Chapter 1
Farms, Fields and Fire
I was born in a small farming village called Boer. It had three barns, three houses, a store house and some fields. 16 people lived there including myself. It was a simple place where people led simple lives, we tended the fields, fed the pigs, sheered the sheep, milked the cows. We lived well for farmers, of course some years weren’t good for the crops and we had to tighten our belts, but for the most part we were happy. For the first seven years of my life that farm was my whole world, I had never even gone as far as the next farm over. Then the riders came and I watched my world come crashing down around me.
The day began like any other. I was finishing my work in the corn field, the last of my morning chores, when my sister Astur, who was six, came running down the path with a little basket which I knew contained our midday snack. It was a little ritual of ours when the weather was nice to have a picnic in the woods for our “High Noon Feast” as we liked to call it. It made us feel lordly to give it such a grand title, and though we had never met a noble, seen a true feast nor set foot in a castle, we would take that food into the woods and be the king and queen of the grandest castle we could imagine. We did just that on the day the riders came.
“ Come on Kappi! All the lords and laddies are waiting for us!” I dropped my tools and ran to meet her, picking up my magic sword, royal sceptre and crown on the way. Of course they were really just two sticks and the crown was simply a circle of vines that Astur had made, she had one too, we even had coronations in the woods one day, we were royalty after all!
“ What do we have to feast on today your highness?” I asked in what I thought was a royal voice.
“ Two lions, four geese and some golden grape wine!” she replied in just as silly a voice. We referred to all our food as what we believed were regal delicacies. Lions, geese and golden grape wine meant bread rolls, apples and milk.
“ Most excellent my lady! Shall we begin our journey to our most royal of castles?”
“ Of course my lord! Lead the way!” We normally got tired of the silly voices after about ten minutes but we always started speaking like “Nobles”.
We had just finished our meal when we heard the screams. We ran back to the village as fast as we could. As soon as we reached the edge of the forest we saw horsemen riding around the houses herding our friends and family back inside the small group of buildings. We were so young and stupid that, instead of running for help, we ran straight to our house where we new our parents would be.
By the time we arrived at the farm my father was slumped against the side of our house, covered in blood and even my child’s eyes could not mistake his vacant expression and the empty look in his eyes for anything but the face of death. My mother was struggling to fight of the men who held her. Astur ran straight towards our mother but another horseman grabbed her before she could get there. One of the strangers saw me. He was dressed in black armour with a red dragon emblazoned on the front, he seamed to be the leader of the raiders and was wielding a torch that he had been about to throw into our barn. He looked at me, and smiling he started walking towards me. Brandishing my magic sword I charged at him like a hero from legend. In my head I could already see my glorious victory, I would be know throughout the kingdom as the boy who vanquished an army. I swung the stick with all my strength to slay the demon! The man caught it mid-swing with his free hand and tore it from my grasp. He looked down at me with a twisted grin on the face that still haunts my nightmares, lifted the burning torch above his head and brought it down with vicious force into the side of my face. I fell and lost consciousness.
My eyes opened to a vision of hell itself. Fire everywhere, the clash of steel and the cries of the dying. Slowly, I lifted my head to find that my farm, my home, my whole world, was now a fiery inferno of scorched beams and burning thatch. If I close my eyes, the smell of smoke and burning bodies still fills my nostrils. I looked around me to find that the men who had killed my family and burned my home where themselves being slaughtered by men I had never seen before, but on there shields they bore the White Star of Hvitr, the mark of the goddess and crest of Hvitrland, the kingdom in which I lived. I knew they must be from the garrison at Vandi, the closest town to Boer. I knew also that word of the riders must have reached them or they must have seen the smoke and come to fight of the invaders, but to me it seemed that Hvitr herself had sent them to save my life. As I looked around the carnage at the chard remains of the place I called home, a man in shinning white plate armour came towards me took me by the hand and pulled me away from the ruins of my old life and when we were away from the flames he knelt down before me put his hands on my shoulders and said quietly, in a soothing and heavenly voice, “The bad men are gone, you’re safe now” and I threw my arms around his neck and began to cry. After no more than five minutes, probably much less, I fell asleep in his arms.
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When I awoke it was dark outside and I was laying in a bed, in a room I didn’t recognise. There was a candle burning on a small bedside table and a jug of water and a goblet next to it. I sat up on the side of the bed and discovered that I was parched, so I grabed the jug, neglecting the goblet entirly, and gulped down the water, only stopping when the jug was dry. Apart from the bed and the table, the room was empty and there was only one small window that was too high for me to see out of, so I put the jug and candle on the floor, picked up the table, put it down in front of the window and used it as a ladder. I looked out through the window and thought I must be in one of the largest cities in the world. It was long past dusk yet there were still people In the street below me. I stuck my head out and looked around and could see multi storied buildings in all directions and the roofs where not made from thatch, like all the other buildings I had ever seen, but from tiles, a thing I had never even heard of. Down the street to my right I could just make out the town centre and the edge of a statue, another commonplace structure I had never previously beheld. This town was a place of wonders and I rejoiced at they’re magnificence, but then I remembered why I was there. The memory of the raid washed over me and again I could hear the screams fill my ears, feel the flames scorch my skin and the smell of the burning sicken my very soul. I slumped down on the bed and I began to cry again. My name is Kappi Vaskr, I was born of Blood and Fire, and this is how my story began.