PART III
THE PAST
14 Years before.
The village of Holloway was a relatively peaceful and relatively untroubled settlement located just off the coast of Tulthania, the country it resided in. It was also a place that found visitors coming in on a fairly average basis. This being due greatly to it's location next to the sea and it's harbors. Many traders and seaman would stop by the merchant shops and stock up on the provided supplies that they needed to help endure through their journeys through the waves. Business was blooming and profiting and had been for the many years since the town first stood tall. Among many others, one family was lucky enough to be a part of this position of opportunity.
"Father? Wasn't your dad a sailor too?" a young, feminine voice asked from within the confines of a particular shop. An older gent gave out a hardy laugh and set down one of his newly crafted arrows, a big smile forming on the man's face.
"Yes! More than just a sailor laddie. He was a First Mate. I believe I've told you before when you were younger." Her father's face darkened just a bit. "However, he got lost at sea along with his fellow crew, trying to cross over to Mecchan...to try and join the forces there that needed help fighting a civil war that threatened the country's freedom."
The young, white furred cat's face darkened along with her father's. "Well...that got dark real fast."
The father's mood shifted back in a heartbeat. "Mecchan was my father's birth country. He joined the Calvary of Sunden Knights when he was younger and of age to fight in the name of his country there. I understood why he decided to go back...it just took me years to truly understand." A small pause ensued before he knelt down to his daughters height. "Listen Evelyn. My father told me something before he departed. He said to me, "If you ever get the chance to be a hero, be the hero. 'Cause someone might end up being that to you."
The young cat, Evelyn, pondered the words deeply, every letter already instilled inside of her bright little heart. Kinda.
"Woow. I'll remember that...or maybe I should just jot it down on some parchment."
Her father let out another hardy chuckle. "Yes, you are a forgetful laddie."
A sudden youthful voice shouted out in the near distance. "Hey! Hey, Evelyn!" Evelyn turned, looking out of the merchant shop and her eyes widened as she found her two friends running for her.
"Looks like you're needed elsewhere," Evelyn's father arose to his full height, opening the door for her. "Go ahead. We can resume arrow making lessons for later. Just watch yourselves and don't wander out beyond the forest." Evelyn gave her dad a nod and went out to greet them. Her father's smile failed to fade as he watched her join her companions and disappear behind another home. He turned and resumed his efforts on his arrow crafting.
The small thumps of footsteps against the fall laves were made as Evelyn was guided by her two friends to the edge of the town. Looking up, the sun's rays shined through the crevices and gaps of the leaves that had yet to fall, the tall trees of the forest that gave home to them bearing down on her like the skinny giants that they were. Little Evelyn had been to the edge of the forest many times before like she was now, but had never ventured more than a few feet into it. Her father had warned her sternly, out of care that she avoided any unwarranted trouble. Crime was far from rampant in her town, but the forest was a portal that led into another world on the other side. A world her father wanted to keep her away from until she was old enough.
"Hey, ever been past that cut down tree over there?"
But peer pressure got the best of her.
Evelyn eyed out the tree stump that her friend gestured a finger towards. She quickly deducted that it was sliced down by the force of a heavy, sharp object, likely an axe due to the way the remainder of the tree looked. It was cut through relatively cleanly. "Um, yeah, I see it." Evelyn replied. "Looks like someone chopped it down for some wood. Maybe to burn."
"Yeah," her other friend, Elijah, added in. "I did hear a loud thump at night. Probably someone in desperate need of some firewood?" But their friend smirked and narrowed her eyes at Evelyn and Elijah, letting out a gradually loudening laugh, mocking the crazed bellowing of a maddened tyrant.
"Ha,ha,ha! OR Maybe it was done through by a sword-wielding demon!"
On the inside Evelyn's heart jumped a little, but on the inside, she was unamused. "Come on, Martha. Let's be a wee bit more realistic here." But Martha didn't let her dramatic charade down. "How so?"
Evelyn pinched the bridge of her nose, briefly shutting her eyelids closed. "Don't ya think that whatever..."monster" that did this would want to do more? Like, maybe attack the village? But no, the ferocious demon wants to strike fear into the hearts of it's soon to be prey by chopping wood! FEAR ME MORTALS! Or I'll cut down and take your only supply of starting fires and building things!" Evelyn exaggerated back, sarcasm dripping from every word.
