This is a new project I’m starting. It will serve at least two purposes. I am planning to re-release all of my books later this year and therefore, they need to be edited.

The best person to edit a story is the story’s writer. They know the book, the storylines, plotlines, characters and settings better than anyone else (or at least they should!)

Because I now have you in the mentorship group, I’m planning on expanding your skill-sets. I’d like you to help me to edit this work and tell me what you think.

This is a drastic change, I’ve not really touched the works in a few years and they not only need an update, they also need to encompass everything I’ve learned over the years I’ve been writing and learning.

So… are you up for this?

Book cover Gingernut Books Ltd

Images from Google free to use search unless otherwise stated

Deadlier than the male

Deadlier Beginnings

Sentinel Exemplar, your Wolfen birth, which happened in your seventeenth summer, was seen aeons before you were born. Your role amongst us was never seen clearly and some fretted that your birthing would bring destruction to us all. Some think that you may yet, for prophesy can only be interpreted and therefore can be easily misread.

You have proven yourself numerous times to be loyal and true, yet for all this, you may still be the cause of our downfall.

Take great care that you keep to what is true - for yourself and for Wolfkind and especially for the Lycaeons past, present and future.

I give you this, your story as a record for you.

I believe that some of the memories in it will be lost to you but here they are recorded as they happened, without bias or guile. You may do with it as you will, preserve it, destroy it or hide it away.

I have never made a duplicate for any other Wolf, neither Lycaeon nor Ancient One.

Learn from it, prosper and grow, but stay forever true - as I shall.

The Scribe

One

Hazel walked slowly towards the boundary of the wood. Her wolfhound, Mika was missing and had been gone all day. She had searched for him everywhere in and around the hamlet and it was only her growing desperation to find him that forced her to go looking towards the dreaded woodland.

She pulled her woollen wrap tighter around her shoulders; her pace slowed as she neared the trees.

Desperate men coming home from the battlefields at Agincourt, to find little or nothing left of their homesteads and families were known to turn outlaw. The camaraderie they had shared on battlefields on foreign soil, standing side by side, longbows ready to hurl silent death at the enemy, meant they found it easier to bond with men in similar circumstances than to start a family and home life from scratch.

It was a harsh life whichever way they chose; to have no one dependent on them and no endless toil of working the land only to give over a large chunk of it as taxes was the more favourable option. Some ex-soldiers made their home in the greenwood where they survived by poaching the King’s deer, sleeping rough and by attacking unwary travellers to steal their possessions.

Tales and rumours of wandering vagabonds and soldiers returning from the war in France were not the height of her fears. Yes, those tales made her wary, but there were older stories, myths and legends that drove a spike of fear deeper into her heart.

Hazel knew that there was a possibility of outlaws wandering close to that part of the forest but that wasn’t the only danger she was worried about. There were worse things in the woods. Perhaps they would keep the outlaws and vagabonds at bay. As long as she didn’t encounter either before she found Mika, she would be happy.

She called out for him often, "Mika! Mika!" Listening to hear the deep bark from him, she walked on.

She wandered further into the woods. It was getting late and starting to grow dark and she perhaps should have been thinking about getting home to wait and see if Mika could find his own way back. Before long she was out of the sparsely wooded area and into the forest proper.

"MI-KA! MI-KA!" she shouted again.

Hazel’s voice was starting to sound shaky and she was on the verge of tears, but she didn’t stop looking for him.

Dusk was beginning to steal visibility; every shape melted into the next. Trees and bushes were indistinct shadows and she was starting to shiver; not so much with cold as with fear.

Startled at the slightest noise, Hazel at last decided to turn around and go home without Mika.

She turned and froze at the sound of a large branch as it was snapped from a tree over to her left; the noise as it hit the forest floor was followed by total silence.

It was the utter deathly stillness that came after that set her nerves jangling. The noise was not a natural sound made by a creature going about its usual business of survival. Whatever had snapped the branch seemed aware of the noise and was trying to conceal its whereabouts or had deliberately broken the branch and was watching to see her reaction.

Cocking an ear and listening intently, she started moving again. As quietly as possible she picked her way back down the overgrown and, at times indistinct pathway. Whatever was following her was keeping quiet, but the silence that enveloped the wood told her that it had not gone away and the smaller inhabitants disliked it as much as she did; they were either scattered or sheltered.

It was keeping pace with her on a parallel course to her own. She glanced sideways often, hoping to catch sight of it and perhaps wondering if she should want to catch sight of it. Then a grumbling, snuffling noise gave her its location and she was frightened anew. Her fear was working against her and that could only help the hunter.

A faint but deep and sinister snigger made her stop again. It had altered its course and was keeping pace on the other side of her. The hairs on her arms and at the base of her neck rose; her breathing quickened and she shuddered with fear.

Suddenly she was running. It was an act of pure instinct - the urge for flight. She gathered her skirts and ran as though her life depended upon it, running as hard and as fast as she could through the brambles that she had skirted around on her way into the wood.

She swayed off balance, arms flailing for a moment as she saw that she had missed the pathway. She almost stopped and turned back but the beast was too close for comfort.

She was again taken aback when she had to jump over a partially rotten log that had not been on her path on her way in; her skirts almost tripped her as they entangled her legs. She could hardly see anything in front of her because of the darkness, her panic and the undergrowth. The beast was still with her, its noises of pursuit no longer muted; it had given up on a surprise attack. It was keeping pace with her, but at a distance. She had stopped looking for it; there was still no glimpse of it through the trees.

---

The start of the book seems a little tired to me - I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise, I've been living with the book for two decades now.

Here's your chance to pull it apart and make suggestions. I need fresh eyes on this, so your honest opinion and critique is invaluable!

I'll post another portion of the book soon (maybe even tomorrow) and I'll take suggestions into account.

Feel free to be as harsh as you like, I want this book to be better than it is now.

Have at it then!