The rain clattered against Kathryn's window as it fell on the empty streets of Volafar. Just a week ago the town had been filled with shouts of children playing, the clangs from the blacksmith shop, the sound of haggling customers in the marketplace, and the singing of happy villagers. Now it was as quite as a tomb. The news had come in the form of a bleeding, half dead solider.
"They are coming!" he had shouted, as he breathed his last. By they he had meant the army from the Island Kingdom of Yorde. They had come without warning, destroying and pillaging many villages in northern Lybrintha. Treat town was so small that Princess Kathryn had thought it would be overlooked. She had been wrong. Now the army was a day's journey from the town, and the villagers had all fled for their lives into the mountains to the east. Yet Kathryn remained much against Captain Weaver's wishes. Captain Joseph Weaver was the captain of the guard of her castle. She trusted him with her life but she could not, would not leave her town to these villains.
" At one time, Lybrintha was the most powerful nation in all the world." Kathryn thought as she paced across her chamber " What has happened to Waria's army? Where are the Aero dragons from Legend?" She ceased pacing and sat down on her bed, her head sank to her hands "Our world is dying." She sobbed.
A loud knock sounded on her door. "Come in." She said as she tried to regain her composer. The door opened, in stepped Captain Weaver. He was a tall man with short red hair, which was covered by an elegant steel helm. He wore chain mail underneath a full set of armor. His breastplate was emblazoned with the Treat family royal crest, a tall sunflower wound around an oak tree. Strapped across his back was a large battle-ax and in his hand he held a strung longbow. He bowed to Kathryn and addressed her in a very serious tone.
"Princess, My scouts have just returned."
"And?" Kathryn held her breath.
"The army is being led by General Travis himself. He has with him about ten thousand. They are on the move, headed strait for Volafar."
The Princess was not the only one held in the icy grip of despair. Down in the village Sixteen-year-old Cedric tried to sleep. But when your mind is full and your stomach is empty, sleep does not come easily.
"I'm wet, I'm cold, dirty and hungry. Come to think of it I don't think I've had a proper meal since…since…" He was reluctant to even think about it. "Since my Aunt and Uncle died of the plague." He had no family, he had no friends, and he had no future. "I should run." He thought, "Yet for some reason I stay." Thoughts like this filled his fatigued brain as the lightning flashed through the dark and foreboding sky.
Three years ago a deadly disease had swept through the town taking many lives, including those of Cedric's Uncle Thomas and his Aunt Angela. Cedric had never met his parents he didn't even know their names, he had lived with his Aunt an Uncle his entire life until they died. Since then he had learned to hunt with bow and sling. He had learned to fight with his fists to protect what little was his, but now even that was gone, game was scarce, and his home was about to be destroyed by an unstoppable army. "Hope has fled with the rest of the village" He thought, " No," He corrected himself "Hope has died."