Post by Tristan Rydralle on Aug 7, 2012 16:58:42 GMT -5
The speedy journey through the bitterly cold night’s air had been a difficult one, especially with the debilitating injury to his thigh, but Tristan did not have the luxury of slowing to rest or take care of the wound. They would be on his trail very soon, if not already, and if they caught up to him there would be no mercy or understanding, not even from his friends amongst them. They would all be honour bound to treat him as a deserter and deserters were always executed, as an example to the rest and without fail or exception. Tristan did not wish to die, in truth he did not know what he wished right now, other than to escape and survive; nothing else mattered.
The young Northerner had spent his entire life growing up in the Rills and often joked that he knew every inch of the land. This was far from the case, but his travelling and hunting had given him an incite to the more rural and wild places within the Rills, where people did not often choose to travel. Mostly track paths through the brush, where animals had worn a path through the bushes and small patches of woodland. They were harder to travel through for Humans, but that was the point; these were the routes that Tristan was mostly using.
He lost his footing many times in the dark, the resulting jolt throughout his body as it hit the floor sent a sharp pang of pain through his injured leg that threatened to cause him to fall unconscious, but with great struggle he would force himself back on to his feet and continue to flee; it was less painful when his supply pack would get caught or tangled in some of the thicker brush, but equally as annoying and time consuming. In the darkness of the night he did not have to overly worry about leaving a traceable path for them to follow, it would be too dark to notice footprints, broken twigs or the trail of blood he was no doubt leaving, and hopefully by the time that first light broke he would be in the flat planes of the Rills, and it would be harder to track him.
He was heading East, in a relatively straight line, directly towards the village of Lorian; his home. It would no doubt be one of the first places that they would search for him once they could not track him properly, and Tristan knew this, but he had to return home one last time. His mother deserved to be told what he had done, she deserved for him to explain it with his own words before he vanished, never to return. However, she was not his only reason for returning to Lorian. …Megan.
Megan was a girl from the same village as him, a girl of beauty unmatched across all of the Seven Kingdoms. He had fallen for her the very first time that he had seen and spoken to her, and the feeling had never once lessened or vanished. It had been the happiest day of his life when he had discovered she felt the same way towards him. At first he had not believed one man could be so lucky, surely it had to be wrong, but it wasn’t. He had vowed to her that day that they would one day wed each other, once he had the means to support her and treat her like the Queen that she deserved to be treated like. She merely wanted his love, and nothing more, but Tristan was determined to become a Knight more so than ever; Megan deserved nothing less than the absolute best.
He needed to reach Lorian and find her, to apologise for ruining their future together and to beg her to accompany him…wherever he was going. His future was now utterly meaningless without her in it, and he could not bare to be apart from her. Alas, the sort of future he was bound to have no was not fit for someone of her calibre, and he would understand if she did not wish to follow him. The thought tore him apart inside and hurt more than his leg wound ever could, but just thinking about her seemed to help the time pass, as before he knew it the sun was cresting the distant horizon and he realised that he was already in the flat planes of the Rills.
He was still over a days travel to his village, and without food, rest and treating his wound he doubted that he would make it there at all. He was far more tired than he had realised, his entire body feeling drained and mostly numb, beside his leg. Glancing down at his wound while he attempted to run, he noticed that the piece of cloth that he had tightly wrapped around it was now completely drenched in blood; the wound was seemingly still bleeding. With a grunt of pain, Tristan knew that he had no choice now, he had to find somewhere he could hide, rest and tend to his injury.
He knew of a grove of sorts not too far from his position, if remembered correctly, though it took him an hour away from his village. It would add an additional two hours worth of travel onto his journey, plus however long he took to rest, but he knew of nowhere else that was safe enough to stop moving. The flat planes of the Rills were named aptly, for the land was near completely flat and there were no hiding places of any use. He had little choice, and so he started out on his journey once again, hoping to get there as quickly as possible.
Just over an hour later, give or take, Tristan arrived at the grove. He had been right about his position after all, but that was little comfort. Sliding down into the grove, the young man could hardly even bring himself to move, and so he simply continued to lay against the slanted dirt as his chest rapidly lifted and fell. He could feel his heart pumping faster than he ever remembered it pumping, and could even hear each beat in his ears, but he had did not have the luxury of being able to waste time.
