Damnation and a Day- Part 1

The beginning of the short story of Haeylth. Following Parts will come.

Winds blew unnaturally violent that day, the sun retreated behind clouds. This wasn't a day for its piercing glare over the misty moors below. No, this was a day for the rain to shower the stone hills, to pummel the seas of grass to a muddy marsh, trickling deep into the soil where bones of the ancient lie.

A fire burnt in the hearth of the great hall at the centre of the village. The small community consisted of farmers and merchants. The few that had not run along the s**t-stained road into the mist rolling off the mountain huddled against the fire sobbing with fear. Frantically they checked the stain-panel glass every hour as the day grew darker and faint remnants of snow, that laid as the last reminder of the winter, illuminated the ground like a tattered white sheet only broken by the pine wood that stood as bold as brass before the village like an old haunted sentinel.

 

Among them a young traveller and his sister of eleven years looked onward upon the pathetic peasants that pleaded to gods for mercy. Gripping the hilt of his b*****d sword he became frustrated. We never should have come here, now we’re trapped in this hell-hole waiting to die. He reflected to himself. Tugging on his sleeve his sister glanced up at him, he knew she was lost, he saw it in the mismatched eyes glistened with tears.

“Haeylth, why can’t we just run?” The shaking child inquired.

“The fog, Alyia, it'll render us unable to see what is coming. We won’t make it to the other side, little one.” A tone of displeasure soured the words that took his sister back with fear. Haeylth turned his anger into a stern mask of determination; this hall would not be his sister’s tomb.

Stepping forward to the centre of the room, the flames dancing beside him, Haeylth’s voice carried over the weeping mothers and their wailing.

“Are you just going to weep until you die? Are you, the men of this town, going to watch your homes burn and your children be torn apart and not at least fight to stop it? This is pathetic! When the ‘Stone B******s’ sack this town they will rape your daughters and cut your sons in two, f**k that! You will stand and fight with me or you will watch the world crumble around you...” The room fell silent as the reddened eyes of a hundred people stared at him, lost on words. Scoffing he knew that he would walk out into that snow, littered with pine and infested with brigands, alone, it was the only way to carve a path for he and his sister to flee, as many of them ambushed and killed inside the fog.

They will burn this hall down if we try and stay here, these people can fight but why the hell don’t they? Cowardice if I've ever seen it.

 

Donning his cloak his walked for the door, Alyia following suit. She knew she could not stop him and she knew why he wanted to walk out into the ever darkening evening, she was all he had left but still her heart raced and she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed as tightly as she could. “Alyia I will return, I always do...” Haeylth knelt down and embraced her before opening the heavy wooden door and disappearing into the bleak cold.

I will return...

 

As the rain intensified it did nothing to dissipate the snow trudging beneath his boots. Haeylth drew his heavy blade and held it before him, circling and searching into the tree line. His breath held with anticipation...

The forest came alive with black shadows, darting about and rushing low to the ground. Haeylth tightened his grip and clenched his jaw ready for the first strike. “Take me you f***s, I'm right here!”

The shadows came closer and closer, rapidly increasing in number. Haeylth spun in circles as he watched them encircle him alone and advance. The first screamed a war cry that sounded as if it could shake the trees of their caked snow.

Haeylth’s heart almost beat out of his chest as he swung his sword and the blade bashed with the strength of the swing against the ribs of the foe, slicing through the flesh and splashing the snow with blood, washed and pooled with the rain. The second was upon Haeylth before the first had met the ground, crashing against the leaves and snow.

Haeylth’s blade swung low and he drove it upwards into the belly of the ‘Stone B*****d’ tribal. He ripped his blade sideways and let the innards slop out of the fresh kill, staining the snow and draining the scent of petrachor with a sillage of s**t, Haeylth nearly retched but stepped backwards.

The young warrior was circled and he held his blade aloft above him, hilt held abreast.

“Come on then you s**t, come over ‘ere and I’ll show ya what yer heart looks like boy” Taunted the hulk of a man towering over Haeylth. With a shout Haeylth charged with his boots tearing the snow up as his heels kicked. An arrow brushed his cheek and the throng of it flicked his hair and cut the slight of his ear. The wanted these men to bleed and anger took him as the pain thumped through his ear. Swinging his sword over his shoulder with a roar, he cleaved through the beastly brute of a man, lodging his blade deeply into the man’s torso crushing his shoulder and creating a trail of bodily carnage tracing down through his chest. Streams of arterial blood rushed out of the warped and rearranged chest cavity and the meat and bone cracked when Haeylth ripped his sword from him and watched him collapse into a sea of red.

 

His rage took him and with every swing he met a man to be fallen in a bloody conjuncture of gore and bone, his grunts became as frantic as his breathing. Haeylth began to tire yet he could not waver. He fell to his knee and was set upon by two shouting men. “Die, C**T!” They screamed at full charge from either direction. With all his effort Haeylth ascended from the snow and strained to smash his blade against the first attacker closing down over him, he swirled his own blade around him and spun to parry the second blade. The wielder of the blade was a good foot shorter and the moment Haeylth’s blade crashed against him with a metallic ringing thrung, this blade tore the head off the weaker attacker as the other watched in horror. Haeylth turned and wasted no time grabbing the other with one hand and drove his sword through his neck as blood sloshed out when the blade retracted.

 

Panting he stumbled and the world began to spin as he lost balance then once again fell to his knees. They closed all around him and he shouted stumbling and then a blow caught him from the back. He felt the cold steel tear a slice open along his back and then the burning sting. With a pain curdled scream he fell to the ground and the world went black... He watched a boot close down on him.

 

 Haeylth awoke to the ache and the wetness of his blood-caked back. The rain still fell however relented in the wake of the moon. The night sky was star-ridden and Haeylth was perplexed to the number of hours that must have passed. At a distance he saw the blur of rippling touch flames surrounding him as well as distorted voices. He squinted until he saw the village’s people standing before him as he was at the feet of the ‘Stone B******s’ before them. Disorientated he watched the people shove Alyia out into the snow.

“Aye, she’s a pretty one. Doesn't ‘ave tits though.”
Alyia crashed to the ground sobbing and a roar of laughter came from the tribesmen. One lifted her by the arm and threw her into the crowd beside Haeylth, yet he was too groggy to shout or speak; he just struggled to stay awake at the blood loss. More girls were brought out by the village people and tossed weeping to the savages. Haeylth looked on with horror and struggled to lift himself.

“N-No! What are you doing? What is this? What the f-“. His confusion was met with a blow to the temple with the blunt of a sword smashing him down.

“Stay down! You little s**t.”

Alyia rushed to his side and held his blood trickling head against her and dried her tears on his bloody cloak. The biggest of the men dragged Haeylth to a cart as and tossed the young girl in with him. The daughters, dragged from their homes, watched their loved ones slowly disappear over the horizon.