The metal smell debate… blood is often described as having a coppery or metallic taste (I’m not convinced; mostly, it tastes salty to me), but I’ve certainly never heard it described as having a metallic smell, and even if blood does, I agree with the point that it would be overpowered by the smell of decay - the traditional (and, indeed, equally cliched) “sickly sweet” odour.

The POV switch jarred, in particular because Areme appeared to communicate information just with a glance, which made me wonder if there was actually telepathic communication of some sort (remember, if this is fantasy, we don’t know all the ground rules from the get-go). If this is really Gierdor’s story, then why not start with him? Most of the first paragraph isn’t really about Areme, it’s about the setting, so why do we need to be in Areme’s POV for that? Although in fact we seem to be in omni POV, not Geirdor’s, anyway - or, in fact, are we still in Areme’s POV, and is this him thinking about Geirdor?

I’m not really sure I’m hooked at this point. You’ve set the scene well, in terms of description, but I’ve got a POV character I know nothing about, another character who’s clearly a villain, and a vague sense of someone approaching (assuming Areme is right). That’s just not quite enough for me. But your use of language, your cadence and pacing, are jgood enough (the comment re Geirdor’s amiability, as noted above, excepted) that I’d probably read on to find out more.

If the word ‘beggar’ is a problem in context, something like “a man fallen on hard times” might work, although beggar is short and sweet.

Glad to hear there’s an editor liking the story. This here is all just nitting the first few lines.

This is a serious question. I swear. I love including smells in my writing and I’m curious about this bit.

I fixed the strung up too.

re corpses smelling like metal - they do. The only thing wrong with using this description is that it has been used so often by so many it’s a cliche - but I like it, so it stays.

Lucky for me a short story publisher and an editor both just told me this story was hot, so it works where it needs to. Yay!

But that won’t stop me tweaking tweaking, tweaking.

Gierdor is actually “amiable”? That’s what you’re saying now.

Still the same objection to corpses smelling of “metal” (they don’t) and an unvoiced (till now) objection to the trouble of Geirdor being “wiliest” while still trying to pull off the “fat beggar” disguise. Surely a wily man would think of something more convincing? Readers will not believe an author who says “wiliest” when what they see reads as “icky and mad.” This is one of the big shortcomings of the full omniscient–characters can be inaccurate in their observations, but the narrator is not allowed this.

There’s also a discrepancy between “strung up” (meaning hung) and “nailed to a tree” (meaning crucified). If the King’s Men do hangings, who’s going to think a crucifixion is one of theirs?