Forcing himself to sit up, Tristan pulled free the water skin that he had packed in his supplies, taking a few mouthfuls and splashing his face quickly, before he turned his attention to his wound. He untied the cloth that was wrapped around it and inspected the wound; it didn’t look too good, in fact it was still open and bleeding. With a lengthy sigh, Tristan tied the wound back up and pushed himself up onto his feet. He would need a fire, and not just because he was suddenly feeling extremely cold. Limping about, Tristan managed to collect a small amount of firewood within the grove, just enough to get a tiny fire going for a little while. Anything bigger would no doubt attract attention that he did not want or need, and within no time at all he had the fire let and was warming himself beside it…now came the difficult part.
It took him many minutes to work up the courage to do what he knew must be done, and even then he was still resilient. He untied the cloth around his leg once more, but this time he splashed his wound with water in an attempt to clear it a little. The blood cleared from around the wound, though more began to build in an attempt to replace that which had been washed away; this wound had to be closed, before he lost even more blood than he already had. Without another thought of hesitation, Tristan grabbed his dagger, which had been resting just inside the flames of the fire, and he pressed the flat end of the blade down over his wound. The blistering heat of the metal against his skin caused a hissing sound as his skin began to burn and cauterize the wound. Tristan’s back arched in pain as his mouth opened and released a blood curdling scream that seemingly echoed throughout the entire Rills. His hand shaking fiercely, Tristan held the boiling blade against his wound as long as he possibly could, before the pain became too much for him to handle and his body fell limp, releasing the dagger from his hand and passing out; the last thing he remembered was the smell of cooked meat.
When Tristan’s eyes finally began to open, flickering to adjust with the light suddenly pouring into his eyes, it took a few extra moments to figure out where he was and what was happening. When his eyes finally adjusted to the light once again, he forced himself to sit up and look about. That’s right, he was in the grove. The fire had completely burnt out by this point, nothing more than a pile of blackened ash where it once was, and he noticed that the sky was getting dark as the sun had already began to set…no, it was starting to rise!
Tristan sprang onto his feet and immediately regretted it, pain rushing through his leg and almost causing him to stumble back down onto the ground. With considerable effort Tristan managed to maintain his balance by taking the majority of his weight off of his leg, but even then the pain persisted. So he dropped his trousers to inspect his leg a little better. The wound had been burnt closed, leaving a very red and very painful blistering scar across his thigh. He began to regret removing his trousers, knowing full well that it would hurt to put them back on again, and put them back on he must.
With great pain and effort, Tristan gingerly pulled them up, trying not to further hurt himself, with no luck. Eventually the pain subsided, enough for him to no longer focus on it, and Tristan realised that he had been holding his breath. Taking several deep breaths to make up for it, Tristan knew that he had wasted far more time than he had ever intended to and now he needed to make up for it. He had no choice in the matter, not if he wanted to get to Lorian before those who were chasing him. And so, with some effort, Tristan pulled his supplies together and dragged himself up out of the grove, heading straight for home.
The journey was hard going, the pain seemed far more intense than it had felt the day before, almost as if he had made it worse. Nevertheless, Tristan pushed onward, his one and only drive being that of reaching Megan and his mother, before Captain Thane and his men did. Was that even possible now? At the least he’d been unconscious over twenty-four hours, that would have been more than enough time for them to over-take him and be well on their way to reaching the village. Fear flooded his being, a feeling that he couldn’t shake.
With renewed vigour Tristan moved across the land as fast as his body would allow him to. He covered land quickly, all things considered, and before long he realised that he wasn’t too far from the village, no more than thirty or so minutes from it in fact. He had made it there before nightfall, and better yet, he had approached from the west, meaning that he would reach his mothers farm before he got to the village. He would have to be quick in explaining everything to her; unfortunately there was no time for a long, drawn out goodbye.
As he continued onwards he tried to think of what he would say to his mother, how he would explain his actions and how he would say goodbye to the woman who had given him life, who had brought him up on her own. There wasn’t enough time to do something like this, there wasn’t any words that felt right or said everything that he needed to say to her. In truth this was a terrible situation, and it was never going to be anything but that. No mother should ever have to see her son go though something like this, so know that she’ll never likely see or hear from them again. He felt truly terrible for what he was about to put her through, and even wondered if he could live with himself afterwards.
