they came from the east

[Gratock]

so, I wrote a short story. I had this idea on the bike on the way back home.
It is basicly some fantasy stuff, but instead of making the humans the main protagonist I tried to do it differently, and while they are still the victims, there are no heroes on the human side.
well, I am just going to throw it out here and hope you like it.
would you also please point out any spelling and grammar errors? English is not my first language and while I know a lot of it, I am still learning.

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They came from the east,
from across the endless desert.
An army so vast, that they filled the horizon. Monsters were they. Skins as black as the onyx found in the deepest dwarven mines.
Each of them twice as tall as the biggest of our men. The horses they rode were just as big, eyes flaming with an unholy fury. The horses fought as well as the men. When they came, there was no warning, like a silent wave they spilled out over the steppes, crushing anything in their way.
No wall would stop them, no city survived the siege.
Those inhuman beings, they were not immortal, we saw them bleed, bleeding a thick fluid as red as a crimson sun. We saw them being crushed boulders launched from our catapults. But they did not seem to care. I saw how a soldier brought one of the monsters down to his knees, but before the man could give the finishing blow, one of the black behemoths kicked the fallen warrior down to the ground, crushing the skull with his heavy plated boot, meanwhile cleaving the soldier in two.
Emotionless fighters they were. They conquered the whole of the steppes in less then a day. No one could turn the tide. And even though we had cut down at least a few hundereds of these beasts still the army seemed endlessly vast. The slaughter was grinded to a halt for a few days when they reached the city of mages. With a mystical barage of ice, fire, fell and arcane magic under the cover of a magical barrier, the army of soulless warriors felt their losses. No longer was the horizon a unnatural night created by black skin and armor. But even the mages could not hold their own.
Before the moon had completed a cycle the barriers dissolved, and so did the mages. Again the endless feast of blood continued. Almost all of the human lands had fallen at the unholy might of the brutal beastmen from beyond the desert, all but the cities of the seas, on the far eastern coast.
The forests of the elven tribes, the forests that would take a month to travel trough were cut down in roughly the same time, taking its inhabitants with it. The dwarves of the white peaks, warned by the news, caved themselves in, to this day, no one has found a single one. But the bearded cowards were not the only creatures who had nested in the white peaks.
When the army reached the other side of the mountains, half of the horde still traveling trough the passes of the white peaks, it happened. No one saw it coming, not a single warning was given, as silent as a whisper something flew out of a cloud. A Dragon, as white as the clouds themselves, shot down from the skies. He opened his jaws with a terifying roar, so mighty that even some of the blackskins seemed to cower in fear.
While the wyrm's mighty howl was still echoing trough the peaks, from between its teeth shot a ball of blue flames. The sindering heat set the planes at the foot of the mountain range ablaze. The monsterous warriors screamed while their skins cought fire. every man that had already crossed the peaks burned down till he was nothing more but ashes, as black as the monster had always been. The leviathan circeled over once more, his eyes seemed to enjoy the incredible terror the dragon had caused. But more of the black-skins washed out of the mountains, before long the plains were filled with the gargantuan monsters again.
The dragon, still recovering from it's attack, was unable to launch another ball of fire. One of the men from across the desert drew a bow, he pulled back the string, and an arrow materialized, the bolt, red like human blood shot away like a diving hawk, it struck the wyrm in the chest. The dragon let go a deafening roar, and fell from the sky. It's body, as big as a castle crashed into the ground, turning a thousand men to bloody pools.
The men attacked the dragon, who was not quite dead yet. Claws raked, and teeth tore. A bloody haze seemed to be thrown up arround the crater the dragon had cast. A large portion of the unholy army died before the leviathan was slain. A last roar had filled the air.
Victorious the black monsters turned from the ivory corpse and with a sinister grin they turned arround to the last of the cities of man, the last of the human civilizations. Then the sun blackened out by shades of what apeared to be birds.

They came from the west.
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also, if you find this any good, and you might know a skilled flash artist, I would love to work with him (or her) to flesh this out.

now, DISCUSS!

[TheThing]

ANYONE WHO SKIPPED AHEAD TO SEE THE REVIEW - READ THE STORY, IT'S REALLY GOOD.

Here is some basic formatting for Newgrounds:

- Always use a double return in between paragraphs. That way, there's a space between the previous paragraph and the next one. The way I have this review set up is how it should be done.

