It all began when...
One Summer night in Vale, the kind of warm and haunting night that deal dark dreams to children and stirs a chill in the hearts of grown men, the wolves howled in the woodland at a crescent moon and a void full of shooting stars. The peace and solar of the night was shattered and all the villagers of Vale awakened by a heralding of doom as thunder called out from the void of a stormless sky.
James Savoor rose from his bed in hot chills. He had known this day was coming for months, and now it was here. Looking out his window, the fog yielded only shadows and haunting figures of vapor in the dark. But thunder called from the void. They were coming.
Hercule sat up on his floor cot in the small thatch hut and rubbed his eyes. His brothers and sisters were all up and sitting at the kitchen table quietly as James paced the hut nervously. Why was everyone awake? Hercule peeled the blanket off himself slowly, aching a little and not ready to get up, but to awake to go back to sleep. He crawled off the mat and onto the creaky oak floor. Rising quietly he went into the kitchen with strange thoughts swirling in his mind.
Drums from the hill country and shouts from the neighbors houses replaced the chirping of birds and crowing of fowl as morning noise. Hercule climbed his small self into a chairs and folded his hands staring at the other four children with questions in his eyes. The others, all older than Hercule, held blank expressions of terror or confusion. He felt helpless to help them. Drums pounded from the hill country.
James tried to compose himself, talking through something that seemed very important. He gathered a number of things from the house and set them on the table. Hercule picked up a few of the items to inspect them as the other children, with folded hands, wore worried frowns. James paused at the curiousness of the youngest of the children. He was too young now to understand, too innocent. He didn’t deserve this, any of it.
Thunder echoed over the hills Arava and a warm eastern wind blew the stars from their perches above the sleepy city of Vale. Men set in battle lines stretched far on both sides of Regal, Imperial Commander. 9 cannons pulled by 400 footmen approached the village of Vale on their purge of the hill country. Trails of smoke wound their ways to the light of the glimmering moon behind the army. It had been a frustrating night for the Imperials, their terrible rampage had only been successful in discovering where James Savoor was not. But they would find him. If they had to raise every village in the Arava valley, they would find him.
Every villager stood rigid at the sound of the thunder on the hills, headed their way. It could only mean one thing: the Imperials were on their way. The thunder grew louder and closer with each passing minute. Thy were coming, and everyone knew why. The day they took in James Savoor and gave him shelter, they knew it would come to this.
The cannons on the hillside spat metal shards what seemed like miles to shred the small thatch buildings of the village. Red and purple uniforms of the Imperial army littered the hillside like tiny army men in game of Hackets. To the innocent eyes of young children, peering through windows or cracks in the wall it looked like a beautiful parade of colors and lights. But to those who knew the Imperials and their brutality toward the common folk of Kodaia, it was an array of smoke and death.
James Savoor gathered his five little children together as the sound of cannons grew closer. James grew frantic, breathing curses against the Imperials and the terrible fate he’d brought upon the people of Vale. He paced the house intentionally, searching for something in their meager possessions. The children, unaware of what was happening, sat in silence at their supper table, wondering why James had woken them so early today.
There came a knock at the door, and James raked his hand through charcoal locks of messy hair as he walked to the answer the door. When he opened the small entry way, ten strong frames filtered into the small house, several of the large men hunched half to keep their heads from breaking through the thatch roof. James called several of them by name and thanked them for what they were about to do. It was only then Hercule noticed their weapons and armor. Who were these men? Voices sounded like men were speaking through water or cloth and everything came muddled into Hercule’s hearing. He only heard the constant drum of cannon fire in his head.
“Hercule. Son. Do you hear me?” James knelt by the young boy and placed a hand on the child’s knee. “Hercule?” The young lad turned to look into the eyes of the man and then let his eyes drift up to see the two warriors behind James. “Hercule, I need you to be brave for me. Can you do that?” James tone was soft and calming, but Hercule sensed the fear in it.