However, all of these thoughts vanished into the darkest recesses of Tristan’s mind as he approached the farm, only to see a thick tail of black smoke rising from the farmhouse. His breath caught in his throat, his heart stopped and time even seemed to slow right down. He felt as if he had been standing there for an eternity, his mind completely blank, void of emotion and thought as he stared on at the place he once called home. Then suddenly, a tsunami of emotion and thoughts flooded through him in an uncontrollable serge and Tristan suddenly broke into sprint towards his home.
“Mother!” he screamed, sprinting as fast as his legs would carry him. All of his physical pain had vanished, none of that mattered, as nothing other than finding his mother safe and sound ran through his mind. He covered the land quickly, faster than he had moved since his injury, and before he knew it he was skidding through the dirt an rounding the barn, coming face-to-face with the house. It only sunk in then that it wasn’t the house that had been set alight, but rather the barn. It spark the feeling of hope in his gut; there was a chance that she was still safe.
The smell of smoke was thick in the air, burning at Tristan’s throat whenever he inhaled, but that didn’t matter to him. He rushed forward to the front of the house, noting that the front door had been smashed in, but when he stopped just inside of the doorway he couldn’t fully contemplate what his eyes were seeing. There was blood everywhere; up the walls, across the flood, over the broken furniture, even on the ceiling and the smashed windows. Noticing a lone figure was laying on the floor in the centre of the room, Tristan ran inside and dropped to his knees.
“Oh God…no…” he cried out, cradling the body and lifting it closer to his face. The body was so badly beaten, so cut up, mutilated and covered in blood than he could hardly even recognise her, but there was no denying it; it was Tristan’s mother. He shook her body, almost as if she’d wake up with a little incentive, but her limp body merely slumped in his arms. “Mother…Mother wake up! Please!” His emotions could no longer be held back and he began to sob uncontrollably, pulling the lifeless body of his mother to his chest and embracing it.
Tristan rocked back and forth, sobbing into the bloody hair of his now dead mother. Nothing other than emotion, pure and intense, were rushing through Tristan’s mind. Sadness and rage consumed every inch of him, until he was sure it had seeped into his very essence, his soul. His arms were shaking in anger, he just didn’t know what to do with himself, but he knew what had to be done.
He slowly lowered his mother onto the floor once more and made his way back outside, heading towards the barn, which was still blazing. Much of the barn had broken apart by this point, stray bits of burning wood having fallen to the ground; Tristan grabbed one of these pieces of wood and began to make his way back towards the house. Through the muddle of emotions he knew that time was running short, but for what he could no remember. Nevertheless, he moved to the front of the house, look at his mothers body one last time, before throwing the flaming piece of wood inside of the house.
The building took to fire almost instantly, it being mostly made from wood. It was not the burial that Tristan wanted for his mother, the type that she deserved, but with time so against him he really had no choice in the matter. He wiped the tears from his eyes as he felt the searing heat of the flames beating against his face, and then it struck him like a war hammer to the back of the head, and he couldn’t believe he had forgotten about it until now.
“Megan!” Tristan turned on his heel before springing into a sprint once again, rushing towards the village. He’d got so caught up with the fate of his mother, naturally, that he had forgotten that the village was also in danger. The farm had been completely empty, not a single Bolton soldier present, which meant that there was a high possibility that they were already at the village. Tristan knew his only chance to save everyone else, to save Megan, was to hand himself in and hope that they left the rest of the village alone.
The pain was gone by this point, lost beneath the endless tundra of raging feelings, all he could focus on was saving Megan and running faster. He was out of breath, pushing his body to and beyond it’s physical limits, but he wasn’t about to slow down and relax. If he had to, Tristan would run himself to death before he stopped and allowed Megan and the village to end up like his mother had.
The path to the village was a short one, and within no time at all it came into view; or rather, what was left of it did. Black smoke billowed into the sky in a pillar that was three times the size of the one that had been created by the barn at his mother’s farm; the entire village had been put to the flame. Tristan slowed his run, sliding to a halt on the dirt road heading into the village. There was no movement within, everything was completely still besides the flickering of the flames that were burning through the houses. Where was everyone? A flash of movement to the right soon answered his question.
