1st 5 Pages November Workshop- Luken Rev 2

Name: Ellie Luken

Title: Last Lights of the Lost

Genre: YA Fantasy

Pitch:

Sarana was raised by a group of mercenary women who travel the world hunting monsters. To officially become one of them, she must kill her first monster, a giant sandworm.

She fails.

A huntress is never supposed to fail, so they banish her. But they offer one way for her to redeem herself and return: she must kill a type of monster no one has killed before. When she meets Ani, a girl from a town in the shadow of a haunted mountain, she finds her chance. Ani's town has been forced to provide people to free the mountain tunnels from the monster who lives there, and Ani's sister, Ashwia, is one of the latest recruits.

Sarana and Ani team up to enter the mountain--Sarana to kill the monster, Ani to save her sister. But as they make their way deeper into the tunnels, the monster sinks controlling claws into their minds, warping reality and making them see things that aren’t there. They can't trust their senses, but they must figure out how to see through the mind games it plays before their sanity crumbles and they're trapped forever among ghosts.

Revision:

I face my family’s row of weapons. The metal of the blades glints in the sliver of early morning light that slips through the side of our tent. For the first time, I feel a pinch of nerves. Today is the most important day in my life. Today is the day every other moment of my life has been leading up to.

Because today, after I complete my first hunt and kill a sandworm, I’ll become a huntress.

A shiver threatens, so I draw my new wool cloak closer around me. My fingers skim the raised threads of embroidery, symbols of strength, health, and victory. A few of the threads are crooked. My younger brother isn't precise. Any other time, I would've teased him about the flaws in his work. But last night, I accepted it as formally as he gave it. This gift is his show of support, even if he won’t wake to see me off. Right now, he still snores in a pile of furs, his brown feet just poking out.

Mother is awake, sharpening a knife. Behind her, nearly double her size, is the scale of a sea serpent. It’s the strongest monster she’s slain, so it travels with us. Anyone who enters our tent can know her strength.

Although it’s not officially part of the test, selecting my weapons is a critical step for success. I can pick anything I want—but if I pick wrong, I’ll have lost my fight against the sandworm before it’s even begun.

Sandworms are Beast Class monsters, large and heavily armored, with poison on their scales. The only way to kill one is to hit a vulnerable area through the back of its mouth. My gaze skims over the line of close combat weapons, the spears, the curved arms, the swords, all different metals for different monsters. If I end up close enough to the sandworm to use one of these, I’ll probably be dead already. For a sandworm, I need something to fire from a distance.

I glance at the matchlock rifle. Maybe. But guns are artless weapons. It’s hard to aim with any kind of accuracy.

A bow will be most precise, and if I am capable, faster to reload and fire than the rifle. My throat goes dry, and I lick my lips. If I’m not strong enough--

I shouldn’t doubt myself. More importantly, I shouldn’t doubt my training. Doubting my training is doubting all of my honorary aunts and uncles who worked with me.

I grab a bow and a quiver of arrows, and I take a matchlock rifle as a backup. It won’t be accurate until I’m quite close to the sandworm, but if something goes wrong, I might need it. Last, I grab a slab of dried meat to feed my steed. When I turn to leave, Mother stands behind me.

She claps a hard hand on my shoulder. "See you shortly." She doesn't wish me luck because that would predict my failure.

I don't need luck, because I have skill.

"Of course," I say.

I step outside and jog towards the edge of the huntress camp to fetch my steed. Ahead, the desert sand glows red in the sunrise, like it bleeds. The back of my neck prickles, and the beginning of the day’s warmth in the air says I don’t have much time before I need to leave.

"Sarana." A soft, sweet voice calls from behind me. It belongs to Darius, one of the scouts, and newest member of the huntress team. He might have information for me, so I slow and let him catch me.

He flashes me half a smile and then ducks his head. His pale cheeks shine pink, and his light curls glow. “I—made you a small token for strength. Sorry it took me so long to finish."

Usually only loved ones offers up tokens before a first hunt, and now I find my own face warming. "Oh." He's new to the team, originally from far north, one of the rare travelers who begs to join. Maybe he doesn't understand the significance of the tokens.

"Do you—accept it?" He holds out a wooden carving, hanging on a piece of string like a very crude piece of jewelry. The intertwining circles mean strength, but not a lone person's strength. Strength in unity, in family, in friends. The huntresses, scouts and trainees are a team. We're not all related by blood, but we are family.

"Of course." I swipe it quickly from his hand and turn to keep walking.

"I really hope you succeed," he says.

I should let it go, but it feels like a bad omen to leave on those words. He shouldn’t hope I’ll succeed. He should know I will.

I stop and turn back. "Of course I will. I’ve been training my whole life for this." I’ve given everything I have for this. Half of the trainees who attempt this test die trying to pass it, but I won’t end up like them. My mother was a huntress, and her mother before her. I was made to follow in their footsteps.

I've never considered I might not succeed, because how can I consider that all of me isn’t enough to make me the one thing I’ve always wanted?

“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

I step back. Every word he says is more and more awkward, and it sounds like he doesn’t believe in me. “It’s fine. Once I return, you won’t doubt me again.”

Once I return, no one will doubt me again. They’ll all see how valuable I am.

Behind me, someone clears her throat. I jump back from Darius and spin toward the noise. My nerves are wound too tight—I shouldn't have been so startled by that. Steps in the sand are soundless.

Rasa, my training partner, soon to be my hunting partner, stands with a hand on her hip, grinning wickedly. "It’s time to go." In her other hand, she holds the reins to her steed. To underscore her point, the steed dances in place. Flecks of meat stick in its sharp teeth, as its lips peels back at the sight of me. It blasts me with breath like rot. Its thin tail flicks back and forth, the hard knob at the end swinging.

Rasa swings herself onto its back. I look up at her, and she raises her eyebrows in response. She's tried for years to be able to lift only one, but she still can't. The reminder that she's got her own strange flaws makes me smile.

"It's time we're huntresses already!" She pumps a fist into the air. Her bravado rings false, and it hangs between us. She should stop talking. If she weren't nervous, she'd be quiet.

"’ll be back," I tell Darius, although he’s slumped like a crumpled rug, and hurry away. Rasa follows on her steed.

At the edge of the campsite, the rest of the steeds wait, most dozing. I approach my family's, marked by the red and white ribbon around his neck, although even without that, I'd recognize the spots on his back. I think he recognizes me, too. I toss him the meat and climb onto his back.

Ahead, the rolling red dunes stretch.

"Let's go kill that worm." I say.

We ride out.

We don't pretend there's any path other than success.

There isn't.

Victory or death is all a huntress knows.