Hello everyone.
I am interested in your thoughts as to this character background. I am terrible at character dialogue, but have a pretty good imagination and believe I can at least capture interest in my stories, even without dialogue. (i'm working on that).
Please read this, its a work in progress, but mostly its the concept of the story/background i'd like some feedback on.
Here's the story......................................
As the youngest daughter of Janielle and Rainor Edgars, with seven older brothers, Katerina was always treated as “one of the boys”, much to her mother's dismay. She grew up tussling and wrestling with her brothers from an early age. Her father, served as a Senior Captain in the king's army, and all of her brothers served in the army as well, as captains, guardsmen, knights and soldiers.
As Katerina grew older, she began to grow much taller than even her mother and father and soon stood nearly as tall as her eldest brother (Haiden) and even stood over a few of her other brothers. Her strength and speed soon became apparant to her family and she was allowed to join the army with them. Even her mother realized that Katerina was a warrior deep down, and not just because she was around her father and brothers.
In any campaign or battle the Edgars fought in, they would always return home victorious. They would celebrate at their families home and rejoice the victory. The years of successful campaigns earned the Edgars a lot of respect and admiration from the people. Long touted as heroes, the Edgars became legends in the eyes of the people. The loyalty, admiration and respect they were given, rivaled and surpassed many of the nobles and council members of the kingdom. This infuriated many of the nobles and council so much, they began to work their fears and hatred of the Edgars, into the ears of the king, making him regard the Edgars as a threat to the sovereignty of the throne. The king, however, knew the value of the Edgars, never questioned their own loyalty to him, but worried about the people's loyalty to the Edgars. The nobles were not satisfied, and began to plot a way to bring the Edgars down.
Battles and more Campaigns were being drawn up as the king followed his nobles and council to consolidate smaller areas under the kingdom's control. The Edgars were sent to many fights and fought some of the toughest battles they had ever seen. Some of the battles they were so severely outnumbered, that many of the armies soldiers fell. Each time, the Edgars managed to pull victory from the face of defeat. Many of those battles also cost the nobles and council members as well, for they had used their own personal resources and money to send specific mercenaries into the enemies armies with the instructions to kill each of the members of the Edgars family. They all failed.
After a few more years, Rainor Edgars finally decided to leave the army to his sons and his only daughter. With several more battles to fight, his children wished him well and told him they would return home as soon as the current battle was over. Rainor made it safely back to the kingdom, reported to his king, who acknowledged his many years of service and loyalty to all the people. The king accepted Rainor's retirement, and labeled him “A Hero of the Kingdom, A Living Legend”. Rainor returned to the family home, and remained their with his wife, waiting patiently for the return of his children.
The nobles and council members that still despised the Edgars, realized there was no way they could stop the Edgars by indirect ways, had to make a significant attempt directly against them all.
With that on their minds, the conspirators decided that Rainor Edgars retirement was just what they needed.
At the battlefront, with Haiden (the eldest of the brothers) in charge. The battle was finally turning in their favor. After many days of trodden through fields of mud and blood, over the bodies of their fallen and the enemies fallen, they had pushed hard and long. Haiden commanded the reserve units up to help remove the dead from the field and give them proper rites. Katerina was a soldier in those reserves.
The reserves moved forward through the battlefield, carrying off those who had fallen. Katerina noticed many more enemy dead than their own. Yet even with a sense of pride that the king's army had lost fewer soldiers than the enemy, she also felt a deep sorrow of such staggering loses for both sides.
Just as she was reaching down to help carry one of the fallen off the battlefield, an arrow struck harmlessly off her breastplate. She rose up and turned to see many more arrows dropping all around her and the rest of the reserves, but before she could call out, an arrow struck her in her neck, causing her yell to be a gurgled choke. Quickly, another soldier pulled her away and off to the rest of the army, which was already heading out to meet the returning enemies.
Seeing his young sister being carried from the battlefield, Haiden called out to one of his other brothers and pointed to where Katerina was. Senayn (2nd eldest brother and commander of the reserves), quickly ran to his sister's side. Medics were already removing the arrow, which had past through on the left side of her neck, missing her throat. They cut the arrowhead off, and carefully pulled the shaft out of her neck. They quickly stemmed the flowing blood with a healing draught and bandaged her wound. Leaning back, she looked at Senayn smiled and motioned him to go, nodding that she would be okay as he asked. Senayn quickly ran up to Haiden and let his brother know that Katerina would be fine.
The battle ended, with the surrender of the enemies general, just a few hours later. The brothers and the rest of the soldiers, looked at the dead... The battle was over... but there was little rejoicing. Silence filled the field, as side by side, the surrendered enemy soldiers and the king's army, worked to count the dead. Long into the night, and not until the following morning, both armies worked to count and bury the dead. The field was cleared, and markers were placed for each soldier, they were buried where they fell as priests, sanctified the ground.
After that, the wounded that couldn't ride, were gathered on wagons and carts to begin the journey home. The rest of the king's army, had to take the prisoner's onto the northern kingdom to be judged, then imprisoned or released. It was a sign of acknowledgment mostly, so that scribes could record the names of those who fought and died at the battle. Since the losses on both sides had been so significant, the epic cost had to be recorded.
Being wounded, Katerina was sent home with the rest of the wounded and the Reserves, she could still ride and told her brothers she would be at the family home.
Realizing that the families ties were strong, some of the Nobles decided to make the bold move and sent assassins to kill Katerina's mother and father. With the rest of the Edgars family, at the battle, the nobles and council members, started their plan to bring the Edgars down.
Just as Katerina arrived at her family home, she saw her father ambushed, quickly dismounting and running to his aid, she saw more figures breaking down the door to the house. Her father yelled for her to go save her mother. Quickly, Katerina ran into the home and caught the unwary attackers off guard, killing them fast. She looked at her mother, who quickly ran over to hug her daughter. Seeing that her mother was all right, Katerina turned quickly to run out the door to help her father, another attacker slashed her as she came through the door. The blade caught across her face, but deflected off her shoulder armor.. Spinning with the blow, Katerina brought her blade up just in time to see the attacker's head, fly through the air, as her father kicked the rest of the corpse to the ground. He could only nod to her, his eyes locked on the gash and free flowing blood on her face. Rainor yelled for his wife, and as she came through the door, he instructed her to get Katerina and head to Kalad, (A dwarven friend in the northern mountains).
Rainor barely had time to give those instructions to his wife, as the rest of the attackers approached. The confusion of Katerina's intervention and the continued fight from her father, gave his wife enough time to get Katerina and escape to the north and the safety in the mountains.
(to be continued)
Thanks for reading.. please let me know what you think.