Morning all and welcome to the Fifteen Minute Novel. Here I take the start of a story idea and work on it for fifteen minutes a day. I started with an old writing prompt that interested me, cleaned it up a bit to fit the basic outline of the story I want to write and then set aside fifteen minutes each week day to see it grow. Each morning’s writing starts with the last sentence of the day before. And so now we have the story of Kasca…
Day 1: She held her breath.
She held her breath. She knew the bushes in which she crouched were scant cover, but they were the best she could find when she saw the outlines of the patrol in the distance. Her one hope was that this pass was routine and not some sort of search. She knew the routine circuit and knew she was out of their pathways. Kasca hoped nothing would bring them closer.
She knew their eyesight was not the greatest and that the behemoth’s tracked by motion rather than sight. Not for the first time she wondered why the man who made the monsters, animating them and bringing them to reign terror over the land, designed them that way.
At the moment, she had no answers, she just hoped she could use the flaw to her advantage.
‘And that no one corrected the oversight.’
All she needed was for the monsters to have gained a keen-sighted companion to work with in the time she had been in the northlands. If they did then she, and all the other runners like her, were doomed. Dismissing such fatalistic thoughts, she concentrated on staying still.
The creatures were between her and the sun and their shadows were long across the open landscape. Their shaggy, bulbous heads swung slowly back and forth with each step looking for any sign of movement. Their movements were as rhythmic as the pendulum on a grandfather clock.
She knew if they spotted so much as a twitch, they would pounce, their rhythmic pace evaporating and their long sharp teeth vying with their equally sharp claws for the opportunity to shred her to bits. She saw many of her friends go that way.
Kasca had no desire to join them in a similar death.
‘I am just a bush,’ she thought trying to radiate twigginess and not concentrate on the memories of past deaths. They would do her no good now.
The row of bushes demarking the divide between one field and the next was the only feature of the flat space. Most of the bushes were crushed and broken, regrowing at odd angles or staying close to the ground trying to avoid notice as much as she was.
Any buildings that might have stood near these fields were razed when the Overlord took power as they stood too close to his castle. He wanted a wide open vista so he could see his enemies coming well before they arrived. The buildings were not torched, but rather systematically dismantled. Even the stones for the cellars were removed, leaving only gaping holes in the ground.
Those holes did not remain empty long. They were put to use almost immediately, readymade mass graves for those who opposed his rule. There were a lot in the beginning. The holes filled quickly, mounds of freshly turned earth serving as the only marker.
But that was decades ago.
Few now dared to oppose him, at least not openly. Short grass covered the once bare earth used to cover the dead. Many seasons of rain leveled the mounds and now the pits looked the same as the fields. As they were allowed no markers, memories were growing fuzzy as to exactly where those pits of death lay and who lay in which. To mark them was to remember, to mourn.
The Overlord wanted them forgotten.
As no one was allowed to use the fields to grow anything, or for any other purpose, there was no chance of them being accidentally found. The bushes left behind were mere scrubs of things, a solitary reminder of former divisions left behind. In the daylight, they offered no shielding from view of the Overlord’s Castle and she suspected that was why they were left.
They weren’t important enough to remove.
Kasca chose her moment well, using the lengthening shadows to aid her concealment. Even then, she knew no one could hide in the open ground for long. They posed no other impediment as the war machines of the Overlord could roll over them with ease should he so order it. Given the broken and strange regrowth patterns, Kasca suspected they were rolled over quite frequently.
Her eyes watched the line of monsters as they searched for movement. She narrowed them to slits so no shifting of her gaze would be perceptible. She doubted a slight eyeshine would be enough, but wanted to take no chances. Seeing no movement, the monsters continued on, their patrol taking them in the opposite direction. She allowed herself a small sigh of relief, but remained motionless until they passed the horizon.
She knew she would have only one chance to reach the next tiny bit of shelter and would need all the luck she possessed. This run was at best ill-advised, at worst suicidal. The last three runners sent in this direction did not return. The southlands were becoming impassable, at least in this direction.
But she promised to try.
The need was worth the risk.
The creatures were lost to sight over the horizon and Kasca knew it was now or never. She took a deep breath, stepped out of her scant cover and began to run.
Ten til Midnight 