Hiring! Requirements: General Helpfulness

Hey guys.

So I’ve actually been writing a book. It’s been a long time that I’ve been able to commit to a story, but this is the one that I’m sticking with to the end. I’ve been rolling it over in my head for about a year now and it’s finally coming together like hot cocoa and marshmallows! I was literally so excited about it that I suggested to celebrate with cake and ice cream. We didn’t have any cake.
Anyway, in the nearish future I would love to have some help going through it and gathering opinions and critiques, but it’s not quite ready for that yet, I’ve only just finished chapter two so I have here the prologue and I’d like critiques on it. It sets the tone for the whole book, so I thought it’d be helpful to get some feedback on it now. (go ahead, tear my baby to pieces *where’s the wailing face on this keyboard*)

<> Prologue <>

“I believe it’s your play,” I smirked over my hand of neatly arranged cards at the disheveled fellow across from me. At last my luck was turning, just in the nick of time too, for when I sat down to what started as a friendly round of hands I was desperate to win any kind of coin that could bring food to my mouth again. I had steadily won the last sixteen hands, my confidence increasing and the fellow opposite me growing in irritability. Or bearishness, whatever you may call it. He was quite in a panic now and refused to leave the table until he’d won something back. He had long ago tossed his last coin on the table.
He slapped his hand of cards face up on the table glaring at me viciously. I tried not to let a grin creep over my face as I casually laid my hand down. “I believe I’ve won again,” I laughed drawing my mug to my lips and taking a lasting slurp. He pounded his fist on the table and sent his cup flying across the room, it crashing into pieces the second it struck the wall. A baby’s cry wafted down through the cracks of the ceiling. Loud laughter came from the tavern’s main hall outside our private door. I gathered up the cards in one swift swoop and leaned back in my chair. “I’ll buy you another mug if you’ll play another round.” The man’s burly arms flexed, his lips curling in detest. “You’re nothin’ but a conniving fox. And I hate little furry creatures.”
I chuckled and stared past him to avoid him thinking I was intimidated. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s play just one more hand, and this time, winner takes all.” He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward in his seat. I sat up and leaned in. “If you win, you can have everything back that I won from you owing me nothing as if we never played in the first place. But if I win, I keep what I’ve already earned and you double the amount.” He jerked back as if bitten by a snake. “Double!” He roared. “That would be everything I have to my name.” I shuffled the cards in the most intricate way I knew how. “Take it or leave it, you already owe me half of what you’re worth.”
The low lightening in the room cast shadows over his face when he leaned forward making him look very dark. I was very glad at that moment that we were playing cards and not in a joust or something of the sort. He was easily twice my size. I tried to look calm as he weighed his options. He reached out and clutched the cards a cold sweat running down the back of my spine. “I’ll deal.” He stated. I didn’t mention the fact that he’d dealt the last seven hands.
I leaned back, my heart pounding like a huge bell in my chest as I watched him intently shuffle much more than necessary. He took his time evenly distributing the cards betwixt us. I lifted my cards one by one, each member of my body tense. Good, good and good. They were all good. I breathed a sigh of relief. But would they be good enough? I glanced up at the face across me. He showed no emotion but held his cards close to his chin. I licked my lips. Too bad I had just run my third mug dry. I could have used a sip just then. “Winner takes all,” I stated doing my best to hold my gaze with his steely glare. “You better believe it. And say your prayers laddy,” He confidence made my heart tremble. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that if he wins he gets back all he owes me. I really need the money. My mouth going dry I tried to force a swallow down. “Alright then on three show your hand.” I received no confirmation that he would do so, but we had to get this over with sometime. So I began the count. “One, two… three.” I slowly turned my hand down and laid it flat on the table. I waited for his instant reaction, but when I heard none, I dared look up at his hand, surprisingly laid in the same position across the table. He was absolutely silent. I searched the symbols on his cards. No, no and no. They didn’t add up to more than mine. I had won.
