Sunday April 21st, 2019

The exercise:

Write about: the bard.

2 comments:

Greg said...

Bard. Hmm. It's not really "Splat!" is it? At best its the noise you make when you're trying to fart quietly on a theatre seat and it kinds of purrs its way out.

The bard
Liese and Matt took up station on either side of the now-stable Gate and Gray, the blue-robed Warlock, gently linked it up to the Safe Passage. Arthur watched, his expression unreadable.
"After the play," said Gray, his voice light and conversational although his face suggested a good deal more concentration, "we could go to the Bard's Arms. I hear they've actually found a bard to sing on Fridays."
Arthur shrugged, the shrug travelling from one shoulder to the other quite obviously. "I'm tone-deaf," he said. "You should hear me sing -- well, actually you shouldn't -- so I don't mind but don't expect me to be proclaiming the next Cher with you."
Gray's face was a picture of shock and amusement, his eyes wide and his mouth widening into laughter. "Isn't she someone's grandmother by now?"
"I don't listen to music!" Arthur face flushed. "It might as well be cats mating for all I can tell."
"Fine, fine," said Gray, his shoulders now shaking with the effort of not laughing out loud. His voice sounded tight. "I'll nudge you when it's time to clap, and we'll sample the ales. Right, this Safe Passage is now actually safe, at least for the next twenty minutes." He looked first to his left, then to his right. "Liese, you stay here and make sure nothing tampers with this. Matt, you're with me. We're treating this as a hostile incursion, so make sure you're warded and armoured. To the max."

The soldiers on the roof were opening the weapons caches, and Samual was finding himself a little disturbed by how many he and Tomasz had missed when they'd looked after finding the first one. Each cache seemed to be relatively primitive weaponry: spears, assegais, scimitars, kukri and even bolas. As they threw them down to the soldiers below he wondered why they were stored on the roof, but then he realised that since climbing was next to trivial for these things it made sense to put them high up. And, he noted ruefully, even when he'd known what to look for he'd not found most of them. So they were presumably protected somehow.
His breath caught in his throat: were there weapons caches near him? He looked around, but saw no sign on the long, lead-like boxes carved with odd sigils. He relaxed -- and then tensed again, remembering that the soldiers seemed to see many more of them than he did. He felt around, carefully and quietly, wondering if they were somehow invisible, and nearly groaned aloud when his hand struck something hard that his eyes said wasn't there. The soldiers would be coming this way.

Marc said...

Greg - oh my God.

That is all.

Enjoyed the back and forth by the safe passage. Finding it hard to enjoy the rooftop scene. But managing to anyway, somehow.

I think it's your stupid writing and how good it is.

Bah.

Whatever, I'm going to be now, rather than reading on quite yet.