Martha's eyes narrowed as Elijah covered his beak with his hands, chuckling next to her. "Way to kill the mood, Evelyn." Martha muttered, turning back towards the stump. Evelyn followed Martha's gaze, asking the question she was too long awaiting the answer for. "So...what are we really doing up here? I mean, you didn't drag us up here just to tell us a raggedy story about a monster cutting down a tree, right?"
Martha spun around at Evelyn, eyeing her with a challenging look.
"No. We're going deeper into the forest."
Evelyn's father was hard at work, laboring extra hard to produce as thrice as many arrows he was accustomed to. It wasn't just the hunting season for wild turkeys and coyote that was on his mind, but the cautioning warnings he received from word of mouth. Reports of a grisly and unforgiving warmonger terrorizing the lands and countrysides. And he had no doubts that the rumors were true. 'A powerful necromancer with it's ranks accumulating immensely as the days ticked by,' he heard someone say. He and a few fellow colleagues even felled one on the way back into their home village a year prior after some out-of-town business had been handled.
They built a sturdier gate to help accommodate this potential issue, but one had never found it's way to their village, even after all of these years of a potential and dangerous possibility. They had all gotten off lucky. Up until now.
A loud banging was heard up against the wooden gate that separated the village from the outside world. An alert fellow village goer in his late thirties jogged past the shop that Evelyn's father stood in. "Don't worry Arundel, I got it." As this man went to check, another man followed suit; he was a little older, and perhaps more cautious and prepared, as his hand gripped the hilt of the dagger strapped to one of his thighs.
A few other locals wandered out of their homes, agog to who was to come through. Now in front of the gate, the man gripped the small gap in between the two big doors held together by a lock. Opening it slightly, the side the man pulled towards himself bolted in place, halted by the lock and the chain looped through it. It left a gap wide enough for him to gaze through. And so he did, poking his eye through for a clearer look. "Morning trave-"
What the man saw behind the gates would be forever lost in the moment to everyone else, as his head jerked back, a quickly snuffed out gasp escaping his lips as he slumped to the ground. The poor man had been stabbed right through one of his eyes.
"No..." Arundel whispered as a quiet shock rung out his heart. Images of his daughter Evelyn and his wife flashed rampantly through his heart and mind as he watched the knife-armed man stumble away from the entrance gates. The man didn't make it very far, however. An arrow had hissed right through the gap in the gate, striking the fleeing man straight in the back. A sharp sword reached through from the other side and began striking down against the chains that held foundation for keeping the gates securely together. To Arundel, that chain was the thread that kept the town together. And it wouldn't take many strikes for it to break apart.
"No, no, no, no, no!" Arundel began to shout over and over again, the dreaded fear of losing all he ever cared about flickering maddeningly within his terror-stricken mind. He made a mad dash inside, running up to the wall closest to him and grabbing a mounted sword off of it's wall support. His next action consisted of equipping himself of a bow and quiver of arrows, gathered together and strapped it around his shoulder. His legs wobbly with worry, he boldly stepped back outside. He had to look for his wife and kid. He had to look for his wife and little Evelyn.
The entrance gates were forced open just as he rounded behind his store. He had no time to knock on every door. He did here and there, but most of Arundel's warnings came from his shouts. "Everyone! We're under attack! We're being attacked!"
The assailants were finally revealed; over two dozen armor-donning undead skeletons armed with swords and bows marched through the gates, the large group led by who was presumably their leader. A dark-green, feathered bird with a pointed red hat in the shape of a cone rested on it's head. A green hooded robe that closely matched the color of it's feathers concealed the remainder of it's form. A ruby-encrusted cane was held in it's right hand. And out of it's beak were the words that were to ultimately seal the fate of their victims.
"Kill them all. And leave no survivors." the leader ordered in a hauntingly cool voice. The bird's eyes then darkened into pitch black voids of nothingness. And in place of them, flames brewed. It muttered words no one but itself would hear and with the raising of it's arms, it spawned three balls of fire the sizes of an average head and lobbed them at the closest structure in sight; some poor elder's dwelling. It caught ablaze rather quickly, with the speed only perceived in the effects of magic. Residents screamed as their scrambling and panicked footsteps became the perfect soundtrack to the invading menace's ears.
