Fantasy

To walk in the Wind by Anihyr Moonstar

Daja was born to die—a slave raised from birth to be the perfect sacrifice to Vhaki, god of storms. Balasar is a desert bandit with a knack for pissing off deities, and he just saved Daja from the jaws of death.

Rated M

Slash.

Status: In-complete

The first thing that really caught my attention was Anihyr Moonstar's phrasing and description. Sentences such as "...soon to set sun looked like an orb of melting gold awash with a backdrop of blood. It painted the domed golden roofs of the prouder buildings in rich, fiery hues, too resplendent to hold one's eyes..." drew a magnificent picture in my head. The use of words, in all but a few cases, is at a higher standard than I'm used to reading on fictionpress, although sometimes it can feel as though the author has deliberately set out to make it wordier than strictly neccessary, using overly complicated words for something that could have been said much simpler; those occasions are few and far between.

The dialogue, especially in the first chapter, is realistic and enthralling. There are several comedy moments from characters such as Balasar and Oz. It's through this dialogue that we learn about the world, and far from being an information dump, almost everything told to the reader is strictly necessary. The parts that aren't are amusing and interesting.

The story starts off with Balasar, an immediately likeable guy, who's hired to stop the "Great Rebirth" which is to occur in nine days time. The Great Rebirth happens every fifty years, thirty years after the rebirth a child is born, marked with the god's gift. That child is taken by a religious group and brought up, taught and trained in all manner of things before, at the change of the cycle, they are abandoned in the desert to face their god. To stop the cycle, Balasar has to kidnap the child.

Daja, the child born with the god's gift this cycle, seems to hate his destiny. He has a thirst for adventure and seeing the world he has studied about from maps. He scolds himself for not wanting his fate; he feels he should be happy to walk into the desert and meet with the god, it's a privilege. He thinks of this part of himself as horrible, selfish and vain; the other part trains and studies diligently.

Generally I don't like adult scenes in written form; they're usually embarrassing, crude and excruciatingly painful to read. However, here Anihyr Moonstar has written the scene without me feeling even a trace of embarrassment. The descriptive words are grand without really going into too much action detail.

All in all it is a wonderful read and has headed off for a great start. I hope you will look forward to reading more of this as much as I do.

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- Andrew.