Meredith Mansfield, Author

Last week, I blogged the query and first two pages of FIRE AND EARTH as part of a contest. One of the best things about these contests is the critiques and how they help improve the work. So, to demonstrate that, today I’m going to blog the revisions, as far as I’ve gotten with them. Not quite done yet. If you want to see the before, go here.

Here’s the new query:

Born with the mark of the berserker, seventeen-year-old Casora has been sent away to learn war craft. When her native land is invaded, she’s not there to do the one thing she’s been prepared for all her life–to use those skills to protect her family and home. Learning that the young man she loves was killed in the fighting is the last straw. She releases her curse and goes berserk.

Now she’s doubly cursed, because she can never go home to find out what happened to her family or even if any of them are still alive. With no way to help the ones she cares most about, she turns mercenary, leading a band of teenage warriors looking for the chance to avenge themselves on the marauders. But she prays for a way to cure the curse so she can go home. When she prays for an answer, she’s told to rescue the youngest prince to find what she needs.

Tiaran, third prince of a neighboring kingdom, is considered more a scholar than a warrior, but he’s determined to fight for his home. When the raiders attack, he’s trapped on the wrong side of the city walls. Casora and her band are sent to rescue him. With the capital city now besieged, there’s no option but to keep him with them and teach him to be a warrior.

But Tiaran has something to teach them, too. It’s just possible that Tiaran and Casora may be the answer to each others’ prayers.

FIRE AND EARTH is a 77,000-word young adult fantasy. Readers who liked Kristin Cashore’s GRACELING will enjoy FIRE AND EARTH.

Thank you for your time.

I have a little more trouble with the new beginning. I’m vacillating between this:

Casora stepped into the practice circle and grinned as she saluted her opponent. The sword was not her best weapon, but the chance to spar with Marcian was too good to pass up. The only sanctioned time they could touch at all was during such training duels.

Marcian returned her salute and took up his stance, giving her the first move. Casora’s smile turned to a frown. She’d make him rue that overconfidence. He might be bigger and stronger–with all those muscles how could he not be?–but she was quicker, more agile, and vastly more cunning.

She rushed forward and spun at the last instant to hit Marcian from the side with the flat of her blunted practice sword. Her oldest brother had taught her that move and she didn’t use it very often for obvious reasons. With real, sharp-edged weapons, it was too risky, leaving her open to her opponent’s back stroke, if he was quick enough.

Marcian was faster than he looked, but she’d taken him by surprise with that move. In trying to follow her spin, he’d left himself open. Casora took advantage of that by dropping low and pressing the point of her sword against Marcian’s belly. It was then that she noticed the edge of his blade resting beside her neck. If this had been a real battle, they’d both be dead.

She reached up and rubbed at the little scar above her right eyebrow. Maybe she should have remembered how Marcian had given her that scar the last time she tried a trick move. She’d acquired other scars since then, of course, but that had been her first. And it had become something of a joke between them.

Marcian looked down at the sword pointed at his gut and shrugged. Casora stood up and took her stance, waiting for his move. A horn blast made them both turn toward the road that ran past their camp. At the cry of “Riders coming!” Casora dropped her practice sword and dashed to her post.

From her desk at the front of the command tent, Casora watched the large group of riders approaching. She wore the regulation leathers and enough of her armor to disguise her slender body. By reflex, she reached for her helmet to hide her face as well. No outsider ever saw the face of a Deathless.

The tent stood on a little rise overlooking the camp, where the flag bearing a circle of seven stars on a dark blue field could be seen for miles around. It was also above most of the mud, although the smell of wet earth, damp horses, and manure still reached her on the stiff breeze that whipped the flag above her.

The rise gave Casora a good view of anyone arriving at the camp long before they reached her. More than enough time to note that these riders were all redheads, not a common hair color outside of Astraea. Casora grinned and set her helmet back on the corner of the desk. They were replacements. No need to hide her face from them.

And this:

From her desk at the front of the command tent, Casora watched the large group of riders approaching. She wore the regulation leathers and enough of her armor to disguise her slender body. By reflex, she reached for her helmet to hide her face as well. No outsider ever saw the face of a Deathless.

The tent stood on a little rise overlooking the camp, where the flag bearing a circle of seven stars on a dark blue field could be seen for miles around. It was also above most of the mud, although the smell of wet earth, damp horses, and manure still reached her on the stiff breeze that whipped the flag above her.

The rise gave Casora a good view of anyone arriving at the camp long before they reached her. More than enough time to note that these riders were all redheads, not a common hair color outside of Astraea. Casora grinned and set her helmet back on the corner of the desk. They were replacements. No need to hide her face from them. They were about to become Deathless themselves and they wouldn’t be shocked to find that the second in command of the famous war band was a girl only a couple of years older than they were.

As the riders made their way down the central road, between the orderly rows of tents, she took note of their condition and readiness. The horses looked good. Someone had thought to stop and groom them before riding in. Very shortly before, by appearances, since the mud from the recent rains didn’t rise above their fetlocks. The riders’ spears had been polished and sharpened, too. Replacements usually tried to make a good impression.

The effect was spoiled by the ease of the riders and their ragged line, strung out like a hunting party. And the shiny weapons were held too loosely. In a skirmish, they’d be overwhelmed before they could get those spears into position.

The new ones always thought they’d been trained back home, but they always had so much still to learn when they got here. It’d be Casora’s job to figure out what that was and see that it happened right quick, before they had a chance to get themselves or a comrade killed.

Training, she knew. She was good at that. She grimaced as she thought of all the other work these riders would mean: billets to be found, supplies that the veterans would already have, armor to be refitted, paperwork. Casora hadn’t come close to being comfortable with that part of her new job as second in command of the Deathless. She’d only been moved up from the much smaller job of commanding the archers when the last group of replacements arrived two months ago.

Then again, maybe all that would be someone else’s worry. It was an unusually large group of replacements. Thirty people would be going home, nearly a tenth of the band. Maybe Casora would be one of them this time.

And now, because there’s another contest over at YALitChat, here’s the pitch (so far):

Seventeen-year-old Casora loses her battle against the berserker inside her just when her country is threatened by an invading army. Now she’s forever banned from returning to her home and family unless she can find some way to tame the berserker. Her search for a cure leads her to Tiaran, a scholar-prince who needs to learn to be a warrior to defend his own land against the invaders. They just might be the answer to each others’ prayers.

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