A Tale Of Doon
“No! Wait! Wait!” Vanweath screamed, holding her hand out as though some action, some act of will would do anything to change her hopeless situation. She watched in horror as the dark figure besieging her homestead took his sword and thrust it mercilessly down into her last remaining Djuani kin. She fell to her knees, spirit broken, heart crushed at the sight of her slain brethren, none left alive except for her. Corpses lay strewn about the wind swept yard, smoke billowed from a nearby wheat-store making it difficult to see, the chaos and confusion of such swift and utter destruction choking both her mind and lungs.
The elven man impaled on the sword gave a lasting groan, coughed a final breath, and died. His executioner applied his armored boot to the Djuani’s chest and unceremoniously tore his weapon free. Either side of Vanweath, across the curated square garden of this stretch of the lane, a score of vile creatures, dark shapes amidst the blighted storm, ran beyond the haze of the smoke.
The heat of the fire burned at Vanweath’s face as she watched, numbly, as the executioner turned his gaze upon her. Her eyes fell, the trampled earth stained red, a dizzying sight before her. The narrow blades of grass at the edges of the footpath became stark, profound details that stood out suddenly. Tiny smoothed pebbles she’d trodden thousands of times before, buried just inside the earth, holding a certain clarity as the final things she would see before her untimely end.
She heard her breathing, long, slow, shuddering draws that filled her ears, drowned out by the clunking of heavy footfalls that took precedence in her mind. She heard them stop. Felt the presence and power of the menacing figure standing over her. She closed her eyes as she drew what she knew would be her last breath. Fear took her as her mind drew blank, nothing but white for want of anything she could do.
Vanweath collapsed.
(Continue to Ep.2)
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