morning of the 4^th of October, with Axis “deliberately avoiding” Faraday, which she is “profoundly grateful” for. She can still remember kissing with Axis yesterday, but the events of the last chapter “seem[] a dream”. That is only to be expected, I would think, given the amount of mind-control she was under. Then we get a… flashback to when she wakes up.

Merlion is already “dressed and gone” and Yr sits on her empty bedroll, “smiling at Faraday”. (Alright then.) Faraday is uncertain what to do, so she just smiles back and eventually greets Yr. Yr jumps over to Faraday’s side and walks up to Faraday’s chest, where she begins to “knead uncomfortably”. At least ask Faraday, Yr!

ASWLT: 17

She softly whispers “good morning” to Faraday. Then she asks Faraday if she, since she respects Yr more now, “might be a little less tardy about enquiring after [her] breakfast”. Faraday just closer her eyes, and says it wasn’t a dream after all. She remembers what she agreed to do yesterday and shudders. Then we have this:

“Food!” hissed Yr.

I get the feeling this is supposed to be funny in some way, but the humour of it entirely escapes me.

And No One Laughed: 10

Also, give her some time, Yr! You know the conversation was heavy, so could you please wait for a few minutes when she has woken up! But no, we get this instead.

ASWLT: 18

And cut back to “[a]n hour after daybreak”, without a paragraph break. This is truly quite confusing.

PPP: 91

Well, at that time, the Axe-Wielders move out between the barrows and onto “the plains of Arcness”. During the night, the weather has worsened and the landscape has barely lightened “beyond a dim twilight”. The wind has become twice as strong and the clouds in the north drag along the ground in some places. They are also “bubbl[ing] and broil[ing]”. Lightning also shoots through the clouds and thunder can be heard at some intervals.

Um, I think it would be prudent to turn back to the Barrows now. The group will not be able to make very much progress once it starts raining, and I am quite certain this is Gorgrael’s doing, so…

We are told that the mood is grim and even Veremund is “sunk in uncharacteristic gloom”. I did not get the impression that he is particularly cheery, so this does not work for me. He occasionally looks at Yr, who is “huddled behind Faraday’s saddle”.

Finally he decides to talk to Axis and goes ahead. Timozel raises his eyebrows at Faraday, but she only watches Veremund go, “a worried expression growing on her face”. Cut to Veremund meeting up with Ogden, who is with Axis and Belial. Veremund says he does not like what is happening.

Ogden gives him an “anxious look”. He says it is not good, and the clouds “are not natural”. Their group makes a “tempting target” for Gorgrael, as the Sentinels, Axis and Faraday are here. Veremund asks what they can do, and Ogden shakes his head and says they “can but warn”. Because of course they cannot do anything else. Ogden says he does not know how to warn Axis against “what looks like approaching”.

They both ride up to Axis. Ogden says to him that he does not like the look of the approaching storm and they are very exposed with “nowhere to shelter”. Axis looks at him briefly and we are told he was thinking the same thing. In the past few minutes, the wind has “nearly doubled in strength” (so it is nearly 4 times as strong as yesterday), and it is now blowing in “malevolent gusts”. He pulls Belaguez to a halt and asks Belial how far out they are.

Belial says they have hardly seen the sun, so he cannot judge it very well, but he does not think it has been much more than an hour. An hour? I truly did not get the impression that Veremund had been waiting that long. Axis chews his lip, “berating himself for pulling out this morning at all”. He had been so preoccupied with thinking about Faraday, that he failed to think about the dangers of going out in this weather. He curses himself as an “Artor-cursed fool”.

Indeed he was, if he thought nothing about going straight into a violent storm. Still, the fault is not entirely his. Belial could at least have noted the storm and told him about it, but he did not, either. So, very well done, both of you! At least we are supposed to see this as an error this time…

Axis asks Belial how far away he thinks the storm is. The Axemen begin riding past them by now and the four men go out of the way. Some of the men give them “anxious glances”. Belial squints ahead and estimates the time as less than an hour. “The horizon is already lost.”

Axis quickly makes a decision and he tells Belial to get the column turned around. Finally a sensible decision! The men have to be spread out “as much as possible so that they don’t ride each other down”. (Oh, that will probably also reduce the casualties when Gorgrael attacks!) And they have to ride as fast as they can, because the Barrows are the only shelter they will get.