A crow began to caw as it panicked and flew from the reach of Tristan, but it wasn’t the bird that he was interested in, rather what the bird had been eating. It was one of the people from the village, tied to the fence on the side of the road, or rather what was left of them. Now that his attention had been drawn to his surroundings, Tristan looked from one side of the path to the other and noticed the true scope of the situation; lined on either side of the path, tied and nailed to fences and trees alike, were the entire population of the village.
Tristan stumbled forward along the path, his head swinging from left to right as he passed each set of mutilated and burned victims. Some of them had been killed in such ways that Tristan had trouble recognising them, and after he had reached the end of the path and passed the last victim, he fell to his knees; he had not recognised Megan amongst the dead. Had she been one of the few he had not recognised? Was she dead some where else? Or had she somehow managed to survive this onslaught, when all others hadn’t? Tristan couldn’t think straight, his grief overwhelming him to the point that he felt as if he was going to be physically sick.
Suddenly a flash of movement within the village caught his eye, instantly drawing his attention. “Megan?!” he bellowed out, somewhat involuntarily. However, the two figures that moved into his line of vision were not Megan, in fact Tristan instantly recognised them as two from within Captain Thane’s soldiers. They were quick to react to spotting Tristan, one seemed to mouth the word ‘deserter’ but all sound had vanished from Tristan’s world by this point.
As the two men began to charge at him, their swords drawn, Tristan slowly stood and pulled his longbow from over his shoulder, wasting no time in stringing up an arrow and aiming it towards the men ahead of him. Time seemed to slow as he let the arrow fly, it ripping through the air towards it target before forcing its way into the chest of the man to the right. The blow took the man off of his feet and landing on his back, though the other man continued to charge, closing the gap rapidly. Tristan dropped his bow to the ground and quickly unsheathed his longsword, taking several slow steps towards his rapidly approaching opponent. The soldier raised his sword and swung horizontally, attempting to slice off Tristan’s head in one attack, but Tristan ducked underneath the attack and completely cut through the shin on the soldiers left leg.
Blood sprayed through the air and the soldier let out a scream unlike any other, but Tristan didn’t hear it. Stabbing the blade into the ground, Tristan turned around to face the now crippled soldier, who was still screaming while holding his heavily bleeding stump of a leg. Unsheathing his dagger, Tristan got down on his knees in front of the soldier, grabbing the collar of his clothing and pulling him close. “The young girl,” Tristan began, his voice almost void of emotion but with an underlining rage, like thunder in a distant storm. “where is she.”
“Dead you deserter scum!” the man managed from groans of pain, spitting a mouthful of blood in Tristan’s face. He managed a gurgled laugh of sorts, grinning through the pain that he was no doubt feeling. The man knew that he would likely not survive; why should he care what he said to a deserter when he knew death was coming? What he did not realise was that there were some things that were worse than death, and after everything he had been forced to endure on this day, Tristan was currently one of those things.
“Wrong answer.” despite his voice remaining the same, the storm erupted within Tristan’s eyes; even the solder could see that he had made a terrible decision. Without hesitation or mercy, Tristan grabbed the soldiers face and forced open his mouth before grabbing hold of his tongue. With one swift slice of the dagger, he cut the mans tongue off and dropped it to the floor beside him, and then stabbed him in the stomach, twisting the blade. “This wound will kill you slowly…the pain will be agonising…and without your tongue you will not be able to call for help…” Tristan stood, blood soaking his hair and covering his face. He looked down at his victim without a single drop of mercy or sorrow present in his face. “Hopefully you wont drown on your own blood before your wound kills you…Gods be good.” with that he turned on his heel, making his way into the depths of the burning the village and never looking back at the soon to be corpse of the soldier.
There was nothing left for him here now. His mother had been brutally murdered and her farm destroyed, along with the village of Lorian and it’s entire population…Megan included. As tears once again began to silently cascade down Tristan’s cheeks, the young deserter knew that he no longer had anything to live for in the North, and as long as he remained he would always be hunted. Knowing he had to leave, to head South, Tristan knew that meant he would have to travel to White Harbour, where he would be able to purchase entry onto a ship of some kind and find passage to anywhere South of the Neck. The further away from this place, the further South that he could get the better, as the memories were too painful and he doubted that he would ever be rid of the pain and the memories.
