Mind Like a Hive – Part 1

My wife enjoyed What Lies Beyond Sight quite a bit.  She is an enormous fan of anything dystopian, and for me to write something that smacked of her favorite genre was a treat.

To be honest, I didn’t.  I wasn’t really all that sure where I was going with the story, it was getting bogged down without any clear sense of direction, and it was a slightly boring world builder.  The idea was cool, don’t get me wrong.  I loved the world that I was building, quite a lot.  But it just felt… meh.

So I’m going to shake off my last attempt, and try something fresh.  I have a neat idea that I was batting around last night before I got distracted by new books.  It’s a kind of…  Gulliver’s Travels meets Braveheart meets A Bug’s Life?  It sounds wonky, but I promise it’ll read well.

I’m beginning to realize, more and more, that I just need to write in a style which is captivating, and leave the world building to periods of exposition.  I love building the cathedrals of my mind, but it’s slightly boring without anything gripping to anchor it firmly in place.  So I’ll try to be more action oriented until I’m a much better writer and can make character pieces and world building pieces a thing worth reading.

I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it’s definitely something I will need to work on.  The best authors are able to take even the most generic of scene building and turn it into something gripping.  If I’m to join their ranks some day, I need to make sure I start learning how to do that as soon as I can.

Without further introspection…

Mind Like a Hive – Part 1

Gyver’s thorax rumbled with a deep, resonate hum beneath the saddle.  His wings thrummed so loud it was hard for his rider to hear her own thoughts.  Sheraith Bohigdon’s most recent thought was a vile curse upon the ancestors of her opponent, who had pulled a spectacular twisting dive to avoid her well placed arrow.  That thought was soon crowded out by other, more generic curses as Sheraith was forced to pull her own twisting, aerial acrobatics with Gyver’s help to avoid several arrows singing her direction.  This battle is going to pot, fast Sheraith realized glumly.  The trumpeting roar and chirrups from below reached her, even at her remote clime.  She could see the battle lines below, see how the forces of the august General Hawthorne were crumpling, caving, losing.  Yet again.

 Sheraith could hardly even feel the normal thrill of battle as she realized how badly her forces were outmatched.  She sighted another knight whose mount hadn’t been as swift as it should’ve in avoiding an arrow, their mount a wing down.  Quickly, she knocked an arrow, and with the ease of long practice loosed a shot that would be hard to avoid, even if her opponent wasn’t already lamed.  Her aim was true, the barbed arrow thudding home at the joining of the prothorax and the head of the doomed knight’s mount.  The knight screamed as they fell, their mount falling limply beside them.  Even in her victory, Sheraith felt a pang of guilt.  Nasty way to go.  It was effective though.  A knight was a meter tall, heavily armored target.  A knight’s mount was thrice as long, with four wings to target.  Lame two of them on any side, and you had scored a decisive victory.  Kill the mount, and you’ve killed the rider with it.

Sheraith’s victory was short lived, however.  A sudden stabbing pain radiated outward from her thigh.  The jointed, hardened carapace which she wore was designed to deflect arrows that went after her vitals, but the need to sit in a saddle for long hours meant that the leg armor wasn’t quite as protective as the rest.  Sheraith clutched her leg, gasping in pain as Guyver swooped in a dive which placed his body between Sheraith and her attacker.  Guyver chirruped in alarm, sensing that Sheraith had been hurt.  “I’m alright Guyver” Sheraith shouted over her pain to calm the multifaceted glowing amber of Guyver’s eyes.  Guyver’s eyes cycled from the amber of alarm to the orange of any mantis engaged in combat.

Guyver’s dive had taken him out of the main theater of the air combat above.  Several stragglers from both sides, mounts or riders too damaged to continue the fight, were making their way towards the safety of the loam below.   Sheraith’s hands shook as she tried to pull back an arrow to fire at one of the fleeing targets.  Her shot was wide, by an enormous margin, and she didn’t bother to try and knock another, instead securing the bow in the holster on her back.  She nudged Guyver with her knees in the pattern necessary to indicate a landing, and Guyver swiftly made his way back towards the forward command center of Hawthorne’s army.  She needed to know how badly she was about to lose.

To be continued…

Mantisfully,
Justin