Belial turns his horse and begins to shout at the men. Axis curses again, and notes that it is impossible to turn the group around and “moving fast without some degree of chaos”. Belaguez “fidget[s] nervously” as the column very slowly starts to turn around and spread out. There is actually some nice tension here!

Axis whispers at the men to ride before the wind. The Axe-Wielders now begin to “push their horses faster”. Ogden goes as close to Axis as he can and shouts his name to get his attention. Axis notices and sees the two brothers still keeping him company “on their placid white donkeys”. He yells at them to ride (which is reasonable for once). Belaguez “rear[s] in excitement and fear”. We are told that he wants, above all, to “stretch his powerful body” after the fleeing horses.

Very Beautiful, Very Powerful: 12 (even Belaguez is thinking about power!)

Ogden gets his donkey out “from under [Belaguez’s] hooves.” Why was he there in the first place?! That seems like a good way to get hurt!

Ill Logic: 27

He shouts that it is no ordinary storm, but the work of Gorgrael. Axis shouts back that Ogden should tell him how to fight it. We are told that Axis can only balance himself on Belaguez’s back through “his remarkable gift of balance”. Hmm, what might that mean? He then asks Ogden to tell him how to save his Axemen “from this demon-spawned nightmare”. The wind pulls Axis’ hair from its braid so it whips around his face. His braid? Looking back, I see that he has pulled his hair in a tail. These things are not the same!

PPP: 92

This is Ogden’s reaction:

“I don’t know,” Ogden whispered, terrified, “I don’t know.”

Because of course Ogden is utterly useless. The Sentinels have had very long to prepare for this, and he does not even know how he can act against Gorgrael?

Axis stares at him for a bit, “anger and fear battling across his face” and then kicks the donkey’s rump. He tells them to ride because that is their only chance. He finally lets Belaguez “have his head” and he races away after the rest of the column. Ogden and Veremund follow as fast as they can. “This was not how it was supposed to be.”

Well, how is it supposed to be, then? And can you actually adapt to it?

Scene break, and we are back with Faraday!

As soon as it is apparent what is happening, Timozel pulls Faraday and Merlion’s horses around and screams at the maids “to do the same thing”. He then pulls out his sword “and beat[s] their horses’ rumps with the flat of the blade, his too-long hair falling over his eyes.” I guess that works? Did we need that note about his hair, though? It is his own choice how long he wears his hear, I would think.

Petty Ain’t the Word for You: 24

Every time he looks, the storm clouds are “closer, heavier, angrier”. He has never seen clouds move like this or “boil in defiance of the wind”, and there is “[r]ed, blue and silver” lightning coming from the clouds.

Segue to Faraday’s POV, as she grips her horse’s mane, “terrified by the sudden turn of events”. She remembers the lightning and thunder from last night, and she knows that that and the present weather are “somehow [] connected”. She struggles to keep her hands in her mane and she cries to herself “Axis, please be safe!”

Behind her, Yr clings to the “saddle blanket”, keeping her balance with difficulty, her eyes “glowing deep blue”, and her lips “pulled back in a snarl”. I still do not think that works very well for a cat. She hisses Jack’s name and calls out for him to help them and be there for them. Her eyes also flash during this, so I guess she is using magic?

Segue into omniscient, as we are told that it is “every rider for him or herself in this mad race”. Aside from the danger of more than 3000 people galloping, there are the “packhorses and relief horses, most of which [are] running out of control”. Faraday prays that her horse will “not stumble and fall”.

Behind her, a “terrified shriek” sounds. Faraday turns and see her mother’s maid get trampled by the horses behind her. Well, there we have the first onscreen death since the prologue! That escalated rather quickly! (Also, poor maid. We did not know anything about you.)

Faraday cries out and “might have tried to turn back”, but Timozel grabs her horse’s head and keeps it going forward. He screams that the maid is dead, there is nothing she can do and she should save her own life. And please try to do the same for yourself, too, Timozel.

Faraday glances over at Merlion, who is “white-faced” and clings “grimly” to the pommel of her saddle. Faraday tightens her fingers in the mane of her horse until “the coarse black hair” cuts deep into her flesh. She begins to “cry soundlessly”.

Cut back to Axis, as he finally manages to “bring Belaguez under some control”. He swings the horse’s head around to look for the Brothers, “but what he [sees drives] all thoughts from his mind”. The line of clouds is now much closer, “[f]righteningly close”. In the centre of it, a “gigantic head” has formed out of the clouds. Oooh, scary!

