The boy would have screamed, if not for the filthy gag in his mouth. Every so often the child felt his sibling’s elbow bump into his roughly, unintentionally, each nudge soothing the boys’ terrified souls.
They were side by side; seated, swaying to each bump on the road the rolling carriage took. Hands bound harshly behind their backs, heads bowed slightly, blindfolded, their shoulders every so often jerking upward to muffled sobs. Adjacent from them sat a stocky man, blonde of hair, and harsh in skin and feature. His grey eyes glinted to the knife in his hand, his own, his prize, but then they flickered upward slowly, glancing to the two young brothers in thought. A hand ran through a whiskered beard slowly, his cold stare promising the children’s death. Though the children were blindfolded, they did not need to view the mans cold glare to know of their soon to come end.
A hand reached up to the eldest boys blindfold, and jerked down harshly, the filthy rag used falling about his neck to reveal the wide eyes of a child’s terror. The oldest boys curled eyebrows snapped into a frown as their eyes met, and then he looked left to his next concern. His younger brother, whose blindfold had already been lowered, returned his stare, but his fear had died, to be replaced by a look of concern. They both returned their gaze, one of hazel, one of green, to the one of grey. Stares of aggression, stares of resistance, protruded from the two boys. But then came the stare they feared. The stare of amusement. As the lantern upon the roof of the carriage swayed to the rocking of the carriage, they merely exchanged stares until the elder brother broke his gaze to the window. The covered window, covered by cloth on the interior. The simple truth dawned upon him. We were snuck away. What of Father? What of Mother? Uncle? Aunt? Cousins? Brother is with me, but for how long?
They felt the carriage turn to the trotting hooves of the horses pulling, baffled as to where they were. Where are we? Where do they take us this sorry day? The thought was vanquished when the carriage unceremoniously halted, and a smile broke out upon the wrinkled face. The doors either side clicked open, and sunlight broke into the interior of the carriage, blinding the two boys. Hairy, wrinkly hands sprung out at them from the fierce white light of the outside, for their tired eyes had not yet adjusted. They wriggled to jeers and grabs, muffled in their screams of protest. They have brother! And they did. Arms from the white light wrapped around his brothers waist, and carried him out, struggling into the unknown, arms and boy consumed by undying whiteness. The elder brother widened his eyes in fear, slammed up against the right hand door on his side, before it snapped open from the exterior of the carriage. He leaned out into nothingness in consequence, and tumbled out of the carriage. He was surrounded by the sounds of wicked laughs and jeers, before he realised visually what he was surrounded by. Rocks, soil, weeds, a bush here and there, were all he could identify before he was tugged up, and then pushed forward harshly. He met the ground with a crunch and a muffled cry, as the gag about his mouth and the bonds at his wrists were cut away. Raised again, and shoved again, only this time falling into the arms of another. Father! Why do they hurt us so? A glance left, Mother! A glance right, Brother! So they reunited us all. His father held both hands to his son’s cheeks, smiling through tears. He cries? Only yesterday he was so strong! A hand grasped his tunics shoulder, and soon he was pulled by his mother to her. They huddled close, valuing each beat of the others heart. The elder brother turned his head back to the carriage, and the thugs that threw them all fell silent.
Their travelling companion, the middle aged rough man with the deathly stare still sat, gazing up to the lantern ahead and above him. It swayed gently with the breeze, and the eyes followed as if influenced by the same wind. He turned his head slowly to the family of four, his blonde hair blowing backward. He rolled his jaw right in thought, before snapping his head back to the right and with a single blow, vanquishing the flame of the lantern. With a casual gruff voice, he spoke of death and ill news like a list for shopping efforts.
‘So…headquarters burnt. Family…mostly dead. Business torched, like candles on a birthday cake. I suppose I could gut your two lads, feed you your wife’s entrails, to burn this defeat further into your, I am sure, frantically thinking mind, Partallion?’.
Uncle. Aunt. Cousins. It cannot be. They cannot be. The older boy frowned, his soot covered face darting up to his fathers. He was worn, broken; he did not need to be older to recognise an expression he had never seen his father adorn. He was afraid, I am afraid, as was his mother and father. The father kept his eyes to the nemesis that had caused this whirling nightmare. His tired voice called out to him, as the grass of the fields and the leaves of the tree’s, swayed.
‘You burn our people. Our operation. Our trust. For what reason? What purpose could you possibly name, for this unjust slaughter!’
