A/N: Woo! Reviews! I feel loved :D
Chapter 2 – Martin and Joshua
"There!"
Joshua's father suddenly flung out an arm to prevent him from taking another step through the woodland, which Joshua unquestioningly obeyed. His deep brown eyes flickered crazily around the horizon for any signs of what his father was looking at until they finally fixed on the deer stood in the clearing having a meal.
"There's dinner," his father was saying, reaching up to draw an iron arrow out of the quiver on his back and handing it to the five-year-old child. "Can you do it?"
Joshua looked up at the older man, a certain amount of fear in his eyes.
"Y-yes," he stuttered, taking off his bow and lifting it up towards the deer, the arrow braced against the bowstring.
"Steady your aim, Joshua."
Joshua pulled back on the bowstring, aiming towards the deer. He was nervous, yes. It was his first kill. At the age of five all of the boys in the village were taken for their 'initiation' where they where meant to kill a deer to be accepted – his father had been talking about it non-stop ever since Joshua could remember, and Joshua had been understandably excited. But now it had finally reached the point in time, the point where he had to fire this deadly arrow into the poor, defenceless animal…
Slowly, he lowered the bow. He could feel his father's eyes on him, confused.
"What's the problem?"
"I don't wanna do it," the boy said in a small voice, ashamed. Martin dropped to his haunches beside his child, lifting the boy's head to face him.
"Why not?"
Tears were in Joshua's eyes. "What if he gots a family? What if he gots a wife and little babies? What they gonna do without a daddy?"
His hand dropped from the boy's chin. "Joshua, it's just the circle of life. We kill them to eat them, we've got to have a way to survive."
"But daddy!" Joshua carried on, getting confident now. "What if you were him? What if someone came to kill and eat you and you lefted me and mummy all alone?"
His father didn't have an answer to that one.
"What we gonna do if you die?" Joshua was yelling now, determined for his father to listen. "Why have I gots to kill him when he's just like us?!"
"Joshua!" his father rested both hands on the boy's shoulder and he finally fell silent. "You're just too clever for your own good; asking unanswerable questions. It's not our choice to kill these animals, it's just how Mondrith intended it to be."
After a moment Joshua nodded, looking back over to the clearing where the deer once stood – but it was gone. His father smiled gently at the boy's deflated expression.
"You scared him off," he remarked. "Oh well, let's try again tomorrow, right?"
"Right," Joshua nodded, determined. His father slipped his hand into his and led him back across the woodland. It was still early in the morning so plenty of light was to be had, shining through the gaps into the trees and illuminating their path back to the village. Joshua looked up at his father striding calmly beside him – he wasn't angry that Joshua hadn't been able to kill the deer.
Suddenly there was rustling from the right of the pathway – a person was coming towards them, moving through the forest. Joshua instantly reached out to his father, scared. There were bandits dwelling in this part of the woods.
He felt his father tense, putting a protective arm around him and pulling him close as they walked on, pretending to be oblivious.
"Hey! Hey, you!" came a muffled voice from behind.
Joshua followed his father's lead as they walked on, ignoring the voice.
"Please!" it was a woman with an accent that wasn't local, and Martin registered this immediately. A traveller?
He turned to look at her. She was a pretty red-haired woman perhaps in her forties, but her hands were covered with blood.
"Are you injured?" Martin asked as he moved towards her. Joshua hid behind his leg, scared.
"No, but my friend is!" she said, breathless, "he's been shot with an arrow, these men attacked us…"
Martin nodded as he took her arm gently and pulled her back the way she'd come. "This way?" he asked.
"Yeah!"
She led Martin back through the forest, for a moment wondering if she'd just got lost again but breathed a sigh of relief when she came upon the familiar cliff and the door of ivy.
"He's in 'ere," she said, pulling back the ivy curtain to reveal the small hole in which a pair of feet were currently sticking out of. Martin purposely pushed Joshua away.
"Joshua, I want you to stand there and look the other way, okay?"
Joshua nodded quickly, biting his lip. He heard his father shuffle around behind him and he couldn't help but risk a glance over his shoulder to see what he was doing. The person was now out of the cave, his face and shoulder caked in blood to such a degree Joshua couldn't actually distinguish recognisable facial features. He had a deep, long gash across his forehead with an arrow stuck into his left shoulder. Martin studied the arrow carefully from where it was embedded.
"This is an arrow of the Malum," Martin muttered under his breath, but Joshua's keen hearing picked it up.
"The who?" the red-haired woman wondered.
"We need to take him to Larec, our village Healer," Martin carried on, ignoring her question. He slipped his arms underneath the blood-drenched body and Joshua quickly spun around to look forward as his father turned back to him again.
"Back to the village," he said.
"Was it bandits, Martin?" Father Jace was asking as Martin carried the blooded and unconscious body through the church in his arms. Father Jace's silvery, brittle hair that easily reflected his age caught the light in a ghostly way. "The forest can bristle with them at this time of the year." There was a hint of sadness in his tone. "Much like the raids five years ago."
Joshua's father seemed to shudder at the latter part of the sentence, and old memory creeping up on him. "I sincerely hope not," he answered as the Joshua tagged along beside him, the woman whose name was Donna keeping close to the man in Martin's arms. Martin had tried to get him to stay behind with his mother but not matter what, the boy had refused.
"Is he gonna be okay, daddy?" Joshua asked and Martin glanced at Donna before he looked down at Joshua, smiling reassuringly.
"He'll be fine, Joshua, Larec will see to that. He's the best healer in the whole of Olbian."
"That's me!" a voice suddenly said from the doorway up ahead and Joshua grinned, running up to the man and hugging him tightly. "Hello Joshua, did this have something to do with you?"
Joshua's eyes widened. "What? No! I didn't!"
Larec laughed out loud. "I was joking! Have you got a guilty conscience?"
"No! I swears I didn't do anything, daddy, I swears…"
Martin rolled his eyes at the boy, giving Larec the injured man carefully. "I know, Joshua. Let's wait here whilst Larec tends to his wounds."
A/N: Olbian... Albion... Yes, I love Fable...
