Soulwielder
please criticize this, I really want to get better at writing:
Thorash awoke immediately as Alante slammed the door to his quarters open. His head shuttered at the noise his steward was making as he tripped over his boots and a chair he had left in the middle of the room. Suddenly his dreamless sleep became highly important to him for some reason, even though a moment before he had been twisting and turning in his bed. It was the manner of him being awoken which caused him sudden frustration, for which he felt like throwing a boot at the man, or worse. A rush of feeling caused him to rethink this course of action as it overwhelmed his temples. Thorash rubbed his head, then realized he was still partly drunk from the night before. Damn it I always drink too much. And when I don’t, I regret it.
His dreads draped down to his shoulders as was Terkeshan custom. He sported a black goatee as well, which was braided on the end and dangled down to his chest. His sudden and unexpected rise from bed had sent his left arm flailing out like a bird learning how to fly, in which he had knocked over a glass of wine he had left lying there the night before. He cursed. Alante grabbed Thorash’s suit of armor out of his armory.
“Alante what in Aiel’s name is going on?” Thorash demanded, flinching at the ruckus Alante was making.
“Sorry sair, No word has been sent back from your father or his men,” he said concerned.
“My father? Where is he?” Thorash asked climbing sideways out of his bed. He realized that the moon was still high in sky as he went to the stone window overlooking the city below. Alante began to place Thorash’s shin guards on him first. Thorash shook his head as he fiddled around with the straps.
“Your father went to the tomb that was discovered yesterday in the mines. He went there right after supper and hasn’t come back. He told me to make sure you were armed if he did not report back in two hours. Well, it’s been just over two hours.” I wish he would tell his son these things. Am I the lord of the Hopespire or some simple servant? My own servant knows more than me But he was too hung over to get angry right now, his temples burned from just squinting at the moonlight.
“What in den for? You know what whatever, no point in getting mad at you. I mean if you are going to give someone a command at least-”Alante looked up at Thorash as he finished strapping on his plate greaves.
“Sair? What is it?”
Thorash just continued to stare out the window, his jaw lowered and mouth wide. “I think I know what he meant,” He said hardly moving his mouth. His eyes remained glued to whatever was outside the window.
Alante stood up curiously and looked out the window beside his master. In the northern valley off in the distance, past the city of Telmach and above the forest of Caman, a vast shadow crawled over the hills. Hundreds of thousands of black figures approached the fair yet sleeping city, just miles off.
“Alante hurry! Get my armor on!” Thorash yelled, wishing immediately that he hadn’t, as his head felt like it would explode. The sudden terror in his voice caused Alante to bump his head against the window seal in freight. Shaking the pain off, Alante hurried to get the remainder of Thorash’s armor, and was half way finished strapping his chest armor on when Thorash walked away from him, nearly causing Alante to fall over holding one of the unfastened straps.
“Sair! Your armor-”
“-Don’t worry about my bloody gauntlets I’ve never gotten a cut on my hands yet.” He interjected. He bumped into the captain of the guard luckily. “Captain wake the entire garrison and call the reserve. The city is about to be under attack.” Thorash said nearly pushing the man over as he pranced down the stairs. The Captain just said “sair,” and if he had said anything else Thorash would not have heard him as he came around the bend. When he got to the bottom of the Hopespire the bells had begun to ring.
General Vakanor had walked out of the privy still in his nightgown. “Sair who’s attacking?” he asked as he buttoned up his pants. Thorash shook his head. “I was going to ask you the same thing. I have no idea. Where’s my wife?”
Vakanor thought. “Oh, she was in the courtyard praying. I have two guards with her.” He said assuredly.
Thorash nodded. He walked out of the Hopespire and into the courtyard. He spotted her coming out of the palace gardens shadowed by two men in the blue armor of the Hopespire guard. She smiled when she saw him just as he did her. He looked down at her and rubbed her thirty-eight weeks pregnant stomach. My heir he thought.
“Shani, I need you to get inside the spire and to the shelter,” he said. She nodded hesitantly, her reddish blonde hair draping over her breasts and moving with her head. “What’s going on?” she asked defiantly. She was a Terkeshan woman after all, and Aiel knew they never just went with the flow. That’s of course why I married her. It wasn’t for the dowry after all, her family had been from the merchant class. It had been an odd paring, and Thorash had been the first to marry outside his immediate social class for generations, to the disdain of his father.
