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Chapter 1: The Pillage

CHAPTER ONE - The Pillage

Dark men burned the temples. Dark men attacked the farms. They destroyed everything from tiny peasant homes to historical monuments more than hundreds of years old. People who resisted died. People who surrendered died. The snow-clad village of Cardia was stained red. Blood of men. Blood of women. Blood of children.

The enemy's arrival was silent; their attack sudden. The sleepy spell brought by winter on the border village was broken by animalistic screams of pain. Cries of people burning. Shrieks of villagers dying. By midnight, half of Cardian population was slain mercilessly by the bronze-skinned men covered in wolf pelts.

The invaders relished the sight of the pale people bleeding, enjoying every slash of sword and arrow released as the village burned. They meant to annihilate every Northerner. They were humans on bloodlust — hungry predators on the hunt.

They proudly called themselves the sons of Summer. The Cardians called them heathens from the South. Killers. Murderers.

Enna ran and hid and ran. Away from them, away from the pandemonium that was bound to give her nightmares every waking night.

She did not know these people. She did not know this village. She was merely searching refuge from the snow storm that blinded her path. A kind elderly woman offered her shelter in exchange for kitchen labor. She was grateful for the warm food and the roof.

Maybe, in the future, she would have returned to pay the favor. But there would be no favor to pay. There was no future to look forward to.

One of the dark men had stabbed the kind woman along with her young grandson. It was a quick death. Savage but quick. Despite her urge to hurl, she made her shivering self small enough to fit behind the crates, only crawling out on fours when the intruders lit the cottage on fire.

The situation was helpless.

There were few men left to protect the village. She heard that almost all the white knights — protectors of the village — were called to join the army in the Larchen mountains.

She did the only reasonable thing she could — run. As much as she wanted to avenge the woman and her grandson, she was not under any illusion that she could actually deliver damage to seasoned fighters.

What could a girl like her do? Nothing.

The night sky had an unnatural stillness in it, as if it was held captive by the sight of blood spilled and flesh burning, transfixed by the slaughter that lay below. The moon was a mere silver lining and the shadows aplenty.

It was a cursed night.

"Nobody escapes! Get her!"

She dodged and ran, moving without thought, relying on raw instincts to escape. The horses neighed angrily as she slid under them. The heathens roared in frustration when they missed catching her with their grimy hands.

As she approached the frozen river just outside the village, a burning sensation crippled her. Blinding pain engulfed her being. Her eyes bulged in an effort to stifle a cry. Her right arm would not move, and black lines swirled around her white skin like a viper. Invisible chains of steel held her on a leash. She fell on her knees. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't blink.

She let out a silent scream at the white-hot pain of the runes on her skin.

Run! Her mind shouted as she heard the sounds of the hooves easily gaining on her. Move!

"Grab the lass!"

NO!

She felt rather than heard the cry that escaped her lips as one of the dark men caught her hair and yanked her back. Her lower lip bled where her teeth caught it. She shuddered in terror as she realized what the hide-covered arm around her waist meant.