- When doing a line to divide your story from your comments, only do a few dashes, or separate then by a space every once in a while. As you can see, Newgrounds will drop any continuous text to the next line after X amount of characters.

Newgrounders will be more willing to read a story when formatted as above.

Alright, now for the actual review.

I'll excuse the occasional bad grammar or strange word ordering, since English isn't your first language. I would try to fix it, but that would take a long time to do, and I would prefer if I reviewed your work as a whole, rather than try to correct something you would need a teacher to fix. But for English as your second language, you have an amazing vocabulary and understanding of what descriptions should be used where. If half of the writers here used the word choice you do reviewing stuff wouldn't be such a chore.

Secondly, you shouldn't have spoiled the plot for us. I kept waiting for the "and then the hero arrived. He slaughtered the beasts singlehandedly", but it never came. And that is a powerful thing; the anticipation of an event, only to find that it doesn't happen. The disappointment is astounding; as a human, I naturally sympathize with the humans in the story, and despise the black creatures. And to have them succeed was a devastating tragedy.

That said, I think you put too much into having the dragon kill most of the army. I think without having a true hero in the story, the dragon became that hero, even though he died and didn't defeat the entire army. Tone down how many he killed; half the army, plus thousands of others died? That would leave even modern armies with barely anyone left to fight. Have it end like the scene with the mages; the black army took some losses, but nothing could really put a dent in the numbers of the army. I think with a change like that, it would make the ending that much more grim.

I loved your story. It was incredibly well written, well thought-out, and fresh-yet-familiar. It didn't drag on; in fact, I want to read more of it. The only shame is that because of the format and sometimes-difficult grammar, many people won't read it or finish it. If you had a native English speaking editor, this would be a top-notch story.

[earphonesan]

At 8/24/10 10:19 PM, TheThing wrote: ANYONE WHO SKIPPED AHEAD TO SEE THE REVIEW - READ THE STORY, IT'S REALLY GOOD.

Absolutely! This was excellent. I would have liked to read about the Dwarves ambushing the beasts in the mountains, but the way you had them lock themselves away is also very accurate to the careless view the Dwarves have towards the rest of the world. (I'm kind of a Dwarf geek when it comes to fantasy stories.)

I also liked the descriptions used. "The cites of the seas, on the far Eastern coast." That made me think of Gondor. An old proud nation, that is built on it's ancestry and tradition.

Yeah, like TheThing said, I'm bummed you let the villains win. Never do that mate. We all know that in every (or most every) story, just when it seems that defeat is near, suddenly out of nowhere comes the hero to save the day! I was disappointed when that didn't come.

In all though, great story! If more comes, I'll read it.

[TheThing]

At 8/24/10 11:07 PM, earphonesan wrote: Yeah, like TheThing said, I'm bummed you let the villains win. Never do that mate.

Now hold on. I actually liked that the villains won. It was refreshing to see the bad guys win, and, if Gratock hadn't put it in the beginning, would have been a real surprise. Not everything has to have a happy ending, and all too often fantasy stories have the good guys winning.

Besides, it keeps the reader moving through the piece. They want to see when the hero comes in and destroys the army, and they keep reading on to see when that happens. And when it doesn't, it leaves this huge, empty feeling in the reader. Good storytelling will make the reader feel something, this piece does just that.

[Gratock]

god, thanks guys, I did not think you would've been this positive about it.

rereading the story after having been away for a few days (schools stuff)
I agree, the first dragon was too mighty. I'm gonna try and rewrite that.

but, I would like to say, the men from the east, what ever race they are,
did not succeed in conquering the eastern cities. this line:
" Then the sun blackened out by shades of what appeared to be birds.

They came from the west."

I envisioned the death cry of the dragon to be more then that. with his final breath the dragon, heroicly defending the western cities on the coast to be a rallying cry. more of his(or her) species came. " they came from the west. " I wanted the humans to be helpless, but they did survive, the western cities stand.

ofcourse all is open to interpretation.

again, many thanks. I'm going to rework this, and let a english friend help me find spelling and grammar errors.

p.s. flash artists are still welcome :D, I envisioned this as a movie, with the text above being dubbed over a audiovisual descreption of the spoken text. ^^

[Gratock]

also, sorry for double posting, but I just saw I made a huge mistake, the cities of the seas should not have been on the east, but on the west coast, as the dark armies already came from the eastern edge of civilization. sorry 'bout that ;)