The villain shrugged casually, and replied equally so.
‘Your trade is in slavery. Some might argue I did a public service. A lad wanted it done, we did it for price’.
The brothers were cast aside with the yelp of fear, as their mother charged at the villain. Two burly men stepped forth from their boss' ranks, and grabbed either arm and left her legs kicking up the soil. She was thrown, and the two men advanced with an eagerness in their eye. The two brothers sprang forward, leaving their father behind as they darted to face the oncoming men. A punch, a throw, and both siblings lay sprawled beside their mother, dust rising up beneath them.
'Tygus! Tyran! Enough! Enough I say!’ their father called behind them.
The elder brothers' eyes clenched tightly as a boot met his belly, his knees brought up to chest. Mother crawled over son, shielding him from further harm, before the boot could be raised again. The younger dove outward, taking on the second kick, and was thrown back into huddled mother and son. Father stepped forward, but was warded no further by an archer with a knocked arrow, so there he remained rooted, helpless like a bystander.
‘Enough!’ called the worn villain out to his men. Called the shepherd, out to his flock. ‘I want them able to tell me where the younger boy is!'
‘What folly do you speak of? We are the last four, thanks to your villainy and butchery!’ exclaimed the father, relieved of his rage and burdened with fear.
‘And your heads will be removed as easily, if you don’t, tell me, where he is’ hissed the boys' blonde carriage companion, the man they so easily despised. ‘Behave yourself, give us the one we want, and you snivelling shits can go back to reassembling the pieces of your charred empire’.
Brothers and mother turned their panting heads in confusion alike, all looking to the father. The boys, an expression of confusion, the man, an expression of worn anger, and the woman…Mother? Why do you look to plead so openly?
The parents exchanged glances, the woman nodding with watery eyes and quivering lip, the man shaking his head with curled eyebrows. The villain bowed his head with a heavy sigh of irritation, ‘Bring forth the boy’, he demanded with authoritive tones, a dagger brandished from nowhere..
His command was met with immediate shrill screams of a female, of a mother.
‘Which?’ asked a thug, whose rough tones of vacancy almost outshone the stupidity of his very expression, jaw hung low, with ears seemingly large enough to swallow the day light.
‘Either, just bring one of them’.
The cries did not horrify the eldest, for the sounds of flesh meeting flesh did so. He lunged from beneath his mother, to swipe at the arms that seeked to claim his younger blood yet again. His efforts, all to no avail, pinned beneath his mothers folly tug of war for her screaming child. They have stolen him. And the bastards will pay!
Others held the three of family at bay, all faceless to a screaming Tygus, who looked on as his brother was carried off to the carriage companion. Forced to kneel, forced to meet gazes, but Tygus broke his to find his father, relieve a man of his sheathed sword. He looked on has his father grasped the hilt, pulled hard, and sent his boot for the mans behind. As thug was kicked forward, steel was brandished. A silver blur. His sword met two others, the clangs echoing across the field. Slash, a thug fell. Swipe, and down another, the crimson spray jetting off and leaving splattered evidence upon Father. He cut through a third, a fourth, until finally steel clashed with steel, and a harsh knee met his belly. He collapsed spread eagled upon the floor, tired from battle before the former had even begun.
‘Where is the one you named Theodane? Your third. Where is he?’ the carriage companion asked as his blonde hair billowed in the wind, as the boot of a faceless man plunged down upon his Fathers back, keeping him flat.
Fathers mouth was moving, and yet, no sound. He soon found his words after a clear cough to expel the shame in his sadness, and surrendered to the greater power ‘Snowbourn...Rohan!’ the Father said helplessly, pathetic in his defeat which love had forced. The father spoke yet again in softer tones after an ensued silence, his innocent glare meeting carriage companions cold one ‘D-don’t…please don’t, hurt my son. He is my son! Your heart is cold, but not stone’.
He has been sent to kill us all.
