This story is hard for me to review because I really liked the actual story, but the writing as it stands is very difficult to read.
As far as I can tell so far, the general story here is pretty exciting. The world seems to be well thought out, the action sequences are vivid, and the general premise is promising. For the most part, I enjoyed the content of this chapter. What I struggled with was the flow, the overwhelming number of mechanical errors, and overall amount of needless words and awkward phrasing. Basically, it's a good story in DIRE need of editing.
I'm not sure if this is something you have already edited yourself, or if many of these errors were just made in the heat of writing and have yet to be dealt with. I would suggest cleaning future writings up before posting because it is very hard as a reader to get past them. I don't know if this is you or not, but I have talked with many authors who believe it is not their place to edit their own writing, that it is the job of an editor. Regardless, I just wanted to express how important it is to self-edit. First of all, you will never get an editor to take you seriously with mistake-ridden writing; it's just too much work for them to work through and try to understand what you meant. And I'm not just talking about punctuation. There are issues with flow and fluff and redundancies and dialogue and all sorts of stuff that can make for awkward writing.
I make a lot mistakes when I write. I write fast and hard and often I skip words and punctuation and all kinds of crazy stuff, so understand how it happens and I wouldn't judge anyone for making errors when they write. I also try to look past them for the most part when I read works that are not ready for press, unless, like this story, there are too many to ignore. I only say this because you have a great story in that only needs to be chiseled out of its rough exterior.
I tried to keep a mental log of all the errors, but honestly there were too many of them to count. I'll try to detail the big ones that popped out at me.
1. Commas: Nearly every other sentence was missing a VITAL comma or employed a misused comma, and it made for very tough reading. Examples:
His eyes fell upon a woman who was deceptively beautiful [missing comma] but he knew the truth, [this should be a colon] her beauty was a magical illusion, [this should be a period] underneath that cover would be a haggard face, beaten by years of magical use and evil doings.
Here is a version of the sentence with correct punctuation:
His eyes fell upon a woman who was deceptively beautiful, but he knew the truth: her beauty was a magical illusion. Underneath that cover would be a haggard face, beaten by years of magical use and evil doings.
Of course, there are many other ways to spin this sentence, but as it stands it is just wrong. There are three blatant errors in this one sentence, and there are many more like it. Don't mean to be harsh, just pointing out an important fact here. Get rid of this kind of crap and your writing will be a million times stronger! There are tons of missing commas in passages like these:
Quickly [comma!] he brought his sword back...
On the top step of the seventh level [comma] he heard the horn blast of the guards that were guarding the sixth level.
There are a few mistakes in announcing dialogue: “And I’m sure Evelyn that to love you I would have to be mad or bewitched, and we know that is not going to be happening anytime soon. [should be a comma] ” Harkane replied coolly.
And that's just starting the list. There are tons of punctuation issues that need attention!
2. Flow: Your usage of words like that, which, where, and so, are sometimes awkward. I strongly recommend finding these sentences and revising them:
He pushed in a brick at the side of the wall [comma needed] which clicked into place followed by a large [maybe a better adjective would be deafening or maybe just plain loud] creaking sound from above where several large boulders fell onto the steps, blocking them off to anyone trying to climb them from the bottom.
I had to read this twice to make sense of it. I would break it up. A good way to clear something like this up is to make the verbs count for more than one purpose. You could say clicked the brick into place, which would imply that it was pushed without having to use two verbs. A rewrite could look something like this:
He clicked a brick on the side of the wall into place. A loud creaking sound whined from above where several large boulders were now falling onto the steps, blocking any climbers below.
Which brings up the next issue.
3. Fluff: You could probably cut 20% to 30% of unnecessary and redundant words here, and make the story--especially considering how much action is involved--quite a bit more fast-paced and comprehendible. Try to combine, effectively, several sequential sentences with simple subjects, and separate sentences like the one above with overly complicated structures. In short, be concise.
4. Dialogue: I thought the dialogue was pretty good for the most part, but when Harkane was directing the troops it sounded a bit forced to me:
“If you are the last man standing on your level you must do your best to alert the men on the level above to block the stair well, unless you are able to reach the staircase, in which case it is up to the men guarding that level to decide when to block the stairs off.”
I can't imagine someone in the heat of battle, or anywhere else for that matter, talking like this. It lets the reader know specifically what's going on, but sounds false from the character's mouth. Also, his troops were unbelievable through this whole scene, they were like mindless robots. I understood their passion for the fight, but they had no voice. They were just there to support the main character as if they didn't have their own motives.
Mechanically, there are many more issues that need attention. Story-wise, you have very good ideas. I would love to read this again after a good editing to see how it works. I liked the dialogue between Harkane and the Witch, and pretty much everything about the witches and the mystery of the battle. Clean it up and it'll shine!
Feel free to email me for further discussion, or any arguments you may have :). I hope you don't take this as a bad review. If I do have a bad review, I usually write nothing at all! I really did like the story, and just thought my honest comments might help. I'm sure extensively editing the whole chapter/possibly book sounds like a daunting--if not impossible--task, but believe me, it will be more than worth it!
If you would like to return the review, here are two shorter pieces of mine:
I Never Write Hyperboles: 1307159
and
Dear Governor: 1307155
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