Arrows whizzed by, striking those unlucky enough to be in their path. The flames that caught the inflicted houses began to spread, adding to the list of the rising chaos. Despite all of which transpired around him, Arundel was focused entirely on one goal: getting his wife and daughter out of the village safely. He barged through the door to his home and shut it, locking it down just as his wife had come out of the kitchen. "You scared the holy hell outta me! Where's Evelyn!?" his wife asked hastily as an unseen force pushed and barged against the wooden door that held the last barrier of defense they had left.
"Honey...there isn't any time. I love you."
Brandishing his sword, he wielded it in the defensive position, awaiting whatever inevitable horrors that were to soon make themselves known. As the door's hinges buckled and the door swung open, Arundel charged forward. His sword built momentum, slashing from left to right. The affronted attack removed the skull of an unarmored and unsuspecting Skellie grunt. It fell to the ground in a heap of scattered bones. A second came through, this one armored. But it was felled all the same. Tragically, the third came in the form of a fireball, colliding with Arundel's chest and sending him backwards and on his back, unconscious right beside his wife. And she screamed at the top of her lungs, attempting to obtain the bronze-hilted blade as three more Skellie knights invaded their home. Another one, their leader the fire priest, walked in casually behind them.
A flame now exhausted from it's hand as it approached the defeated couple. The Skellie knights restrained her, wrenching the bronze blade from her hand.
"Now, now," the Fire priest cautioned, wagging a finger. "Let's not make this any harder than it ne-"
Arundel's wife lurched forward in the skeleton's grasps, letting lose a ball of spit that struck the fire-caster directly in the eye. It flinched as his face grew hot in with anger.
"HOW DARE YOU!" the fire priest roared as he brung back an arm and backhanded her. She laughed in a final act of defiance as she recovered from the brief stun.
"Bring them outside." the fire priest ordered, unsheathing a long, concealed blade out of it's cane. It was then he remembered the sword his men took away from the woman. He re-sheathed his cane and pointed towards it. "And bring me that blade also. I'll deal with these two personally." the dreadful fire-caster ordered with a beaming smirk.
"Maaarthaaa. Seriously, Martha, we shouldn't be out here. We need to go back." Evelyn advised, staying close behind her friend as she continued onward. "I already promised my parents I would never go out this far."
"She's right. This is kinda dangerous." Elijah agreed, trekking up to Martha's side to further emphasize. "I mean, what's the end goal here?"
Martha stopped in her tracks and stood silent.
"Martha?"
Martha turned around and store them both straight in the eyes. "Look, if you two want to head back, then head back. But I'm staying." She was clenching her hands into fists.
Elijah was the first to step forward. "Hey...what's the matter?" Look I know this is all about something else...so can you please tell us? We're your friends. We'd always have your back, remember?"
Martha's face softened after hearing the reassurance. She shut her eyes tightly for a short moment before opening them again. "I...got into a fight with my father last night. About swearing. It came out by accident. But he just kept exaggerating about how bad of a child I was and...he's been in a bad place since mum died and I think we just needed our space. This was the only way I know of giving him that."
Intimidate sympathy radiated off of her two friend's faces.
"Oh..." Evelyn simply replied. "Sorry Martha...I thought this was just another dare you were putting us on." She earned a smile from her, Martha kicking a nearby branch in front of her.
"'Tis alright. Really. Was just an argument. We'll both get over it soon."
"Yeah-"
Elijah's words were stopped in their tracks as he perked up his attention to a faint sound. "Hey, did you both just hear that?"
Martha stepped forward and nudged him with a balled-up fist. "Stop playin'. The jokes are over, remember?"
"No! I'm serious. Just stay still and listen..."
The three put focus on their hearing, a strange, eerily close chorus of sounds suspiciously emitting from the direction of their village. It only took a measly few seconds to register what it was.
They were screams.
"Oh my god," Martha uttered, frozen in place with her friends and shaking her head in denial. "That's from home! Those are screams! What the he-" Martha stopped speaking and along with her crew, catching the sound of large branches breaking and the crunching of leaves. Both coming from the direction of their village and getting louder.
