Okay, first off... neat story. It's pretty obvious that there's a lot of back story, and a lot of plans in your head. I look forward to seeing where this all goes!
Unfortunately, I had a really hard time getting into this prologue. Honestly, if I had picked this book off the shelf at a store, I would have read the first few paragraphs and set it back. I don't say that to be rude, but I'd like to emphasize the point others have made already: the opening page feels more like your background notes rather than actual prose. Consider perhaps starting the novel on page two. “I want no bloody part of it,” could be a great line to start the book with. Then, for all the stuff on page 1, gradually weave it into your scenes and reveal it to us.
The same is true for the opening of page 4, and other parts as well. Right now it seems like 80% of your information is conveyed to us directly by the narrator rather than shown to us via action.
I read "Fakhir" as "Fok-hear". On the first sentence of the novel, I chuckled and thought of "Meet the Faulkers". Then it took me a about 2 pages to get that out of my mind each time I read the word.
Like a lot of us here, you tend to use conjunctions to start sentences. I suspect you've taken more writing classes than I ever did, so I'll leave it to you to decide its they're okay to use or not. Just consider that it might be a stronger statement if the sentence doesn't start with "And" or "But".
Your dialogue is pretty long-winded. But on the other hand, you have a pretty good way with words. Thorn has a lot of good lines especially. For a solider who has seen so much battle, he sure has a lot to say! It has been my experience to observe that people who have been through a lot of hard times are often people who listen much, consider their words, and keep them to a minimum. (Unlike, say... me for example... LOL)
Also, regarding dialogue, a lot of what you wrote sounded overly-formal. That may be intentional, which is fine. You may benefit from the "read it out loud" method.
I never got a strong sense of where Dalin and Thorn were while they talked in their first scene. You mention a wall: "Dalin sat beside him on the wall" What wall?
BTW, I want to give you props for your 3rd person omniscient POV. As the WRITING EXCUSES team has said many times, not a lot of fantasy is written in this POV. There are pitfalls to it, some of which it seems you may be up against yourself. (A tendency to easily do "info dumps", for instance). Despite this though, I am looking forward to seeing if you continue that with chapter 1 and beyond.
I admit it: I stopped reading this at their breakfast scene because all the talk of bacon and biscuits made me hungry.
After I ate, I continued reading.
The two men sat in silence, drinking tea and considering the events
That pretty much sums up the entire action of the prologue, doesn't it? IMO, a prologue is a promise of things to come for a novel or even a series. There was little to no conflict in these pages, so it made for slow reading. Yes, there was a spark of an argument on page 9, but no stakes involved that I (as a reader) cared about. You don't necessarily need swords and external conflict, but everything just seemed ... easy... for these guys. Just consider that "big picture" when you're planning out your chapters and events. [/b]
The news of losing Jedadiah fell flat to me. Maybe you don't intend us to feel anything, in which case that would be OK. We just have no connection with Jedadiah, and we barely have one with Dalin. So it's hard to empathize at this point.
And yet, Dalin seemed to faintly remember a conversation he and Thorn had had when the soldier had first met – a disturbing one – one that had kept Dalin from sleeping soundly for a week after.
Awkward sentence.
Story-wise, I was a little confused by the enemy that's now threatening their peaceful kingdom. Are they called skaggs? Or is that a derogatory term? (If so, it's a great one!) On the first read though, I pictures a large army of giant-sized mosquitos. Seriously. I had to go back and re-read it to understand that you were simply comparing the attack that a giant mosquito makes to the attack that was actually witnessed. I may not be the most astute reader (heh heh), but you may want to consider looking at that section to clean it up.
Looking forward to the next installment!