Let us see the description of this head, then:

Vaguely manlike, although its bulging forehead and massive beaked nose looked almost like those of a bird of prey, it had a set of vicious tusks emerging from its cheeks that glinted wickedly as it twisted its head from side to side. Its mouth hung open, a too-large tongue protruding over its lower lip, canine fangs hanging from its upper gums. Huge silver orbs were sunk into deep eye sockets. Its skin was leathery and scaled, like a lizard’s skin.

Hmm, the description is quite off here. Let me go through it:

- In the first sentence, do we really need the parenthetical? It makes it hard to see where “vaguely manlike” goes. Either way, I would have rather started this with “It was vaguely manlike”.

PPP: 93

- I have yet to see a bird of prey with a “beaked nose”. What am I even supposed to picture with that?

PPP: 94

- Qua “bulging forehead”… Again, what do you mean, Douglass, especially when invoking a bird of prey? I would say that the foreheads of most birds of prey are much less “bulging” than those of humans. Did Douglass even know what a bird of prey looks like?

PPP: 95

- It is interesting that Gorgrael has tusks coming from his cheeks, though I cannot help but wonder if Douglass knew how tusks worked.

- How can the tusks “glint wickedly” when this is a cloud image? I guess that is some kind of magic of Gorgrael’s, but it might be clearer.

- “Lower lip”? Oh, now I get what Douglass means. Gorgrael has the upper part of a beak and a human lower lip. That is not made very clear, though, so I will let the point stand.

- This may be somewhat nitpicky, but why are Gorgrael’s fangs described as “hanging” from his gums? I would have used “protruding”.

- How are Gorgrael’s eyes “silver”? This is an image made from black clouds, after all. Or is this also supposed to be Gorgrael’s magic?

- The last clause would be better as “like that of a lizard”. We do not need to have “skin” twice in the same sentence here.

PPP: 96

Well, that aside, I think that Douglass meant for Gorgrael’s appearance to be scary. Yes, it does work a bit, but that is mainly because of the “giant cloud head” part, and not because I think that he looks scary by himself. If you want to establish him as evil, Douglass, use his actions, not his appearance.

We are then informed that the cloud head “[is] the most terrifying thing Axis [can] imagine encountering”. Ah yes, that is why the narration is completely bland here. Because Axis is just so very terrified.

And then it speaks. It “[sees] the solitary man sitting on the grey stallion behind the fleeing riders and in front of the two small figures on the donkeys”, and it speaks. This would have flowed much better if you had removed the greater part of that description, Douglass.

PPP: 97

And what does it speak?

“Axis,” it boomed across the distance. “My son.”

Oh, so the figure that scared Axis in his nightmares is Gorgrael! …Was this supposed to be a reveal? I genuinely cannot tell…

Axis is “lost again in his nightmare”, only this time he can see who is tormenting him. He whispers that Gorgrael is not his father “from a mouth gone dry and papery with fear”.

“He was no longer capable of rational thought.”

Could you be bothered to show us this rather than blandly tell us, Douglass? Could we maybe be inside of Axis’s POV for this? You just wrote a much better scene! Why this?

PPP: 98

We are told that Gorgrael’s head “[holds] him entrapped.” Now Ogden and Veremund reach him. Veremund shouts out his name, stands in “the stirrups of his saddle” and slaps Axis in the face as hard as he can.

PPP: 99 (stirrups of the saddle?)

He shouts to Axis that it is not his father, but “simply a likeness of Gorgrael created from cloud and ice”. Oh, you might wish Gorgrael was Axis’ father… because StarDrifter is much worse. He shouts at Axis to listen to him and not to Gorgrael, because Gorgrael “speaks only lies”.

Gorgrael, or rather “the voice”, continues to speak, “long ropes of saliva twisted down from its tongue”. Then “the voice” ought to be “Gorgrael”.

PPP: 100

My, that certainly reached this milestone quite fast, did it not? Well, let me show you what Gorgrael says. (My apologies for dropping so many excerpts, but I want to let the book speak for itself.)

“I came to your mother like this. I came to your mother like this and she loved me as I am! Yes! She loved me! She writhed for me!”

Oh no, he says Rivkah had presumably consensual sex with him! How evil! I really do not get what Douglass is going for. After all, this would be no worse than what we know of StarDrifter so far and much better than what we will eventually learn of him. So we can only be supposed to dislike him here because he is supposedly Evil.