As Tygus' brown dirty locks blew from his eyes with a gust of wind, he raised his gaze to a fearful sight. Carriage companion had brother by the hair, kneeling to brothers’ knelt height, and in his hand a blade glimmered from the attacking light of the blazing hot sun. He looked on as a tense silence fell, watching carriage companion tilt his head to one side to contemplate Fathers words, to Father upon the floor like a downed dog, boot to back, his eyes watery with a sadness that no soul could ever experience, and then to Mother. Her face was void of colour, pasty and grey, limp with defeat as her silent tears twinkled beautifully in sunlight. The parents exchanged expressions, one of apology, one of hatred. She turned Tygus and pulled him into her body, shielding his view of what lay ahead. She blinds me, and I do not need to question why. There was silence, and then a deafening cry from the blackness of sight he was immersed within. The cry of pain, of life lost, the cry Tygus had never yet heard, but seemed to be echoing himself in identical pitch, tone, and agony. He heard a lifeless thud, and a cry of rage from Father and then…whipping.
A whipping of Arrows! He turned, brother now lost from view beneath the long blades of grass, some red upon foliage near where his younger blood had knelt, and yet, others fell like he did, lost in a see of red and green. One, two, soon it was hard for Tygus to keep track of how many fell through his tears. Carriage companion spun on the spot to flee, but an arrowhead opened his calf with ferocious power. He cried in pain, and fell forward, a hand raised over but never touching his newly formed wound. Tygus frantically looked for the arrow that would end him, but it never came. He saw Father too, looking around in confusion for the hidden saviours, expecting too for an arrow to open his flesh. But as Mother parted from alive son frantically to get to the son lost, the pain struck his heart yet again, vanquishing air from his innocent young. The three of family together, forgot the fallen as one; all accept one, their forever gone fourth. Tygus, too stunned to approach, simply watched Father walk nearer, his guilt ridden face being replaced by one of unparalleled sadness as they both cradled the one they had cherished.
The bushes scuttled, and up arose men, cloaked in black. From the shadows, other cloaked figures came forth, born from the darkness. These servants could never replace family. A sound of grunting, a sound of physical pain and despair, sounded from the carriage companion, who buried his hands in soil to drag himself onward, unable to walk his cocky stride. A shadow man knocked another arrow, and walked forward casually, but stopped suddenly, turning about to face Tygus, who blinked back his tears and realising he had spoke firmly.
‘No’ he had called, Mother and Father not caring to acknowledge their own men in their fresh mourning.
Tygus stepped over a body, his hand finding a swords hilt the corpse had never managed to brandish before the arrow opened his throat. Over another body, blinking back tears, over another, sword held in hand so tightly that his knuckles were white with rage. There he found him, having pathetically given up and panting, turning slowly to meet the gaze of the boy who would slay him.
‘You can swipe that sword all you want boy’ he hissed with malice as the blood pulsed from his calf. ‘No pain I feel will ever match your own’.
Tygus eyed the man, his heart to heavy to retort with anything more than a vicious stab. He saw the murderer widen his eyes in pain and fear, then watched as the light left his eyes. No satisfaction. Is this how I am to forever live? Curse you, Theodane. The day I learn of another brother, is the day one is taken from me. For him, this faceless boy. He brought up the sword from the dead mans body, and brung it do repeatedly, hacking until there was nothing left but a bloody mass, truely lost to his rage. He ceased his needless hacking with the crimson blade, and cast it aside as if its material was riddled with disease. Tygus realised. No deed will ever lift this pain from my heart. He turned, and strolled forward just barely as his sobs began to find him, kneeling beside Mother and Father and joined them in their crying, certain to birth a new lake beside Nen Harn.
Tygus blinked the memory away, birthing a new tear in unison at the recollection. He was ahorse, but only for a moment as he remembered himself, his worn boots meeting the sludgy soil of Haynbury, a village of Bree-land. His gaze caught a puddle, and gone was the round, hairless face of the boy he no longer was. Now was the time of the one who was left, bearded, dirty, with no life left behind his sunken eyes alit by the glow of the moon. It was Tyran who escaped that day, not I.
He turned his gaze, and out came his sword, eyeing a house ahead. The house of the one who caused it all, who slumbered with the girl he wished dead. Theodane, now named Thayalengir to hide his villainous deeds from foes. Today is the day this ploy fails. He thought, with the rage of his past fuelling his anger, overpowering his brothers’ defiance in slaying Redain. Outward swung the garden gate, and up he strolled along the path, the front door looming nearer and nearer on his approach. He placed a gloved hand to the doorknob, and turned. It clicked, admitting him entrance, To lose one I loved so dearly, to be replaced by a fool. He swung the door open with a small creak of tired wood, steel in his sword right hand. He turned upon the spot slowly, and closed shut the door.
