Streams like Sorrow

2

Gideon stood between the mangled iron of the city gate, facing the border of Spring and Winter. Scouting this close to the Klaryns was always safe, since Angra never touched the mines. He hadn't bothered to look for any refugees in the southern cities of Winter, rendering Gideon and the remaining Winterians safe.
With a tight grasp on his bow he pulled an elegant white arrow from its quiver and placed it gently on the bowstring. Straining on the taut wire he fired the arrow into the woodland, and it's white glow was swallowed in the black claws of the beginnings of Spring's poisoned trees.

Gideon carried out this tradition every year on the same day: Amrayn's birthday. He would visit her resting place by the fire, put a snowdrop in the grate, and fire one of his father's beautifully crafted white arrows into the southern forest. Gideon's father believed that white arrows warded off evil spirits. Gideon himself did not believe this, but something in him convinced him to fire the arrow toward the forest, a lasting effort to keep his kingdom safe, to live up to the standards that his brother had put in place. But this kingdom had fallen long ago.

Gideon turned and made his way back toward the South gate. As he lumbered solemnly back, he heard faint cries. He quickened his pace, ears wincing under the sounds of screams and shouts. He felt as if every muscle in his body had been replaced with lead, pulling him down into the ground. He knew what this was, but he didn't dare think it, lest the action would solidify the reality of the nightmare he was yet to lay eyes upon.
Gideon ran as faster than his legs would usually carry him. He arrived at the scene. His eyes scanned the scarlet stained cobbles and could only comprehend one dead body lying limp among the others. No matter what state it was in, he would always know that face. Eyes the deepest shade of midnight, wiry thick brows, puckered skin in the shape of an S underneath his eye. Ephraim. His son's body was a mutilated distortion of flesh and bone. Iyela knelt by her father's side, screaming for him to wake, caressing his scar with a porcelain touch. Gideon stood frozen, unaware of the troop of Spring's soldiers that were hacking the writhing bodies of his comrades.
"How did they know we were here?" Ignorant of the blood seeping from the gouge in his shoulder, Gideon forced his feet to stumble to Iyela sweeping her into his arms and carrying her away from the bloodbath behind him, her gurgled shrieks writhing from her raw throat in a cacophony of wailing sobs. Gideon ran. Where? Not to the Klaryns, Angra's men would be there by now. Instead he headed west, to Autumn.
The persistant quiet of Desembre had been disturbed by the sinister silence of death. The only sounds to be heard now were Iyela's muffled sobs and Gideon's boots, padding past the sparse pines.