Petty Ain’t the Word for You: 25

Then we get a paragraph of Axis’ POV:

Axis felt the evil presence of his dreams. Despair threatened to overwhelm him. There was nowhere to run. There was never anywhere to run.

It is not bad, per se, and I like that we get some narration from Axis, but it is still not doing it for me. I think it would help a lot to keep these bits together.

Do I want to write a better version… No, I think I will leave that for the next time.

Veremund shouts to Ogden that Axis will not listen. He asks what they can do, as if Axis stays there, “he will die when that cloud rolls over him”. Why did we not hear that earlier? This would have been very nice to give more urgency to this scene! Also, how do they know this?

Manage Your Info Better: 23

Ogden “[thinks] frantically”, then leads his donkey as close as possible to Belaguez, stands as high in the stirrups as he can, and jumps onto Belaguez’s back, “hauling himself up behind Axis”. He also uses a bit of magic, it seems. Belaguez “plunge[s] and dance[s]” at this, but Axis holds him on such a tight rein that he cannot shake Ogden off.

Ogden then whispers into Axis’s ear if he “remember[s] this tune”. Then he begins to hum a “strange lilting tune” that grows stronger despite the howling wind. Alright then… Axis blinks and turns his head a bit. Ogden keeps humming, “his voice becoming stronger with each phrase”. (Phrase?) Axis’ eyes refocus and Ogden feels some of the tension drain out of him.

Axis gasps “Oh”, looks away from Gorgrael and hums along with Ogden. Ogden encourages him at that and tells Axis to sing with him. He does and Veremund “finally recognise[s] the tune”. It is apparently a “ward for protection” that Icarii fathers sing to their unborn children. And if Axis’ father is from the line of Enchanters, the ward will be “strong indeed. Very strong.”

Oh, this is very smart, then! Well done, Douglass!

We are told it is the first gift Icarii fathers give to their sons, and, “some said”, the most valuable. What, do the Icarii fathers not sing this for their daughters, then? We were just told they did it for their children.

PPP: 101

Veremund now whispers for Axis to sing. And Axis does sing, his voice “now stronger than Ogden’s”, his eyes blazing, the melody “lilting above the wind”. He takes the melody beyond Ogden’s lead, “adding new variations and creating strange new depths to the song.” He is also singing words, “alien words”, instead of simply humming a melody. He is smiling now, “some distant memory resurfacing in his mind”, and “an expression of joy” appears on his face. We are told his voice is “very beautiful and very moving”.

Very Beautiful, Very Powerful: 13

Still, this scene works. It is not as good as it might have been, especially since we have not had much focus on how Axis felt, but it is also not bad.

Oh, I also just looked ahead, and it seems that it was Faraday’s maid, not Merlion’s maid, who just died.

PPP: 102

Because apparently keeping track of who is who was too much for Douglass.

Well, Veremund shouts in triumph, and turns his donkey around so he can shake his fist at the cloud head, which is approaching them. He shouts at Gorgrael if his father sang that to him, and he calls him “unloved one”. He asks if his father bothered to sing that to him while he “grew in [his] poor mother’s womb”.

“Did you father love you enough to sing to you?”

Yes, his father did not love him enough to do that, but that is because StarDrifter does not know Gorgrael is his son, and that is because he sucks!

I know that Veremund does not know that, but he still should not say this! If his father refused to sing the ward for him, that is not Gorgrael’s fault! That is his father’s fault! And, frankly, fuck you Veremund for saying that not giving Gorgrael protection is in any way a right thing to do!

Also, Gorgrael is not responsible for the love of his parents!!

ASWLT: 20 (+2)

Look Away: 28

Petty Ain’t the Word for You: 27 (+2)

Well, Gorgrael lets out “a terrifying scream of rage” at that, as well he might, and for a moment, Veremund thought that he has only provoked him “into a more dreadful display of power”. Then you should have maybe left off the taunting, Veremund. If this gets more people killed, that is your fault, too.

But Gorgrael is a bit smarter than that, as he lets the head dissolve and sends the storm further on, which is as “angry and as deadly as previously”. Veremund swings back to Axis and Ogden, who is still on Belaguez’s back. He tells them to ride.

Axis finally lets Belaguez go (poor horse…) and whispers to himself that Gorgrael is not his father. Veremund goes after Belaguez, “but Ogden’s riderless donkey outrace[s] them all”. And there the chapter ends.

Well, that was better than the previous chapters. Things are happening now and we have some effective scenes. The quality does remain uneven, though. Maybe it will improve further? We will find out next time. Until then!