"Hide. We need to hide now!" Evelyn hissed in a whisper, taking quick steps towards a line of fairly large bushes, Martha and Elijah not far behind. They practically dived for the cover nature had given them, straightening themselves and peering through the plants and leaves. Wasn't long before two figures became apparent, and their forms more clear.
All three of the terrified youngster's eyes widened as a live skeleton and a strange cloaked bird came into view.
"It came from here...somewhere around this way..." they heard the strange bird say as they eventually came closer. The cloaked bird pulled out a red book, opening it's pages and closing it's eyes...before shooting his blank, pitch-black eyes in their direction.
"I know you're there. I can sense your life-force..."
No reply, and no movement.
The bird sighed, muttering something under it's breath and shooting one arm into the air. A fireball manifested not far above it. "Come out! Right now, or the whole forest goes up in flames! You know what option I'd prefer more!"
The fireball it conjured grew two times it's original size, but even to this, it still lacked an answer back. Fed up with, the fire-caster was just about to fulfill it's threatening promise before a singular voice called out.
"Don't! Okay? We're-we're coming out!"
Smirking, the fire bird lowered it's arm and the ball of flame dissipated. It witnessed three children emerge from a line of bushes from it's right.
"What did you do?" Martha questioned right off the second. Tears were still present in her eyes. But to this, the fire bird mockingly gawked.
"What do you mean?"
"WHAT DID YOU DO!?" Martha said louder, launching herself at the fire bird. Luckily, her two friends stepped in, stopping her.
Coldly, the fire-caster bird replied with words that didn't coincide with what she wanted to hear. "Come over here. Now. Or I'll kill you all on the spot."
The frightened kids were all rattling like a rattlesnake's tail.
"W-we have n-no choice, Martha..." Evelyn made sure to clarify with her friend's conscious. And she was the first to step forward before her friends quickly followed suit. Every step seemed heavier and more labored as they got within grabbing distance to their oppressors.
"Men, secure them." the fire bird commanded, and the three Skellie knights that accompanied it sprung forward and roughly subdued the three with their arms behind their backs. They were forced in front of the bird, whose smile was uncomfortably wide. "We killed them all. Every. Single. One. And you're next."
What happened next was all a blur in Evelyn's mind. The first thing: there was a rage that her youthful, premature mind had never felt before. And it drove her to thrust her head back, up into the chin of the undead skellie soldier that had restrained her. The second thing was Evelyn managing to bone-rush straight into the surprised fire bird, knocking the fire caster off it's feet. She ended up on it's chest and immediately landed a solid scratch against it's face before it caught her throat in it's hands.
The fire bird had gave out a yelp as it's right eye closed shut. Regaining control of the situation, the fire bird reversed their positions and slammed Evelyn against the cold, leafy ground, tightening it's choking grip.
"Evelyn!" both Elijah and Martha screamed in unison as they struggled madly trying to aid their friend.
"You're going to pay dearly for that you little BRAT!" it shrieked as it quickly waved for his third skeletal soldier. "Give me your sword." The soldier complied, rushing up and handing it over. It wasn't until the adrenaline rush that surged through Evelyn's body subsided that she realized the damage she had done to the evil bird. It's right eye had been caught in the path of her scratching of him, leaving it blind and useless. Pure rage was clearly present in it's one good eye as it leveled the sword in front of Evelyn's face.
And she coward as her friend's cries for mercy filled in the background.
"Please, let us go! Don't do this!"
"Stop it! Leave her alone! Leave her alone!"
The fire bird brought the edge of the sword up to it's beak, ignoring it's victim's cries for help as he uttered a mystical phrase under it's breath. Suddenly, a flame ignited from it's mouth in a small stream of fire that washed against the top of the sword's blade. The heat that radiated made Evelyn flinch, but was ultimately unharmed. Stopping the fire spell and cutting off the streaming flame, what was left was the scolding hot edge of the sword, which now gave out a bright orange hue. It was then that Evelyn knew exactly what this cruel spell caster was planning to do. And this realization only made her friend's more frantic.
