Deyna
Deyna had watched the stag eating for over an hour.
"Would you shoot it already?" hissed his hunting partner. Deyna smirked and looked over at his friend. Deyna lifted his bow and pointed it at the brilliant animal.
The seconds flew by as he shot the arrow. The arrow seemed to fly slowly, as if it was pulling something behind it. The arrow hit the stag's neck, squirting blood onto the surrounding plants. It fell heavily to the ground.
Guy jumped to his feet and ran to achieve his friend's prize. Deyna closed the frightened eyelids. The pupils had shrunk in surprise, and now the eyes were slowly losing their color. Making them dull.
"Come on, lets go. We've got to get back before night fall."
Deyna and Guy trudged up the hill that led to their house. They had lived together for over three years since their families couldn't afford to have separate homes. Guy was Deyna's cousin, but he wasn't much older than Deyna, only by one year.
Deyna dropped the sagging dead stag onto the icy ground outside of their kitchen. He opened the door a smidge and popped his head in.
"Our dinner's outside." His Grandfather smiled at Deyna and got up. For a man of sixty-seven, he wasn't slowing down any time soon.
"I'll help you with that, boy." Deyna drew his eating dagger and started to skin the animal.
"You know Deyna, the town has been talking." Deyna paused for a moment and then went back to his work.
"Grandfather, the town is always talking. How do you think the old women would survive if they didn't talk?" His grandfather chuckled.
"No, Deyna, it's about what's happening outside our borders." This time, Deyna abandoned the task completely.
"Are they here Grandfather? Are they here yet?" The old man shook his head.
"No, not yet. It's what is coming with the cloud of war. It is a warrior they speak of." Deyna's ears perked up as he listened to his grandfather's old raspy voice. Anyone who is everyone knows that when Grandpa Thorn starts talking with that mysterious voice, it's bound to be worth your while.
"Do you remember the stories your father used to tell you about his fighting?" Deyna nodded. His father was out fighting right now. He hadn't seen him since last winter.
"Do you remember the prophecy of a warrior who could not be killed coming to join the battle?"
"Yes I remember. I had nightmares at night and I saw a cloaked figure."
"Yes, that… I don't think you could call it a man, but that man, boy, has come to serve the king."
"How do you know?" Deyna's eyes were frantic with excitement.
"I was down at the town hall today, talking with my fellow friends, when I heard about him. Some merchants came in from the shipping lands to the Far East. They were looking for medal and- anyways, I overheard one of them say something about the Leviathan." That was what they called him.
In the books that his father read to him, the Leviathan had taken that name so that it would be feared and always remembered. He took it so that people would soon come to fear that name, and fear to speak it.
"They said they saw the ships manifest. It wasn't a pretty sight. They saw all manner of men walking on deck, but one thing the merchant was sure about. They all looked like they were hiding something." Deyna had been whittling a stick as in habit when he heard grandfather's stories.
"What do you mean?" Deyna was leaning forward with every word.
"I mean, you couldn't see it in his face, but you could see it in their stride in the air about them. They had something of great value on that ship, and the merchants think it's something to do with the last of the Remballi eggs." Remballies were a sort of dragon. They could fly, but they looked completely different from the pictures in books Deyna had read. They had long necks with small spikes the size of eating daggers lining the outside of the neck. Their bodies were large with a pattern of stripes going down their backs. There were three colors of Remballies. There was red, gold, and black. Only a few chosen warriors had Remballies. Commoners didn't use Remballies for fear that they might devour them.
Each color of dragon symbolized something. Gold was for the gleaming bronze sun that rose every morning and set every night. Red symbolized the red-hot embers of a smithies shop. And the black symbolized all evil. It was the blanket of darkness that had sat over their borders and lands for over seventeen years.
Deyna sat still and pondered what his grandfather was telling him.
"But, Grandfather," Deyna still didn't understand, "how could these men have Remballi eggs? No one has found a Remballi egg for thousands of years!"
"Yes boy, I know." His grandfather grinned. "That's what makes it so interesting!" Thomas Thorn still held his adventurous side. He had fought in many wars before Deyna's time. He was always the first one to enlist for the next life changing fight. Except this time he hadn't volunteered.
Grandpa Thorn smiled warmly at his grandson.
"Ah, well that's enough from me. Our dinner is freezing." Deyna looked down at the dead animal. He frowned and shivered. Wonderful… frozen stag. That encourages my appetite.
Not only did Deyna love to listen to heroic stories about men in battle, he loved to hear stories of his father's heroic stories. Little did he know that he would soon be in that same battle fighting… fighting for the one person he loved.