Not really a first line, more the first 200 words or so. I can't quite get it right, though!
His horse tossed its head and whickered as he rode past the hanged men.
It was a fine mare — swift, sure-footed — and had known the meaty stench of death many times over the years, being the horse of a priest. But these last few weeks had been unkind to it; the trail hard-going and strewn with corpses.
Petar whispered into its madly flicking ear, stroked its neck with a shaking hand. The chase had been hard on him, too, it seemed.
Other than the six hanged men (naked, rotting, turning slow circles in the afternoon breeze), the place looked like any other Borderland town: the roads of hoof-packed, red earth that would be mud come winter; the raised walkways and whitewashed buildings of timber and clay. Petar walked his horse to the gates of a small, stone-built church and slipped from his saddle. A girl-child gazed up at him, no more than five years old, bare legs dusty to the knees, grubby thumb planted in her mouth.
‘A penny for you, if you find my horse an apple,’ he said, looping the reins over a fencepost. The girl answered with an idiot stare. Petar dropped a copper penny at her feet anyway and made his way to the church doors. It was a common sight in these lonely border towns: slack-jawed kids with filthy faces and soulless eyes. Too many fathers ramming their daughters up against pantry walls, no doubt. Too much time to cope with, in those long, dark evenings. He pushed the doors open and stepped into the shadowed church.