Total Finished Word Count: 4,031.
The young Northerner had spent his entire life growing up in the Rills and often joked that he knew every inch of the land. This was far from the case, but his travelling and hunting had given him an incite to the more rural and wild places within the Rills, where people did not often choose to travel. Mostly track paths through the brush, where animals had worn a path through the bushes and small patches of woodland. They were harder to travel through for Humans, but that was the point; these were the routes that Tristan was mostly using.
He lost his footing many times in the dark, the resulting jolt throughout his body as it hit the floor sent a sharp pang of pain through his injured leg that threatened to cause him to fall unconscious, but with great struggle he would force himself back on to his feet and continue to flee; it was less painful when his supply pack would get caught or tangled in some of the thicker brush, but equally as annoying and time consuming. In the darkness of the night he did not have to overly worry about leaving a traceable path for them to follow, it would be too dark to notice footprints, broken twigs or the trail of blood he was no doubt leaving, and hopefully by the time that first light broke he would be in the flat planes of the Rills, and it would be harder to track him.
He was heading East, in a relatively straight line, directly towards the village of Lorian; his home. It would no doubt be one of the first places that they would search for him once they could not track him properly, and Tristan knew this, but he had to return home one last time. His mother deserved to be told what he had done, she deserved for him to explain it with his own words before he vanished, never to return. However, she was not his only reason for returning to Lorian. …Megan.
Megan was a girl from the same village as him, a girl of beauty unmatched across all of the Seven Kingdoms. He had fallen for her the very first time that he had seen and spoken to her, and the feeling had never once lessened or vanished. It had been the happiest day of his life when he had discovered she felt the same way towards him. At first he had not believed one man could be so lucky, surely it had to be wrong, but it wasn’t. He had vowed to her that day that they would one day wed each other, once he had the means to support her and treat her like the Queen that she deserved to be treated like. She merely wanted his love, and nothing more, but Tristan was determined to become a Knight more so than ever; Megan deserved nothing less than the absolute best.
He needed to reach Lorian and find her, to apologise for ruining their future together and to beg her to accompany him…wherever he was going. His future was now utterly meaningless without her in it, and he could not bare to be apart from her. Alas, the sort of future he was bound to have no was not fit for someone of her calibre, and he would understand if she did not wish to follow him. The thought tore him apart inside and hurt more than his leg wound ever could, but just thinking about her seemed to help the time pass, as before he knew it the sun was cresting the distant horizon and he realised that he was already in the flat planes of the Rills.
He was still over a days travel to his village, and without food, rest and treating his wound he doubted that he would make it there at all. He was far more tired than he had realised, his entire body feeling drained and mostly numb, beside his leg. Glancing down at his wound while he attempted to run, he noticed that the piece of cloth that he had tightly wrapped around it was now completely drenched in blood; the wound was seemingly still bleeding. With a grunt of pain, Tristan knew that he had no choice now, he had to find somewhere he could hide, rest and tend to his injury.
He knew of a grove of sorts not too far from his position, if remembered correctly, though it took him an hour away from his village. It would add an additional two hours worth of travel onto his journey, plus however long he took to rest, but he knew of nowhere else that was safe enough to stop moving. The flat planes of the Rills were named aptly, for the land was near completely flat and there were no hiding places of any use. He had little choice, and so he started out on his journey once again, hoping to get there as quickly as possible.
Just over an hour later, give or take, Tristan arrived at the grove. He had been right about his position after all, but that was little comfort. Sliding down into the grove, the young man could hardly even bring himself to move, and so he simply continued to lay against the slanted dirt as his chest rapidly lifted and fell. He could feel his heart pumping faster than he ever remembered it pumping, and could even hear each beat in his ears, but he had did not have the luxury of being able to waste time.