Not knowing what to say Hercule just shook his head yes slowly, not taking his eyes off of the two men behind James. James nodded to the men, stood slowly to his feet and helped Hercule stand up out of the chair. The young boy clung to James’ hand as they stood there amid the sound of cannon thunder and shouting that grew closer by the second. Hercule looked around to realize the other four children were each standing with two of the other warrior looking men.
“What is going to happen to us?” The youngest, Hercule’s eyes filled with an uncertainty, but behind it lived a courage that had always baffled James. He smiled in spite of the hardness of what he had to say next. With emotion in his voice, James looked first at Hercule, then the rest of his children.
“You’re going to be alright. All of you.” He shook his head as if to convince himself and looked up at the two men standing before himself and Hercule. “Now Hercule, I need you to go with these men. They are friends and will take you somewhere safe. You can trust them. Do you understand?” He spoke slow as Hercule eyed the men suspiciously. James was going to miss this little one; he would miss them all.
“I trust you.” Hercule’s little voice said in whisper that could’ve been heard above the noise of thousand cannons.
“Then go with them now.” James said, growing more pressingly aware of the oncoming danger. Every second they tarried lessened their chance of escaping and surviving this. James nodded to the man who was the leader of the ten. “You should go.”
The big man nodded in return. “Ay, we should.” Placing a large hand on Hercule’s shoulder, the man ushered him away from James and toward himself. “Let’s be off lads,” he spoke to the other nine and they filtered back through the door with the children close beside.
James watched as the last one of them left through the doorway of the small home, remembering the first day they’d each walked through it. The months had been a treasure and one he didn’t feel he deserved, but his work was more important. These kids needed to survive this; they were the future of the nation and they didn’t even know it yet. Hercule, Kareve, Felix, Khali, and Chora, these five little ones were bound to the fate of Kodaia. As they left Vale, hope left with them on the backs of black horses heading west, across the plains of Dunar. James rushed outside and caught the last glance of the company as they faded over the hills surrounding Vale and were lost to sight.
Now it was up to him. Now it was up to them. The Imperials came pouring over the hills of the East, cannon shot splintered the huts of the village. All of the villagers ran frantic and screaming. The injured and shell shocked had death in their eyes already: they knew what came next. James Savoor just stood in the midst of it all. As the sun began to rise over the eastern horizon, Regal marched his troops into Vale and slaughtered anything that breathed. Burning whatever remained. He locked eyes with a man on the street who simply stood in the midst of the killing and carnage.
“Smart Savoor, allowing yourself to be hedged in this way. And here I was hoping for a more grand finale to this chase you’ve led me on these past five months.” Regal yelled above the noise of his triumph over Vale.
“This isn’t over, Regal.” There was a fire in James’ voice as he stood in the smoke. Regal smirked, swinging a cutlass absently as he approached his long hunted quarry. “It doesn’t end here.”
“Of course is does,” Regal chuckled, “You were the last of your kind, Savoor: a dying breed. How poetically ironic. Or have you forgotten Kaylix already.”
At the mention of Kaylix, James choked and fell to his knees. A silent tear fell from his parched eye.
“So you do remember… good. Then this will hurt that much more.” With a swift step and stroke, the cutlass sang through the sky and fell hard on the neck of James Savoor. At last, he was dead. A grimace grew on Regal’s face as he took a cloth from his uniform pocket and wiped the blood from his sword, looking woefully at the corpse at his feet. Turning, he dropped the cloth on the ground as if to emphasize the utter finish to his grizzly purge of the Uprising.
As Regal left the village, he gave the final order and the cannon fired flaming brands upon the village. Nothing would remain. James Savoor and the village of Vale would be lost to history and with them, the last hope of freedom from the Imperial reign.
Thanks for reading
This was just Episode 1 of the first chapter of my NaNoWriMo novel:) Stay tuned for more, following me is the best way to keep up with all that. Upvote, share, comment, all that jazz!