Rune and Ruin

Seeds of the Gods - 1 - Their Choice

396 B.C.E. - The Acerian Village of Sutri, Southern Valley of Acera, Winter, Month of September

Thania

Run Thania.

There was no sound as usual when the words of the gods came to her. Nothing drifted through her ears and no one else heard them. The words were a mere whisper of thought that, for a moment, blotted out everything real and tangible, like a caress of knowledge instead of a voice, a noise.

Run Thania.

That day the words were sharp. A knife through her mind, and between that one heartbeat and the next, the world caught on fire.

Smoke filled Thania's lungs as she started to rush away, listening, always listening, to those silent words. She coughed, then held her breath, trying to stay as quiet as her thoughts. Her feet were bare despite the chill. She hadn't finished re-lacing her shoes for the coming winter. There, in the valley of the Acera, winter was slow coming. They were from the coast and sheltered by the mountain range to the north. The valley barely felt the true bite of winter until late December.

Thania's head snapped around when she heard her sister scream. Teodora's next words were garbled as a demonic barbarian, one of those who poured with his filthy brethren through those sheltering mountains a week ago, slapped his huge, dirty maw across her mouth.

Thania stumbled despite her entire body quivering with the need to obey the gods' demand. Whimpering pitifully, fear stole the breath from her lungs. Unable to even scream for her sister or mother, her frozen limbs turned to water as Teadora was torn violently away from the rough wooden beam she was clinging to in desperation. Thania faltered, then fell to the hard-packed dirt.

The demon laughed, eyes slit like goats gleaming with the glee of a good catch. Scales as dark as the obsidian outcropping in the hill pass nearby grew naturally from his skin. Horns curled at the top of his head. He had no wings, which may explain why the gods urged Thania to run again.

Run Thania

She found her feet and began to run, her heart burning, tears blinding her. Coward. She was no warrior, but to flee without helping anyone else... coward. "Tea," she mouthed. Her words, if there was any sound at all, were lost in the screams of pain and terror from her people. The Acera, with no wings or claws or scales or horns or razor-sharp teeth, were as helpless as lambs in the face of the barbarian invaders.

Running brought no relief. Thania saw her cousin, Juliane, just two years older and recently married to big, sandy-haired, dark-eyed Lio, lying on the ground nearby. Her skirts were thrown up, another massive demon between her legs. The grunts he made drowned out Juliane's soft sobs. Her left foot was twitching, the only movement she was making, her fight gone. Lio was nearby, his chest burst wide open, eyes turned sightlessly to the sky.

Faster, Thania. Escape.

Her bare feet carried her past the village's burning barn. All of their food stores for winter were being eaten by the flames. Old Josa lay in her doorway, her white and black pepper hair strewn haphazardly around her head, her headwrap violently torn away. The silver strands had been so beautiful, but they were stained red from the pool of lifeblood already drying around her. Her granddaughter was inside the house, screaming, the back wall burning. The wet day made the flames smolder and belch black smoke into the sky.

Thania clapped her hands over her ears as two Acera men from the village ran by, their faces equally determined and resigned to their own deaths. Farmers armed with sharp sickle-shaped spades didn't have any effect on hard demon scales.

For one precious moment, Thania was unseen.

Run.

Thania scrambled toward the outhouse. It stank despite the cold weather and she could only hope that the barbarians didn't look for her there.

She was closing the door when he spotted her. A head taller, with a long, unkempt dark brown beard shot with white, and dark eyes shining under bushy eyebrows, he wasn't as frightful as the others, yet still utterly terrified her. His head was shaven clean, exposing the curl of horns, the sight incongruous as he took a step toward her. His filthy leathers smelled of goats and blood and sweat as he smirked cruelly, his teeth flashing under the beard. Wings curled out from his back, and Thania's breath seized again. He could fly, that one.

The wall of the Old Lady Josa's house collapsed. The barbarian turned to watch, but it was too late. A burning timber fell on him, and the demon's wings caught fire. With a horrifying shriek, he fell to his knees.

Thani ran toward the flames in an act of foolish desperation, hoping that the demon would hesitate to follow her toward the burning house.

Harsh hands grabbed her and she came alive to fight wildly, biting and scratching, her breath raspy from lack of air. The heat pouring from the fire caused beads of sweat to roll down her forehead and cheeks, where they mixed with salty tears and stung her skin. Thania heard her name, finally seeing that the man shaking her violently was one of the villagers who had run by her earlier.

"Come, Thania, run!" he shouted.

Run, Thania.

She ran. Then, she walked. Then, she stumbled, and still their flight wasn't over. The barbarian demons were pouring into the valley and attacking every unfortified Acera village. Only the larger, better-defended fortresses remained. 

The few survivors found no relief for weeks until the small band of refugees straggled into the town of Falerri. They were all that remained of their village. Four young men and six women and girls.

Thania was the only one left of her family.

Falerri allowed them to enter their town. A miracle, really, because they brought nothing with them. Not tools, not clothing but what little they had when they fled their village. Certainly not food.

"What will we eat?" Thania murmured the question as they created makeshift beds in an abandoned shack on the outskirts of the town, just inside the wooden walls that protected the town.

No one answered her question. Even the gods were silent, but hovering in the very darkest corners of Thania's mind was a sense of something other... some anticipation... something.

The next morning dawned bright and clear, but cold. Thania wrapped herself in her meager clothes as best she could before heading out into the town, praying silently to the gods for help. She still heard nothing, no helpful voices or warnings.

What she did hear was from the Falerri men, and it sent a chill down her spine.

"...like a scythe through wheat."

"Took the outer farms and villages easily, too easily.

"Quick, too."

"Think it's true? He's from that clan of monsters?"

"Can't be true. Not all of it."

...Thania...

"Any Tasuri is a monster."

"Not every one of them beasts is from them Fyrrins, though, ey?"

Thania.

"He's coming this way soon. What will the elders do?"

"They have a plan-"

Thania!

With a jolt, Thania realized the gods were speaking to her. She jumped, sending a thin rake leaning against the wall clattering to the ground.

The gossiping Acera became quiet and Thania raced off as fast as she could, hobbling on her sore, broken feet, retreating to the shanty. The gods were quiet again. Shivering, she crawled into the pile of limbs of the other girls, straining to think, to plan, to hear the gods again, but hunger and cold had stolen her ability to do much other than be miserable.