Forcing himself to sit up, Tristan pulled free the water skin that he had packed in his supplies, taking a few mouthfuls and splashing his face quickly, before he turned his attention to his wound. He untied the cloth that was wrapped around it and inspected the wound; it didn’t look too good, in fact it was still open and bleeding. With a lengthy sigh, Tristan tied the wound back up and pushed himself up onto his feet. He would need a fire, and not just because he was suddenly feeling extremely cold. Limping about, Tristan managed to collect a small amount of firewood within the grove, just enough to get a tiny fire going for a little while. Anything bigger would no doubt attract attention that he did not want or need, and within no time at all he had the fire let and was warming himself beside it…now came the difficult part.
It took him many minutes to work up the courage to do what he knew must be done, and even then he was still resilient. He untied the cloth around his leg once more, but this time he splashed his wound with water in an attempt to clear it a little. The blood cleared from around the wound, though more began to build in an attempt to replace that which had been washed away; this wound had to be closed, before he lost even more blood than he already had. Without another thought of hesitation, Tristan grabbed his dagger, which had been resting just inside the flames of the fire, and he pressed the flat end of the blade down over his wound. The blistering heat of the metal against his skin caused a hissing sound as his skin began to burn and cauterize the wound. Tristan’s back arched in pain as his mouth opened and released a blood curdling scream that seemingly echoed throughout the entire Rills. His hand shaking fiercely, Tristan held the boiling blade against his wound as long as he possibly could, before the pain became too much for him to handle and his body fell limp, releasing the dagger from his hand and passing out; the last thing he remembered was the smell of cooked meat.
When Tristan’s eyes finally began to open, flickering to adjust with the light suddenly pouring into his eyes, it took a few extra moments to figure out where he was and what was happening. When his eyes finally adjusted to the light once again, he forced himself to sit up and look about. That’s right, he was in the grove. The fire had completely burnt out by this point, nothing more than a pile of blackened ash where it once was, and he noticed that the sky was getting dark as the sun had already began to set…no, it was starting to rise!
Tristan sprang onto his feet and immediately regretted it, pain rushing through his leg and almost causing him to stumble back down onto the ground. With considerable effort Tristan managed to maintain his balance by taking the majority of his weight off of his leg, but even then the pain persisted. So he dropped his trousers to inspect his leg a little better. The wound had been burnt closed, leaving a very red and very painful blistering scar across his thigh. He began to regret removing his trousers, knowing full well that it would hurt to put them back on again, and put them back on he must.
With great pain and effort, Tristan gingerly pulled them up, trying not to further hurt himself, with no luck. Eventually the pain subsided, enough for him to no longer focus on it, and Tristan realised that he had been holding his breath. Taking several deep breaths to make up for it, Tristan knew that he had wasted far more time than he had ever intended to and now he needed to make up for it. He had no choice in the matter, not if he wanted to get to Lorian before those who were chasing him. And so, with some effort, Tristan pulled his supplies together and dragged himself up out of the grove, heading straight for home.
The journey was hard going, the pain seemed far more intense than it had felt the day before, almost as if he had made it worse. Nevertheless, Tristan pushed onward, his one and only drive being that of reaching Megan and his mother, before Captain Thane and his men did. Was that even possible now? At the least he’d been unconscious over twenty-four hours, that would have been more than enough time for them to over-take him and be well on their way to reaching the village. Fear flooded his being, a feeling that he couldn’t shake.
With renewed vigour Tristan moved across the land as fast as his body would allow him to. He covered land quickly, all things considered, and before long he realised that he wasn’t too far from the village, no more than thirty or so minutes from it in fact. He had made it there before nightfall, and better yet, he had approached from the west, meaning that he would reach his mothers farm before he got to the village. He would have to be quick in explaining everything to her; unfortunately there was no time for a long, drawn out goodbye.
As he continued onwards he tried to think of what he would say to his mother, how he would explain his actions and how he would say goodbye to the woman who had given him life, who had brought him up on her own. There wasn’t enough time to do something like this, there wasn’t any words that felt right or said everything that he needed to say to her. In truth this was a terrible situation, and it was never going to be anything but that. No mother should ever have to see her son go though something like this, so know that she’ll never likely see or hear from them again. He felt truly terrible for what he was about to put her through, and even wondered if he could live with himself afterwards.
