First chapter more vivid. Describe how it looks in head.

Especiall in transition between para 2

and 3. Ive cut a corner. Make first chapter count more

How does he know dad dead in chapter 2

Watch length of sentences. Most can be fixed by breaking it up with correct grammer. Para 1
of chap 2 is made up of 4 sentences

How has son never seen general

Clunky sentences eg. First line of chap 3

End of 3, emphasise there being hunted, give new para

Ive skipped over detail that would make story fluid

Chap 6, give more time to fight

Too much explaining rather than storytelling

Re read chap 7
 The Boy and the General

Chapter 1

The room was cold, as all rooms were cold in those days. The lone man stood accompanied
only by his thoughts of the events that were unfolding outside of the walls of his keep. Above
him were the haunting paintings of the past Kings that once ruled his land. A painting of
himself was among them, put up in a time when his right to rule was unquestioned.
“Oh how things have changed”, he thought.
His right to rule had become an expiring luxury. The door to the keep would not stand
for much longer, its guards only just being able to repel the last onslaught from men whose
sole ambition was to capture the man behind it. His resolve however was strong, his body
battle hardened and fuelled by a determination not to be taken alive. The men outside the
door shared these traits, not, like the King, through a sense of duty or nobility, but in a way
that a wild dog as part of a pack would hunt without fear.
The door was struck down by a handful of men with a battering ram, whose armour
was made of thick leather that despite being well kept was clearly worn. The King was
wearing no armour, he wanted to be able to move freely, feeling the cold air on his skin as he
charged towards these men. He cut down two with his sword before he fell, not making any
sound as he did so, no scream and no shout. His last breath resembled a heavy sigh, a release
from troubled thoughts of whether his final stand bought enough time for his son to ride east
to safety.
 Chapter 2

Travelling east was not what the Kings son had imagined he would be doing following the
death of his father. He thought that the centuries of burial tradition would follow as spring
follows winter, as birdsong follows the rising of the Sun. His journey, while relatively safe
compared to remaining in the western territories, was treacherous none the less. Swathes of
land that were once fertile fields, feeding generations of the provinces inhabitants, and home
to some of the finest farmers in the kingdom, were now wastelands for the soul. Greyness
dominated where life once thrived, an unrelenting greyness from an unrelenting winter, for
winter would last as long as there was suffering in the world.
The Kings son was born into the longest period of summer that people of his parent’s
generation, and even the generation before that could remember. There was peace in the
Kingdom, and with it came a contentment, a lifting of the spirits of the people. Hardships
were still in existence, but where hope lived, where there was hope that problems could be
overcome, a level of happiness was maintained and the seasons remained mild, the weather
bright and warm.
“The last time we were here the horses were trotting. Do you remember”? The Kings
son said to his fathers most trusted friend and General. “Now they can barely walk, look,
there sinking into the snow”.
“Yes my Lord, but we really need to hurry. I fear we are not out of danger. Your
Fathers enemies…” he stopped his sentence short, unsure how to address the seventeen your
old heir to the throne, a boy he had known for less than forty eight hours before being given
the order by his King to flee their stronghold.
They travelled along what was once a trail often used by farmers to transport livestock.
What was there now was indistinguishable to the land adjacent to them for the snow, wind
and rain had eroded the features of the terrain like icing spread over a decorated cake. They
were travelling with ten other riders, assigned to the Kings son from the age of fourteen, an
age where he was expected to play a larger role in ruling the Kingdom.

Chapter 3

The direction the group of twelve was heading in would eventually take them to the
birthplace of the Kings son, the King, and his father before him. It was the ancestral home of
the family that ruled the land for centuries, and currently home to the Kings wife, the mother
of the weary yet unafraid seventeen year old that was heading in her direction.
The home resembled more of a manor house than a castle. The province had not seen
conflict since before the current dynasty of Kings had seized the throne, so the occupiers
never saw any reason to fortify it, unlike their buildings in the West. It was situated on
lowland and backed up upon one of the great lakes of the world. Due to the lowland location,
the area was able to stay relatively warm, the lake remaining unfrozen despite the winter. It
was this lake that the Kings son would have to cross should he want to avoid having to
traverse the hilltops either side of it, hilltops that had claimed so many lives of unsuspecting
walkers that failed to respect the cold temperatures and early nights of the winter.
 Safety of the manor house was still a distant hope as the riders navigated the
monotonous landscape. The General led the group onwards continuously, in his mind
thoughts spiralled of the potential failure of his plan. The ten guards, all of them experienced
soldiers and all hardened to the winter did not share the Generals concerns until a distinctive
sounds came from their direction of travel. What they heard first were the barks of hounds.
They were being hunted, being pursued by man and beast, by the men who had killed the
King and now had thoughts only for the blood of the last heir to the throne.

Chapter 4

“How could they come this far east?” the Kings son asked the General. His voice no longer
resembled that of youth, strain and fear were the key markers of the sound that he now
produced. The bitterness of the air served only to make his speech slower, his mouth almost
too cold to be used as an instrument for communication.
“I don’t know” was the response of the General. He had not expected a continual attack
on the family that he served, or at least thought it very unlikely, for the enemy had been
exposed to the harshness of the winter during the assault on the Kings stronghold and in the
travelling that had been done to get to it. But desperate men are willing to take desperate
measures, and with the death of the Kings son being in reach to them, fanaticism took over
their minds, unwilling to relent on the chase, for the chase is often more rewarding than the
catch.
The fanaticism that fuelled the mind of these men was not simply that of their own
making, stoked like that of an unruly mob. Seeds were planted by one who was to set himself
up as the new ruler, one who could reunite the land that had fallen into winter, into turmoil.
He saw himself as someone that deserved to rule but whose plan to end the Kings dynasty
had failed with the fleeing of his son.
This man was the High Priest, a position of incredible power, able to maintain support
for the King through sermon and Church teachings, or to strip support away. If the King
could only rule with a trinity of powerful allies, the High Priest would be a vital leg of a
tripod, whose lack of support would cause collapse regardless of whether the army and
regional Lords were on side. For where does power really lie if it is not with the people who
allow themselves to be governed?

