Note: I've been out of the fanfiction scene for about four years now, but this story came to me so vividly and I'm really excited about it. I would just like to say that it is not connected to any previous fanfiction of mine, and that the following chapters will be longer than this one. Your comments and criticism are appreciated, as always. Additionally, I'm in the market for a Beta, especially if you like to talk characterization or have any knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England... :)

Thank you.

Prologue – Heresy

The fields of the small farming village of Turnton ought to be filled with villagers this time of day. Their backs were meant to be browning in the midsummer sun, nourishing their crop. There ought to have been singing in the fields, or at the very least the sounds of groans or complaints as beads of sweat fell upon the earth below them, a product of the hot sun.

The sun still shined, the crops remained in the fields waiting idly for the people that would not come. Not today.

Barefoot children that ought to be roaming the streets remained indoors. Their mothers remained with them there, demanding silence and bravery that they could barely wield themselves.

But the men of the town stood together. They wore neither hood nor mask, for those were the costumes of men with fear in their hearts. They had Rightness on their side, they had Justice. They now had power.

For a twelvemonth the Heretic had been preaching her craft to anyone who would listen. She arrived in the town alone with no one to recommend her, she lived alone, and her thatched roof never needed any repairs. They said objects seemed to move of their own accord in her house, that she kept creatures as familiars. She had been asked to leave before, but had never heeded the calls of the town elders. It had been one thing when she kept to herself, when she kept the small village of Turnton good and well alone. But there had been talk that she had been with more than one of the husbands of the village.

And now she was teaching her ways to the children.

It could not be tolerated, not any longer. If the disease could not be contained, it would certainly not be allowed to spread. And as the Heretic would not take the cure, there existed only one solution: amputation. The infection would be removed from the body entirely, left to rot and die.

And so the fields of Turnton were silent. The streets were silent. The dozens of torches – each lit from the same flame - held by the men of the town burned as brightly as the summer sun.

Wordlessly they gathered around the small hut at the very edge of their small village. The sounds of cooking and of children came from within. Glances were exchanged amongst the men; there was a moment of hesitation. These children were not the cause, but if their mothers had not been able to keep them home this morning, then they could not be helped. Better to end it now than to let them spread their ways to anyone else. Their village was strong, they would survive.

The signal was given. Seemingly as one, the men lowered their torches. The thatched-roof home, once known to be so much stronger than any in the village, began to dance with flame. It caught quickly, burning far brighter than any fire the men had ever seen, surely a product of its mixing with the Heretic within. Some even thought they saw the flames form, or maybe that was only the beer.

They backed away from the flames to the sounds of screams within, not knowing the chaos they had released, ignorant of just how much of Turnton they had condemned to the flames.

Elsewhere on this island, a small girl was lifted into a carriage pulled by a pair of winged horses, never to return home.

A boy tussled with his brothers; all blissfully unaware of the true clashes occurring outside their home.

Another girl sharpened quills for her father as she looked on at his apprentices with pure envy.

And a boy screamed.