However, all of these thoughts vanished into the darkest recesses of Tristan’s mind as he approached the farm, only to see a thick tail of black smoke rising from the farmhouse. His breath caught in his throat, his heart stopped and time even seemed to slow right down. He felt as if he had been standing there for an eternity, his mind completely blank, void of emotion and thought as he stared on at the place he once called home. Then suddenly, a tsunami of emotion and thoughts flooded through him in an uncontrollable serge and Tristan suddenly broke into sprint towards his home.
“Mother!” he screamed, sprinting as fast as his legs would carry him. All of his physical pain had vanished, none of that mattered, as nothing other than finding his mother safe and sound ran through his mind. He covered the land quickly, faster than he had moved since his injury, and before he knew it he was skidding through the dirt an rounding the barn, coming face-to-face with the house. It only sunk in then that it wasn’t the house that had been set alight, but rather the barn. It spark the feeling of hope in his gut; there was a chance that she was still safe.
The smell of smoke was thick in the air, burning at Tristan’s throat whenever he inhaled, but that didn’t matter to him. He rushed forward to the front of the house, noting that the front door had been smashed in, but when he stopped just inside of the doorway he couldn’t fully contemplate what his eyes were seeing. There was blood everywhere; up the walls, across the flood, over the broken furniture, even on the ceiling and the smashed windows. Noticing a lone figure was laying on the floor in the centre of the room, Tristan ran inside and dropped to his knees.
“Oh God…no…” he cried out, cradling the body and lifting it closer to his face. The body was so badly beaten, so cut up, mutilated and covered in blood than he could hardly even recognise her, but there was no denying it; it was Tristan’s mother. He shook her body, almost as if she’d wake up with a little incentive, but her limp body merely slumped in his arms. “Mother…Mother wake up! Please!” His emotions could no longer be held back and he began to sob uncontrollably, pulling the lifeless body of his mother to his chest and embracing it.
Tristan rocked back and forth, sobbing into the bloody hair of his now dead mother. Nothing other than emotion, pure and intense, were rushing through Tristan’s mind. Sadness and rage consumed every inch of him, until he was sure it had seeped into his very essence, his soul. His arms were shaking in anger, he just didn’t know what to do with himself, but he knew what had to be done.
He slowly lowered his mother onto the floor once more and made his way back outside, heading towards the barn, which was still blazing. Much of the barn had broken apart by this point, stray bits of burning wood having fallen to the ground; Tristan grabbed one of these pieces of wood and began to make his way back towards the house. Through the muddle of emotions he knew that time was running short, but for what he could no remember. Nevertheless, he moved to the front of the house, look at his mothers body one last time, before throwing the flaming piece of wood inside of the house.
The building took to fire almost instantly, it being mostly made from wood. It was not the burial that Tristan wanted for his mother, the type that she deserved, but with time so against him he really had no choice in the matter. He wiped the tears from his eyes as he felt the searing heat of the flames beating against his face, and then it struck him like a war hammer to the back of the head, and he couldn’t believe he had forgotten about it until now.
“Megan!” Tristan turned on his heel before springing into a sprint once again, rushing towards the village. He’d got so caught up with the fate of his mother, naturally, that he had forgotten that the village was also in danger. The farm had been completely empty, not a single Bolton soldier present, which meant that there was a high possibility that they were already at the village. Tristan knew his only chance to save everyone else, to save Megan, was to hand himself in and hope that they left the rest of the village alone.
The pain was gone by this point, lost beneath the endless tundra of raging feelings, all he could focus on was saving Megan and running faster. He was out of breath, pushing his body to and beyond it’s physical limits, but he wasn’t about to slow down and relax. If he had to, Tristan would run himself to death before he stopped and allowed Megan and the village to end up like his mother had.
The path to the village was a short one, and within no time at all it came into view; or rather, what was left of it did. Black smoke billowed into the sky in a pillar that was three times the size of the one that had been created by the barn at his mother’s farm; the entire village had been put to the flame. Tristan slowed his run, sliding to a halt on the dirt road heading into the village. There was no movement within, everything was completely still besides the flickering of the flames that were burning through the houses. Where was everyone? A flash of movement to the right soon answered his question.