Chapter 5

It was the vain ambition of the High Priest that was the ultimate cause of the winter. His
actions to assert his position as the ruler began just over seventeen years ago when the Kings
son was born. It was an unexpected birth, a birth that would mean the King had an heir. The
High Priest was to assume authority when the King had died as, to that point in time, no
children had been born. The King with an heir meant that he now had to find a different way,
an underhand and devious way to claim the throne.
His position at the head of the Church gave him the unique opportunity to indirectly
have access to the majority of the population through his priest’s weekly meeting with them.
The priests, while loyal to the throne, were bound by oath to obey their leader, to administer
the words to people that the High Priest intended to have heard. Discontentment was
gradually spread, and by the time the Kings son was ten, the first snows began to fall in the
world. The High Priest had succeeded in breaking his sacred obligation to his King and Gods,
anger and violence was rife. Men with troubled hearts and troubled minds will seek the same
for others, and like an out of control chariot, the stoked fire of hatred burnt bright; a
revolution was imminent.
What could have been the final acts of the revolution, the final hammer blow to the line
if Kings, became a chase in the snow and ice. The chasing men rode fast, their burning
ambition driving them on, out gritting, out working the cold souls of the defeated riders up
ahead.

Chapter 6

The lake was only about a mile away when an arrow pierced the Kings son. They had reached
the lowland where the ground had only a thin layer of snow as a blanket, the frozen earth
underneath now providing a stable base for horses to travel with speed. The ten guards turned
the horses and drew their swords, the General and the Kings son doing the same just five
seconds later so that they would be positioned behind them.
What confronted the twelve riders were around thirty men, their faces dirty and grey as
though they belonged to the landscape, belonged to the winter they had endured for so many
years. These men, although fierce in spirit, lacked the fierceness in body that the well fed
guards were able to bring to the fight. However confidence was with the attackers, and years
of fighting meant they were not going to give up easily.
“The Kings dead”, one shouted as they halted, readying their horses in a line two deep to
charge.
“That’s all we want is the boy” another said in a gruff voice, as though years of harsh living,
or actually just existing, had taken their effect.
The fighting was brutal and bloody, and where there was once an uninterrupted white
film of snow gently touching the ground, there was a dark red liquid that seeped its way into
it. Horses and dogs scattered, and what was left was the Kings injured son, the General and a
single guard. Death would have to wait a little longer to claim them as they now rode towards
the lake.

Chapter 7

The three arrived at the deserted lake ten minutes after the last of the attackers has died.
Adrenaline and fear gripped the Kings son. He had never been in a fight and despite only
having a minor arrow wound to his lower leg, he was shaken as though an earthquake had
been triggered inside him.
“We are going to be safe now my Lord, when we get onto the lake” the guard said. There was
a small number of wooden boats tied up on the bank that despite having seen better days,
would be used by local fishermen on a daily basis to try and catch what little fish was still
alive. One of these would allow the three to row to safety.
 The General got onto the boat first, followed by the Kings son. Lastly the guard
stepped on with one leg and pushed off the bank with the other. While momentarily off
balance, the General plunged his sword into the Guards back, allowing him to fall into the
water and sink. He was wearing some of the finest armour, hand crafted from steel. It was to
become his coffin.
The General turned to the Kings son. “I’m sorry” were his only words as both remained
motionless. It became clear in the Kings sons’ mind what the truth was, that the General, who
had been fighting and leading his father’s armies, had been against him all this time.
“Why? Why have you done this to us? He trusted you? He sent you away from him to protect
me and now you’re…” He could say no more. The total unforeseen terror of the situation
griped him as he sat still, still as though the very coldest winds of winter had frozen him to
the spot.
“I had no choice” the said in a calm manner. “You see, this war will carry on
indefinitely should you live. My brother told me it was the Gods’ wishes for there to be peace
and for winter to end”
“The High Priest told you to betray your King?”
“It was for the good of the Kingdom. With you dead the High Priest will rule and peace will
be restored. You must see that? I’m sorry. Now you must die”. The General lifted his sword,
a sword presented to him by the King when the revolution had begun, a sword that should
have been used to protect the royal bloodline, not destroy it.
An arrow, followed swiftly by another was shot into the Generals chest. Dropping to
his knees, and then onto his back, the face of the man, manipulated by his brother, was at
peace. A boat with three fishermen came into the sight of the Kings son. While armed with
crossbows that were put expertly to use to kill fish, they had witnessed what happened to the
guard through the freezing fog on the lake and recognised the Kings son. Being still loyal to
the throne, they acted promptly and shot their arrows, killing the General and saving the
Kings son in the process.

Epilogue

The newly appointed King, a seventeen year old, was the person to lead the fight against the
High Priest. The enemy was now known. The enemy that for so long was hidden from view,
quietly controlling the direction of the revolution for his own ends, was exposed.
The task was huge. The kingdom split in two, a civil war of unprecedented scale
causing an unprecedented winter was to be survived and won and only the future knew if he
was to be successful. He was standing alone in a warm room, despite most rooms being cold
in those days. His right to rule was being challenged, but as he looked up at the paintings on
the walls of the past kings, which now included a painting of himself, he said out load to
them, “Yes, I will fight”.