I wrote earlier a couple of weeks ago on how I wanted Hollenguard to be a story about people who are not warriors, and the lengths I went to in order to convince myself not to go down that route. I killed off some pretty impressive and colorful characters early on, and when my principal cast sets off on their journey they have a knife, a hammer, and a flintlock pistol between them.
Book 1 spoilers ahead...
Kamil's journey further echoes the above idea, sometimes to an extreme that I'm not always proud of when I go back and read the first book. He falls off a mountain in an avalanche, he's captured, he runs from the bad guys, he gets mauled pretty heavily and has to be saved from death before the third act. Oh, and he drops his knife halfway through the story. Kamil spends a good portion of the book injured in some way.
Revisions of the initial draft eased up on this a bit. In fact, his gunpowder had originally been ruined to the point where he couldn't use his dragon during the climax of the story (he was dunked in a river, after all). But since the story begins with a literal bang, and the dragon is such a fun weapon and so linked to the character, it was something I had to highlight at the conclusion. It also gives Kamil some power at the end where, otherwise, he was just helping everyone to run away yet again.
Ultimately, the world turns out to be a mean place. It highlights further Kamil's resolve when he has been hurt so often and has lost his home and people close to him, but he still manages holds on to hope. This bleeds directly into the core arc of the second book, lending weight to the sacrifices he sees others making on his behalf and ultimately propping up the impact of his decision at the end in a way that I'm very proud of.
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