Back on track...

Things have slightly held me up at the beginning of this NaNo: The Italian Stallion and I held a party on Saturday night which required preparation on Friday, plus weekends are my busiest days work wise, so I didn't do any writing on Nov. 2-4. But now I'm back to work on my day off, and things are starting to chug along.

So, without further ado, here's my official excerpt (as seen on nanowrimo.org):

Hey, hey, hey, ho, Guin, ho! Ho, girl!”

Elizabeth felt a sudden sting across her cheek only a moment before she was knocked off her feet by a huge dark form, landing hard on the round cobbles. Spokes of a carriage wheel fluttered past, inches away from her legs, running whisper quiet over her skirts. Only then did she register the sharp ring of iron on stone, the unmistakable clip-clops of fine trotting horses.

In the dim glow from the street lamps, a mahogany bay horse wheeled around in the street she’d been crossing. The horse, harnessed to a light gig, was prancing and snorting, eye whites like crescent moons standing out against its dark head, breath in twin jets of steam from its nostrils. The sound of a second horse trotting disappeared down the street into the shadows, the even strikes of diagonal hooves fading away in the distance. The horse in the middle of Sassafras Street where Elizabeth lay clearly wanted to give chase to the other, but the driver in the seat talked incessantly in a low murmur. The horse’s ears flicked back and forth from the driver’s voice to the retreating hoofbeats.

“Easy, Guin, it’s alright.” The horse didn’t seemed convinced and let out a loud whinny, straining with pricked ears in the dark to hear a reply from the departed second horse. “Just relax. Ho. Ho.” The driver’s voice was male, deep, sonorous, soothing. Finally Guin the horse seemed to relax.

Elizabeth started to push herself off the cobblestones. Both horse and driver turned to look at her with concerned interest.

“Are you harmed, my lady? May I be of assistance?”

Elizabeth winced at the dull pain in her hip as she experimentally gathered her legs under her. “I think I’m uninjured, except for my pride.”

“Well, as they say...” the man in the gig trailed off as he set the long driving whip in the socket on the dashboard and in a fluid motion stepped off the cart, not bothering to climb down the wheel, landing gracefully on the balls of his feet. He strode towards her.

“As they say what?” Elizabeth asked apprehensively as he offered her a gloved hand.

“’Pride goeth before a fall.’” He smiled. “You said you were unharmed, but did not give a reply as to the assistance part.” Eyes twinkling in the moonlight, he nodded at his outstretched hand.

His smile reassured her, and she took his grasp.