Thunder shattered the sky and the travelers bent their heads further into their sullen hoods. Lightning shivered through the clouds again and again until it was impossible to tell which dooming toll of thunder came from which vicious bolt of lightning. The hulking clouds squatted low against the ground and began to heave out hail.
The curses of the leading traveler were stolen by the wind but the other travelers could tell from the set of his shoulders that he was almost as angry as the storm. His wife and children and the few others who knew him best suspected that there was more fury held within the oiled cloak than without. They did not fear his anger but nor did they dare to turn their eyes towards the castle at their backs. Instead they turned their eyes forward seeking other shelters.
2 comments:
You should change the beginning of the sentence "Lightning shivered..." Lightning does not shiver. There are a couple of definitions to shiver: to break into many small pieces [lightning does not break into pieces it branches out]; to undergo trembling, to tremble in the wind as it strikes first one and then the other side (of a sail)[lightning does not tremble it goes forth boldly, and randomly.]
S
I would be the worst kind of hypocrite if I failed to include a follow-up post to S's insightful comments. 'Shivered' defintatley feels wrong in this context. The thunder and cloud descriptions worked very well, though...so I wouldn't sweat it too much.
I really liked how you used the fierceness of the storm in the first paragraph to put into context the emotions felt by the main character (protagonist?) in the second. It's like you held a mirror up to my soul and saw the inner cynic within.
As a final note (in keeping with my desire to encourage cross-communication with Rob's readers), I would like to point out that lightning doesn't really follow a random path (at least the bolts that stike terrestrial targets). National Geographic did an amazing pictoral a few years back that showed how lightning actually follows a set path dictated by voltage potentials between charged clouds and land based objects. It was really quite extraordinary.
Anywho, the more you know...'cus knowledge is power!
-J
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