1st 5 Pages November Workshop- Luken

Name: Ellie Luken

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Title: LAST LIGHTS OF THE LOSE

By the time the fire dies, we must be ready to hunt. And just embers remain, so there's not a lot of time left.

I stand and shake stiffness from my legs. A shiver threatens, so I draw my new wool cloak 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.

Matis gave me the cloak last night with a solemn bow, no trace of his usual smirk to be found. Any other time, I would've teased him about the flaws in his work. But I accepted it as formally as he gave it. 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, I become a huntress.

The desert glows red in the sunrise, and it looks like the sand bleeds. I weave through the silent tents of the huntress team until I find my family’s tent and duck inside. It's warm, smelling of sweat and life. My brother snores in a pile of furs.

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.

Selecting my weapons is the first step of my test, so I head for our weapons collection at Mother’s side. I can pick anything I want—but if I pick wrong, I’ll have lost my fight against the sandworm I’m supposed to kill before it’s even begun.

Sandworms are Beast Class monsters, large and heavily armored, with poison on their scales. My gaze skims over the line of polearms. If I end up close enough to the sandworm to use one of these, I’ll probably be dead already. The pile of swords—all different metals for different monsters—are equally useless.

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

The longbow will be most precise, and if I am capable, faster to reload and fire than either the crossbow or 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 the longbow 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 for 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 camp to fetch my steed. The back of my neck prickles, and the beginning of warmth in the air says I don’t have much time before I need to leave. The first huntress-in-training who failed her test left mid-morning, and ever since, it’s tradition to leave by the time before the fire from the night before is gone.

"Sarana." A soft voice calls from behind me, and it sends a small shiver down my back. Darius’s voice is sweet and melodic, spun candy, and he could convince anyone of anything with it, I'm sure.

I slow and let him catch me.

His cheeks glow pink—maybe from the chilly air, maybe from the freely flowing wine last night. He flashes me half a smile and then ducks his head. "I—made you a small token for strength. Sorry it took me so long to finish."

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

We allow anyone to join if they prove their worth by besting one of us in a competition of their choice. The huntresses would never turn away greatness, no matter where it came from.

"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 and scouts and trainees are a team. We're not all related by blood, but we are family. The carving is a little rough around the edges, but I suppose he's new.

"Of course," I say, and he smiles.I reach for it, and his hand closes over mine as he presses it into my palm. He leans a little closer, the grey mist of his breath swirling. I taste edges of the sweet wine in it."I really hope you succeed," he says.I yank my hand away. "Of course I'll succeed. I realize you're new here, but I'm a huntress." 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 grandmother before her. 

I've never even considered I might not become another huntress, because why should I? I was made to follow in their footsteps. I'm made for glory, not some sad, quiet life.

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

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

“I don’t doubt you—I just—” he starts, and I put up a hand.

“I need to go,” I say. “But don’t worry. You’ll see when I return. Because I’ll be a huntress.”

When I become a huntress, everything I’ve sacrificed will be worth it. My crooked nose from when my rival Tavas broke it and called me weak, my first girlfriend breaking up with me because she was afraid I wouldn’t come back from a hunt – once I’m a huntress, I’ll show them all that they should never have doubted me.

Darius clears his throat. “Ah—yes, of course you will.”

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 quite 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. "Sorry for interrupting, but it's almost 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.

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