The Fates (Book I) - 2014 Watty Award Winner!

3.13 - Vengeance Vowed

Dear Readers: The second-to-last scene of Episode 3!  :)

A scene that's short, sad, and setting the stage for a significant force in the storyline...

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Scene 13: Vengeance Vowed

2020 B.C.

“He was too young…”

“That does not bear reminding,” the archer curtly growled.

The old crone bowed her head, on which too many wispy greys were withering, each standing for a day that she had spent upon this earth. Unlike the boy, who’d spent too few. “All the same, it is true.”

Ames tensed his jaw. He felt the abscess throbbing violently; the pain that swelled up in his soul was already taking a toll on his body. All the anguish, all the anger, coursing through his aching bones.

He had come to this country for a cure among the stones. The famous henge. But now the stones were stained, by blood spilled from his only son. Too soon; too young. Too wrong, to be left unavenged.

The crone cleared her dry, cracking throat. “At least I had done him the kindness of sparing a dress, for his bonny blonde guest…”

“Leave us,” Ames cut in.

The aged hag looked up at the archer’s face, taken aback at the abrupt command. One fierce glare from his flinty eyes was enough to send her shambling home.

Another villager—a closer acquaintance of Ames, perhaps even a friend—came toward the bereft father, to stand by the burial mound.

“A guest best never mentioned again,” the companion murmured.

For this man knew the story, the cause of Donal’s death. Just yesterday, the poor boy had come running home, frantically searching for the maiden. She had simply disappeared, he’d told his father. And he would have no rest until he found her. He’d returned to the circle of stones, in case she might appear again. She hadn’t.

But someone had: the cripple who’d been wounded by an arrow from the archer, with some fellow gimps in tow. They’d come upon the boy, crying out blindly for the girl. His father nowhere to be seen. No arrows to stop them this time, from bashing the sandy-haired head on the rocks, snickering as he bled to death. Their vengeance won.

And it was now the archer’s turn, to wreak the same. Upon the cripples, to be sure, the moment he set eyes on them again. But they did not bear all the blame. No, not even the half of it.

“He believed her to be an angel,” Ames recalled through gritted teeth, gazing upon the lump of earth, beneath which lay the one thing on earth he’d loved most. “But I know her to be the opposite.”

The spectral spirit of his former wife, returned to haunt his family. As if one generation of heartbreak had not been enough. A demon, a death trap: feigned feminine innocence incarnate. The embodiment of man’s beautiful, fatal doom. Sent up to this earth straight from hell.

Whatever she was, wherever she had gone, whenever to return, if ever to this world—he vowed vengeance against her and her kind.

The sky shed its first tears today for Donal, timid rain upon the grave. Ames turned upon his heel, back toward town. Announced that he desired to form a guild: a league of men devoted to a worthy line of work.

“A guild of coppersmiths?” one villager inquired.

“No,” the archer answered, taking up his bow. “Of hunters.”

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And thus the Guild was born. This is the first that we've seen of the Guild, but it won't be the last... keep an eye out - this league of hunters may be lurking and cropping up throughout the series ;)

Anyway... any thoughts, feels, tears for Donal? :'(

Next scene closes out Episode 3 in the Cave... And if you liked this one, please don't forget to vote! :)