The bird hung in the sky as if painted on blue canvas. With a barely perceptible tilt of its broad wings, it turned a slow, full circle before settling on a direction towards the two red suns. Yanega squinted into the late afternoon light and nodded.
"We go west," he said. He leaned on his walking stick and started up a rock strewn slope in the direction the bird flew.
Adan had been contemplating the ridge rising off to their right for the past few hours. He stopped and drew a deep breath.
"But Elder Yanega..." Adan paused to clear his throat. "Won’t that take us into the mountains? It would be easier to continue until we clear that ridge and then double back on the other side."
Yanega stopped and turned to look down at Adan.
 

Suggestions - have Adan be contemplating the ridge to their north, west, east, whatever - anything but their right...since Yanega wants them to go west. It's not clear to the reader which way Adan wants to go and how that would be different since you do west vs. right. Does that make sense?

Suggest you have Yanega squinting at the bird, or some other way to transition to connect the two. It took me a few beats to figure out that 1) Yanega wasn't the name of the bird (this is fantasy, after all...remember we speculative fiction readers will take you literally!) and 2) he had been looking at the bird and using the bird's flight to make a decision.

If you are playing up the conflict between the two characters, I suggest putting more into the beats of their dialogue that show some of their relationship. Internal thought processes, that sort of thing (depends who your POV is for whether you can show their internal thoughts.) For instance, Adan can hesitate before he speaks, in deference (the use of "elder yanega" is also good for indicating something about their relationship.) Clearing throat is good to indicate nervous, but maybe some inner voiced "Adan coudln't believe he was going to contradict a tribal elder, but after contemplating the ridge to the south for the last few hours, he had come to the conclusion that their only safe passage out of the lands of Aioli was to cross that ridge and continue through the forests."

You can also have Yanega snap back to look at Adan, or give him an expression that Adan (assuming he's your POV) interprets to mean something. Does that make sense?

Sorry I can't offer to read more right now, overcommitted on longer crits, but good luck with this!
 

The first sentence is a nice image, but maybe a bit too static with the reference to painting and canvas. Mind, the blue sky and the red suns make a good colour contrast.

I like how the younger one cares for the older one's comfort--or perhaps he's just being lazy. I have a suspicion he should know better than to suggest the easy way. If there's a connection between the walkers and the bird it would be more of a hook to hint at it, I think, if only to assure the reader that the direction isn't an arbitrary one and the bird will turn out to be irrelevant. If the bird is a hawk or an eagle, it would be nice to know, to make a more clear picture in the mind's eye.

I'll read it if you'd like, but there will be a delay of a few days due to a backlog of crits due to others.

Hope this helps,
Pat
 

You've also set up the world well.

I like it.
 

Reading these first 13 lines on their own, I came to much the same conclusion as you all did... there appears to be a conflict brewing between the younger and older character. In fact, this is not the case. The conflict is within the younger character himself -- an internal struggle against his own self doubt.

Is the implication of conflict between the two characters so strong in this opening that you might feel "cheated" if that conflict didn't materialize? Any way to subtley shape this to show more of the younger character's self doubt?

Pat, let me know if you still have time to read this and I will send it along.

 

Cheers,
Pat