The fire bird waved the burning edge dangerously close to Evelyn's terrified face. "I'll brand you as the poor child of a once prosperous, now pillaged and pathetic village. Then you'll die just like it did." the bird had snapped at some point after the assault on him and showed no signs of calming down.
As Evelyn struggled, the spell caster's grip on her neck tightened even more, her screams reduced to hectic gasps for oxygen. Then it lowered the top of the sword's sharp edge to her forehead and it finally made contact. Even past the restriction of her throat, Evelyn's screams of pain and anguish managed to seep through. As the cruel fire-caster withdrew the sword, a fresh burn mark going down vertically was left behind. And the assaulter wasted no time finishing the job. The fire-caster grinned wider than ever as it set the sword's edge down a second time, this time horizontally, leaving behind his finishing piece.
The mark of a cross.
Evelyn saw nothing, heard nothing, and felt nothing but pain in the moment. Her friends were now hysteric, vainly attempting to break free of their captors to do something. Anything, This was seemingly it.
'This is it, right?' Evelyn thought to herself in the blankness of her mind.
But the blankness grew a little clearer. Even through the growing unconsciousness of her mind, she still managed to register the moment her friend got loose. Martha, filled to the brim with sobs and streaming tears, stomped hard on one of her captor's bony feet and dashed forward with a maddened scream, grabbing under her shirt for something. She whipped out a sharp object, revealing it to be a small dagger she had concealed, strapped to her leather belt.
By the time the fire bird let Evelyn go, the first knife strike had already connected, plunging into the malicious bird's chest. Then a second. Then a third time. Then a fourth. The skellie soldier that Martha escaped from set after her, only to have an arrow greet it, straight into it's skull.
The skellie that held Elijah had little time to react as it fell all the same, an arrow through the back of it's skull sending it lifelessly to the ground, Freeing Elijah in the progress. It's bones disconnected and was no longer held by whatever dark magic kept them joined.
Without hesitation, Martha and Elijah joined Evelyn's side and lifted her head, supporting her in a sitting position. Their friend was in a state of shock and the tears drawn from the recent searing of the mark now branded upon her forehead continued to flow in the mixes of heaves she was uncontrollably letting out.
"Is she okay?" an unknown person's voice called out not far from where they were. As the figure came out from hiding, Martha swiftly shifted and still clenching the dagger, pointed the sharp edge in the now-present form that exposed itself. It was a much older male, gray-furred cat, safely over thirty years of age, and with an eye-patch obscuring his left eye. "Are you lads al-?"
"Don't come any closer!" Martha interrupted in a shout, jabbing the dagger in his direction. Elijah took her wrist in response, gently lowering her dagger-equipped arm.
"Martha, that's the man who saved us!" Elijah looked up at the gray cat as he re-strapped the bow around his shoulder. "Thank you. We almost-!"
Elijah's words of gratitude were halted immediately from the call that came from their rescuer's mouth.
"Missy!" the eye-patched cat called out. At this exact same time, a weight pushed against Elijah and Martha's sides as footsteps began away from them. It was Evelyn and she was running back towards the town.
"Evelyn, no!"
Their friend had clearly heard their calls, but made no attempts at stopping. And so they were after her...
The smell of burning wood and blood was present in the air. But it failed to halt Evelyn's panicked run towards her home. As she exited the forest, she found a grizzly sight. Just at the back of the village where she now stood, were bodies. Villagers who were seeking to flee into the forest, but were unable to make it in time. Some were face down, but the others...their faces were filled with many things: grief, confusion, anguish, and even abandonment.
Evelyn had never seen a lifeless body before. No longer shackled by the chilling sight, she broke free of the terror her eyes laid upon and knew there was much more to come. But wordlessly, she stepped by. The wooden structures that were once homes were still burning. But Evelyn was seeking out only one and that was of her own. Located in the middle of their fairly small community, it didn't take long to reach it. It as aflame like the rest, making it a serious hassle just to approach. But approach she did regardless. Evelyn gripped the door handle and swung it open. She could hear her friends in the distance calling out to her, but Evelyn's mind was in too much of a spiral to care.
