4 - End the dream!
Face tightened with fear Niera watched as the first Greeks jumped onto the beaches of Troy. With shouts the Trojan defenders loosedtheir first volley of arrows, the shafts arcng up into the air and plunging down again with swift certainty. Cries of agony from the party advancing showed that at least a few of the bolts ahad struck their targets. It was over quickly, forming a joint shield the Greeks worked their way up until they reached the Trojans. With swift efficiency the defenders were dispatched. Niera found herself still standing there upon the steps of the temple, her eyes wide with an expression of shocked disbelief, the images of torn flesh and spurting arteries still clouding her mind. One can never be prepared for this. Was the thought that remained prominent in her mind. With a sudden shuddering breath Niera's vision cleared, the Greeks were headed for the temple, towards her. ONce again flashes of men falling, limp and petrified rose before her and with that Niera lost any scrap of courage that was lingering. An unknown "NO!" tore out of her, with sobbing breaths she rushed back, back into the temple to where the priests now knelt before the prone figure of Apollo's statue still muttering and chanting.
Scanning the interior wildly Niera came up with nothing, no place to hide properly, no way to escape. Despair and hopelessness washed over her in an irresistible wave. Turning, breath pumping hard and stomach wrenching from within Niera realised in a detached sort of daze that she was going to die. And what a way to die, centuries from hr own time, separated from anyone and everything familiar. Throwing back her head suddenly Niera let out a resounding laugh, even drawing a look from one of the priests. Well, if she was going to die she just might end up where she belonged, in her bed, waking from a dream that would fade from her memory. With a fierce grin Niera decided she might as well make the dream worthwhile. Unfortunately there were no weapons available in the temple but that aside she would do what she could.
Niera was still grinning when the first flood of soldiers swarmed into the temple, with furious abandon the priests, still kneeling before Apollo's image, were stabbed through and through, their blood wetting the sun god's alter. Watching coldly with a nearly maniacal smile Niera realised the Greeks had stopped their bloody work. There was short pause while Niera wondered why they did not immediately attack. Still caught up in the reckless mood that surged through her, Niera, smirking, assumed a power position that would have made her sensei proud. "What? After all I've read, mighty Greeks afraid?" The words rose without thought from her mouth as the soldiers slowly moved to circle the small figure poised defensively in the corner of the gilded temple, her dark hair a mass of tangled waves from her desperate run, her steel coloured eyes now assuming a icy narrowness that had always frightened her cousins. With harsh abruptness on of the men rasped out, "Bind her!" How can they bind me if they mean to kill me, thinking briefly and almost absently through a flurried haze of of action.
Her pivoting sidekick took the first soldier in the ribs sending him off-balance and Niera crashing backwards into the grasp of yet another soldier. Swinging her elbow to free herself Niera instead met, with jarring pain, the metal breastplate which protected the Grecian's chest. Arm numb with the impact Niera launched her good fist in a front punch that was blocked by impending hands. Arms caught and body still thrashing with enraged energy, Niera waited, waited for the sharp pain of metal piercing her flesh and driving through to her innards there ending the dream.
::: We're no getting worried now are we? laughs No, not ending the story just yet. dissapointed looks from readers Still have abit to go, haven't even begun explaining Niera's life, or her past. No, we're just getting into it. I did sort of hate to use the well-known temple we see in the movie but... It did seem a reasonable place to get captured.. Eeks! I've let to much out already, I'll stop before I spill everything. Thanks to my reviewers and suggestions will be followed, don't worry, I'm just taking my time about it all. ::::