Truthfully I found the second chapter harder to read than the first one. Some of the dialogue reads a bit stilted, such as the protestations of the priests, “What folly would bring them here?” and things like that.
The thing that really bothered me is that you’ve got three POVs so far, two of which are in this chapter, and one is a throw-away characters who dies. While throw-away characters aren’t a problem most of the time this is the wrong place to be using one. At this point in the story the reader needs to get attached to the characters, but instead you’re throwing the reader off.
On the first page you mention that for the past two nights Albione has been killing night elves on the walls. Now, unless I’m very much mistaken, the night elves will have appeared from out of nowhere on the last two nights as well, since even if you are expecting them to do it it’s still a pretty good surprise tactic. So why was the militia leader so dismissive of Albione’s warning that the enemy was already there? He must have seen, or at least heard, of the same thing happening on the empty plains the last two nights?
Continuing we get to the actual main POV character of the chapter, Charom, a really pompous arrogant character, at least when he starts out. Such characters are hard to write, because it’s hard to feel sympathetic with people who are so full of themselves. If you can pull it off though it can work really well. Unfortunately the next time his POV comes around these traits are gone and he reads a lot more like a generic duty-bound knight, which I find a shame.
A small thing in Iaon’s POV, the rose at the base of the fountain. Even with the moon, stars, torches and what not, I don’t see roses as gleaming, unless they’re plastic, even if the rose is wet. It’s night right?
Iaon’s POV also holds another dangerous parallel to D&D. When the elves summon darkness, which can be dispelled through prayer, they’re a lot like the Drow.
Back to Charom’s point of view. He gets warned by bells that something is going on. Excellent, so why is Albione abandoning his point on the walls again? Clearly he needs to warn no one.
The priests are stupid. “Why would they come for you, your Reverence?” Really, in a setting where magic is performed by priests why wouldn’t the enemy, after breaching the walls, try and take out this valuable resource. And where better to find them and their leaders, especially a High Priest, than in the main temple?
I would love to hear any advice on what I should do with this chapter (even kill it) after I put up Chapter 3.
Like I said, I don’t see the need for Albione to rush to the temple in the first place, where he arrives in chapter three to aid in the defence of the high priestess. If he doesn’t need to go there, and if you decide to rewrite it so he doesn’t, there’s also no real reason to have a POV during the attack on the temple, which means you could cut this chapter altogether. I don’t want to tell you how to write your story, but Albione really needs a better reason for rushing to the temple.
Concerning allegory.
I didn’t really notice any allegories and neither am I surprised at fighting priests, since I still see them as being in the same vein as the Warhammer warrior priest order. I didn’t get the impression, reading about the other priests, that all of them are like the warrior priests. If so, then you might consider calling the priests who actually fight, versus the ones who only pray, by a different name.