"Father! Mother! Please, where are you! Where are you!" she screamed out in a heartbreaking wail. There were no replies within the growing inferno. The heat was growing, washing against her fur like an overheating sun. In the desperation for an answer, she even pondered going inside. But a pair of arms shot around her frame, pulling her away from the overwhelming fire that now fully engulfed her home.
Only seconds after pulling the flailing Evelyn away did her house collapse, leaving behind nothing but burnt wood and fire. She shook out of the grasp of who was revealed to be the eye patch cat and began running to the village front. Elijah and Martha jogged past the older cat, trying to catch up to their distraught friend.
"Dad...your mum...their gone, aren't they?" Marsha asked Elijah. She was already sure that there was no hope.
"We don't know that yet...not until we find them." Elijah answered. He was just as doubtful as Martha. He was just a kid, but he was far from naive. Every single villager outside from themselves were more than likely dead.
Evelyn now stood weakly at the front of the village, where' it's entrance gates resided, chain broken and left to hang uselessly as the gate doors creaked in response to the wind. There were the deceased scattered here and there, but not as numerously as it had been further in where they had came back from. She recognized most as friend's of her parents, relatives that visited from time to time, and of simply those whose kind hearts greeted her every day.
But the two that she noticed over all were her parents. Right clear in the center of this senseless massacre lay her father Arundel and her own mother.
Evelyn let loose a wailing cry that pierced through the bright, sunny sky of the morning and could have easily spearheaded through the heavens. She practically laid on top of them, shaking their lifeless bodies for naught, and trying vainly to wake them from a sleep that would forever keep them.
"Kiddo..."
A soft, but clearly audible voice called from behind her. The gray, eye-patched cat approached from behind. "We have to go. It still isn't safe, they could be back."
Evelyn continued to sob onto her parent's. She was indifferent to the adult's words. Once more he tried, sympathetically gripping Evelyn's shoulder. But the man was met with a sharp withdrawal of her form, crying eyes glaring back at his own.
"No! No...not until their buried...not until their properly..."
Elijah and Martha approached, lost with tears of their own and without much on what to do next or even what to even think. But the man knelt beside Evelyn again, sympathetic and kind eyes combating against the anguish residing in Evelyn's.
" Listen to me, young'un. This is a very despairing moment of your life. Trust me, I've been through enough in my lifetime. I've lost my parents through war. And I've only just recently come to terms with the way the world works. So do me this favor: come with me, all of you. We go somewhere safe and get some help laying your families to rest. For everyone here. But you gotta get up." the man finished. A deep, solid wall of fortitude originated in his eyes, begging for the little cat to climb over it.
Evelyn heard every word the older cat said. She even agreed. But despite this, she still couldn't move. Like she was frozen in time, but she could hear everything happening around her all the same. In this moment of painful, internal solitude, she had, in the corner of her eye, realized something sticking out of the ground next to her parents that had finally pushed her to move. Her vision glided towards a bronze blade that was skewered into the dirt. Stumbling as she did, she got up, finding the strength to stand again.
"The older cat smiled in response. "There ya go, lassie."
Evelyn wordlessly stepped up to the sword and slowly gripped it's handle, pulling it out of the ground with little resistance. As she studied the blade, she noticed the dry blood that still stained it's steel surface. This was her father's sword. Passed down from his own father. But why was it in the ground like this? Evelyn's eyes closed shut as more trails of a salty liquid slid down her face. Because her father didn't put it in the ground.
The sour realization finally came to her. Her father and mother were murdered with her father's own sword. And in the ground it was, as a reminder of that.
"Evelyn!"
Martha's voice rang from in front of her, causing her to look up. There were her two friends, just as lost for proper words as she was. The only difference between them was that they weren't holding the sword their own family were slaughtered with. Evelyn was.
Martha leaped forward and wrapped Evelyn in a sorrowful hug, nearly causing them both to fall. She looked up at her sword-wielding friend. "We need to go."
Evelyn store at her herself in the reflection of the sword's shiny surface. Her eyes held a guilt that bore down relentlessly and unfiltered back at her.
'What if I had stayed? What...what if I had just...'
Evelyn's thoughts ceased. Her hand tightening around the hilt of her father's blade, she nodded at the words of her friend, and even though the words had slipped past her, she followed the older cat and her companions back through the forest, too afraid to look back.
Even for just a second.