A huge laugh bubbled up inside me and came bursting out. I was rich! Absolutely filthy rich! Almost like the days back when… My thoughts were quickly interrupted when the gent across from me stood to his full stature. His face was illuminated by the lantern which hung right above his head. And it didn’t show a friendly congratulations. He twisted his lips and gripped his knife hilt. I swallowed hard and pushed back from the table, eyeing the only door in the room, behind him. “Enjoy your little victory while you can. Cause you can’t enjoy it when you’re dead.” He spit and drew the knife from his belt.
“You double crosser!” I shouted jumping to my feet. He took a step to the right of the table and I moved in opposition of him. He jumped back and so did I. He grit his teeth. “I didn’t come all this way just to play a round of cards. What do you take me as?! A half-wit who would wager his entire inheritance on a card game? I came with some good news. Well good for me anyhow,” he chuckled. “Your parents are dead. Tragic accident.” He stated flat with no measure of emotion. I reeled back stumbling over my chair and landing on the floor, the breath going all out of me as I hit the ground. “You lie.” I spit. The cries of the child above had heightened in intensity along with the pulse in my veins. He took a step to the left of the table. I scrambled to my feet. He laughed a cold, hateful sound. “I wouldn’t come all this way to lie. If it were a lie, I wouldn’t be here. See if I just rid the earth of their successor, their title and wealth would be for the taking.”
A flash of heat swept through my body. I’d been taken, like a chicken to the slaughter. I should have known, a wealthy gent who stalks into a tavern asking for a round of hands and “at random” picks me, a man with no money whatsoever and then asks to use a private chamber for the game, shouldn’t that have raised my suspicion? “Who are you?” I blurted. “Now that doesn’t matter does it?” he grunted. We were still for two moments, each no doubt deciding what his best move would be. He moved first. He leapt upon the table, his knife and hand swiftly coming down for me. I dove to the ground reaching for the chair I had knocked over bringing it swinging up to meet his knife, kicking his shins as well.
The knife flew from his grasp, clattering to the other side of the room. Shoving against the wall behind me and pushing up I rammed the chair into his side. He toppled like a tree being chopped at its base. Leaping atop his back, I hard pressed him to the floor and he started yelling nonsense that formed no cohesive words in my ears. I shouted over his statements. “You’ll never take my title you coward.” The door to our room burst open and several tavern men entered the room. They rushed to the corner where I had the scoundrel pinned to the floor. “What’ve you got here?” I heard the tavern owner’s oh so familiar voice. “Just some cheap goat who won’t pay me the fortune I’ve just won from him.” The man under me struggled and grunted. I twisted his arm farther behind his back until he sat still. “So ya took him out, good for ya!” a chap most heartily cheered me on. “Something like that,” I shrugged. I was pulled up off of the man and others drug him to his feet. The tavern owner glared at him, though he was twice his height. “Yer a stranger in these here parts ain’t ya. We don’t take to strangers not paying up their due, specially to people we’s keen to. I suggest ya get this feller his payment in short order too,” he turned his nose up and jerked his head toward the door heading that direction himself. “Boys get this stranger out of my inn.” The stranger resisted even three men’s pull toward the door. He looked up and bore his steely eyes into my gaze. “I’ll be back Ellyon. And then you’ll get everything that’s coming to you,” I dusted off my hands and held his gaze until he was drug from the room and his shouts could be lost in the noises of the tavern. I breathed a heavy breath of relief and tucked my hand into my pocket, filled to the brim with coins. A smile crept over my face. So my luck was turning, in a way perhaps. When I looked back up, a small form had crept to the doorway. She clutched the doorpost and her eyes searched mine with great concern. The owner’s daughter. I smiled and brought forth a handful of mine earnings. Her eyes grew wide a glow returning to her beautiful, delicate face. The moment was only shattered by the screams of a neglected baby in the room above.