I have been reading through this past chapter and wanted to toss in some tips you might like.
You do well in characterizing the many characters of your story. It seems you are already starting to do this with people like Alayen. I can't seem to really pin Gilroth down though. You may want to devote a tad more to developing Gilroth as a person. Develop a sort of internal conflict? Maybe he's trying to escape something and is only covering it with his tough persona which once removed could reveal a man scarred with past tragedies? Or is he afraid that the ship-wreck was his own fault and nightmares of it still haunt him? The possibilities are limitless.
As to your writing style it is great and your persistent corrections shine through with a very well polished continuation to your story. To improve you may want to emphasize the senses. What did the narrator feel? On the field of battle describing sounds is very valuable. During the initial sequence when Gilroth called for the men to "Form on me" just sent shivers down my spine. It really draws the reader in and really helps to convey the chaotic, loud, and painful reality of medieval battle. You are doing this already for the most part and it makes the battle sequences an exciting read indeed!
Grammatically my points are similar. It is very fine-tuned and your vocabulary is impressive. The proof-reading to remove overused words or statements is visible in the piece's high quality. As to the matter of using "I thought to myself" you may find that it is not always necessary to convey your message. In fact if you look back it can slow down a sentence and put a hair-thin fracture in the tempo.
Ex: "even though he had proven usefully in the group I thought to myself as I looked at his face, a face of mischief and cunning"
-The phrase "I thought to myself" isn't necessary here. It can be removed by saying "even though he had proven useful in the group as I looked at him, all I saw was a face of mischief and cunning." This way you keep the flow and acknowledge the narrator's thoughts.
Ex: "The field was more dispersed now, I noticed as I looked for my next victim, each of the warriors and raiders caught up in their own entanglements."
-Similar situation and unfortunately it does stall the sentence this time. You might consider striking out the middle of the sentence because moving from a flowing depiction of the scene to suddenly describing the narrator's thoughts/actions then going back to the scene again is hard to manage with or without "I noticed"
There is an exception to this though. When you are quoting specific thoughts of the narrator "I thought..." is required. This is displayed by "They must be bandits of some type I thought to myself" This can be decided by whether the narrator could actually say this as dialogue and have it make sense.
Overall, I loved this piece and the combination of your writing and artwork is really starting to shine. Remember, that while I put in a lot of suggestions I loved this chapter already, so feel free to use all or none of my tips.
Hope you stick with it!
-Oxy
