Of Gods and Warriors ✓

Chapter 9

Shouts and cries drifted from the village as the bandits wreaked havoc. Even with their enhanced strength and night vision, the patrollers and night archers were having a hard time dealing with the attackers. Second Lieutenant Audryn rose from and faced the gate. "We'll have plenty of time later to figure out how they got their hands on a Firemount. For now we must continue our charge."

While a part of the squad skirted the burning south gate to enter the village, another secured ropes on the Firemount and hauled it up behind some trees.

All around Farren, the village crackled and groaned. Dark shapes darted around in the haze of woodsmoke that stung the eyes, and with their torches they set aflame the thatched roofs.

Kinallen was on fire.

Armour to protect her limbs, a weapon and a pair of strong arms to deal damage. Yet Farren felt lost. Her throat was dry as she swallowed hard. Farren found it difficult to breathe, and it had little to do with the smoke.

Farren did not get very far. She turned a corner and fell to her knees near a smoke filled alley. Her surroundings blurred as a coughing fit overtook her. All around, the battle raged on.

She had for long believed she'd left those memories back in that smoking rubble of her home that fateful night many years past. But she'd been ever so wrong, for now they rose to hold her back in the middle of battle.

━━━━━━⚔︎━━━━━━

Across the hills on Autumnwind plain, there once sat a little frontier village called Larton on the easternmost edge of Midaelia.

Farren gulped lungfuls of cool air, and found herself unarmed and barefoot. Instead of her armour, she was clad in a frilly white dress, dirty at the seams from an evening of splashing around in puddles. Oh no. Mum was going to be furious. The damp scent of the season's first rainfall rode the air. It rained a lot in Larton.

At the village square, she could hear arguing. Some people were holding Mister Shafforn, the village chief, tightly by his arms. They were tying him up. Was that some sort of game? But Mister Shafforn looked angry and scared. He didn't want to play.

They were all shouting about the village chief becoming allies with the Drisian Crown Prince, General Krugmann.

At the wheat fields, Farren had heard the adults talk endlessly about the prince as they worked. Apparently, the prince was leading some sort of military campaign.

So what if Mr. Shafforn had become friends with him? What was so bad about making friends? Farren didn't understand.

Driven into the ground near the crowd was a tall stake, at the bottom of which firewood was piled high. The villagers had torches with them. Some of the angry folk banged on the front door of the village chief's house, yelling after his son, Emric, to come out.

"Are you building a bonfire?" Farren asked. It was a strange feeling, like she was reading off a script of a play she had starred in numerous times before, as though she knew exactly how this story was going to end.

"Yes... yes, a bonfire. But this is not for you little ones to see," said one of the people gathered at the village square. Their face was blurred.

"Has he done something bad?" she asked. The people were dragging him to the stake.

The unnamed villager whose face she still couldn't make out turned to her. "He has, indeed. He has made friends with the bad Drisians, you see. He's sold us to them, allowing their troops to pass through our village, trample our fields and plunder our homes," they said, kneeling down so they were face to face, "you don't make friends with Drisians."