A crow began to caw as it panicked and flew from the reach of Tristan, but it wasn’t the bird that he was interested in, rather what the bird had been eating. It was one of the people from the village, tied to the fence on the side of the road, or rather what was left of them. Now that his attention had been drawn to his surroundings, Tristan looked from one side of the path to the other and noticed the true scope of the situation; lined on either side of the path, tied and nailed to fences and trees alike, were the entire population of the village.
Tristan stumbled forward along the path, his head swinging from left to right as he passed each set of mutilated and burned victims. Some of them had been killed in such ways that Tristan had trouble recognising them, and after he had reached the end of the path and passed the last victim, he fell to his knees; he had not recognised Megan amongst the dead. Had she been one of the few he had not recognised? Was she dead some where else? Or had she somehow managed to survive this onslaught, when all others hadn’t? Tristan couldn’t think straight, his grief overwhelming him to the point that he felt as if he was going to be physically sick.
Suddenly a flash of movement within the village caught his eye, instantly drawing his attention. “Megan?!” he bellowed out, somewhat involuntarily. However, the two figures that moved into his line of vision were not Megan, in fact Tristan instantly recognised them as two from within Captain Thane’s soldiers. They were quick to react to spotting Tristan, one seemed to mouth the word ‘deserter’ but all sound had vanished from Tristan’s world by this point.
As the two men began to charge at him, their swords drawn, Tristan slowly stood and pulled his longbow from over his shoulder, wasting no time in stringing up an arrow and aiming it towards the men ahead of him. Time seemed to slow as he let the arrow fly, it ripping through the air towards it target before forcing its way into the chest of the man to the right. The blow took the man off of his feet and landing on his back, though the other man continued to charge, closing the gap rapidly. Tristan dropped his bow to the ground and quickly unsheathed his longsword, taking several slow steps towards his rapidly approaching opponent. The soldier raised his sword and swung horizontally, attempting to slice off Tristan’s head in one attack, but Tristan ducked underneath the attack and completely cut through the shin on the soldiers left leg.
Blood sprayed through the air and the soldier let out a scream unlike any other, but Tristan didn’t hear it. Stabbing the blade into the ground, Tristan turned around to face the now crippled soldier, who was still screaming while holding his heavily bleeding stump of a leg. Unsheathing his dagger, Tristan got down on his knees in front of the soldier, grabbing the collar of his clothing and pulling him close. “The young girl,” Tristan began, his voice almost void of emotion but with an underlining rage, like thunder in a distant storm. “where is she.”
“Dead you deserter scum!” the man managed from groans of pain, spitting a mouthful of blood in Tristan’s face. He managed a gurgled laugh of sorts, grinning through the pain that he was no doubt feeling. The man knew that he would likely not survive; why should he care what he said to a deserter when he knew death was coming? What he did not realise was that there were some things that were worse than death, and after everything he had been forced to endure on this day, Tristan was currently one of those things.
“Wrong answer.” despite his voice remaining the same, the storm erupted within Tristan’s eyes; even the solder could see that he had made a terrible decision. Without hesitation or mercy, Tristan grabbed the soldiers face and forced open his mouth before grabbing hold of his tongue. With one swift slice of the dagger, he cut the mans tongue off and dropped it to the floor beside him, and then stabbed him in the stomach, twisting the blade. “This wound will kill you slowly…the pain will be agonising…and without your tongue you will not be able to call for help…” Tristan stood, blood soaking his hair and covering his face. He looked down at his victim without a single drop of mercy or sorrow present in his face. “Hopefully you wont drown on your own blood before your wound kills you…Gods be good.” with that he turned on his heel, making his way into the depths of the burning the village and never looking back at the soon to be corpse of the soldier.
There was nothing left for him here now. His mother had been brutally murdered and her farm destroyed, along with the village of Lorian and it’s entire population…Megan included. As tears once again began to silently cascade down Tristan’s cheeks, the young deserter knew that he no longer had anything to live for in the North, and as long as he remained he would always be hunted. Knowing he had to leave, to head South, Tristan knew that meant he would have to travel to White Harbour, where he would be able to purchase entry onto a ship of some kind and find passage to anywhere South of the Neck. The further away from this place, the further South that he could get the better, as the memories were too painful and he doubted that he would ever be rid of the pain and the memories.
Total Finished Word Count: 4,031.