“We’re under attack,” He said simply.
She looked confused, “Who would attack us?” she asked. Thorash shook his head. “I have no idea. I also don’t understand how they were able to infiltrate our land with such a force in so little time.”
He leaned in and kissed her. “Go now.”
She nodded and went with the guards who led her inside. As she turned towards the castle entrance, a hundred Hopespire guards fell in behind Thorash. Vakanor now fully dressed for battle was in front of them. They marched as fast as they could to the gate arriving just as the archers had readied their arrows in the flaming braziers on the walls. The army was still far off but they approached with speed.
“What happened then?” Tierm asked. He sat in his jade tiled bath, his two female slaves rubbing his back and shoulders. Thorash had the same courtesy being done to himself, but had waved the girl off when she started to reach for his pelvic regions. I have my wife for that.
“Well…,” Thorash recollected. “We fought for two days and three nights before reinforcements came from Dorium. The enemy, a collection of wild men that dressed in motley with leather and chainmail under-tunics, aptly named The Darish by my soldiers, or the daring people, laid siege to the city though they had no siege equipment other than oil and logs for rams. Even so, showing such ferocity and even with the heavy casualties they took, managed to bring down the gate on the third night. At that point, seeing the state of my own garrison force and the size of the army that yet remained I ordered a full retreat. It was the hardest decision of my life, but I’d do it again I think.”
Tierm sighed with empathy. His beard hairs moved with it. It was a magnificent beard, long and black that covered his entire neck. His upper lip was completely bald though. It reminded him of his father’s style. But that was what Tierm likely intended. “And father?” he asked. Thorash shook his head. Tierm nodded and didn’t seem to really care.
“That must have been hard. Abandoning your seat of power. I can’t say I would have had the courage to do the same brother, had I been in your position. Arrowheart is almost as dear to me as my wife. Maybe more so,” he chuckled. Thorash showed no amusement though, as he thought of the ones that did not escape the city, dying in their houses as the Darish burned them.
“I saved the people of my city and my wife. She gave birth on the second day of the siege but I was too busy fighting for my life to see it. I would not have even seen him had I stayed fighting there, and he would be dead, probably still in his mother’s arms.”
Tierm nodded. “What did you name your son?”
“Rhynihl,” Thorash said. “After-
-the hero from the legend, our ancestor. Of course.” Tierm finished. Throash nodded.
Tierm chuckled, “Conceived in a battle. That’s something for him to brag about to the little girls when he grows. I remember you at the age of six or seven, girls were all over you.”
Thorash smiled. A moment of silence went on for an awkward amount of time. The sound of water brushing against skin was the only thing keeping the room from being completely soundless. Tierm finally interrupted it.
“So do you plan to take it back? If so, I have soldiers laying around getting fat and with too much time on their hands. A war would do them nicely.”
Thorash shook his head. “No, not yet anyway. I was wondering…If I could have a plot of land to the west, near the Feshistan forest. I’d like to settle my soldiers down there too, far enough away from Telmachia. They need to be retrained, and new recruits need to be collected, otherwise it will just be another pointless yet heroic defeat.”
Tierm nodded perplexed. He seeks to cower and hide? Or is this some kind of long-term plan? It certainly seems like cowardice.
“Of course you can, I’ll give you the province of Aresia with the capital being Tos. You can settle your men there to call up at a later date. But under one condition.”
Thorash leaned forward. “Name it.”
“There can’t be two kings governing the same land at the same time. The common folk will get confused. You’ll still retain the rights to Telmachia, but you can’t be called king, in this land anyway.”
Thorash thought. A sane man would say no. It’s quite obvious the game he’s playing to any elementary politician. Regardless he would not inherit the land unless he sought to retake it for himself. Even then, he would have no choice but to hand it over to me. Unless I was dead. In that case, if he wanted it that badly he was happy to have it.
“Fine. I will leave for it on the morrow.”
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Can we have some line spaces? 
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I'll let you know what I think after I've had a chance to read it. 
Originally Posted by Shankbot de Bodemloze
