Reader Writer
Chapter 11
The Newborn Girl
The newborn was a girl.
She screamed in protest as she left the warm security of her mother’s womb and entered to cold Alojan night. The tiny seed that began her life took root in her mother’s womb nearly a sun before. It was born of passion, for her parents were deeply in love. Her mother loved her father even now as he lay beside her in death; his dead eyes staring into her’s as she gave birth.
The child’s wail moved her mother to action. If not for the child’s cries, she might have stayed beside her dead mate until she was discovered or died from exposure; but the child moved an instinct in her. For it to survive, she must survive.
Her lips touched her husbands for the last time. She closed his lifeless eyes. She wrapped herself and the child in his kron fur against the cold and took stock of her situation.
The fires in the village had burned themselves out. All that remained of Ector were charred ruins...
The village was gone.
Her friends were gone.
Her family was gone.
Her man—gone—only she and the child remained.
Clutching the infant to her breast she fled away from the village. What had happened there that night was unfathomable to her.
Where had the demons come from?
Why had they slaughtered her people?
The village had no warning or defense.
The demons, (and she was sure that was what they were,) attacked without warning. They killed with fire, swords and with strange weapons that made loud noises, and killed at a distance. They slaughtered her people.
But why had they murdered them?
What had the people of Ector done to deserve death?
The demons spoke a language she had never heard, punctuated by high-pitched nasal whines. They wore clothes of silver. On their large heads they wore helms of black that reflected the light of the fires and made their heads look as if they burned.
She had jumped out the window of her house with her husband. They fled into the night toward the fields seeking safety in the tall grain. They had almost reached the fields when one of the demons saw them. He aimed his strange weapon at them and her man cried out and clutched his side. But they kept running until they reached the edge of the grain field. There he collapsed. She watched helplessly as his life’s blood stained the rich soil.
He died…She gave birth.
Now, she left him and the village behind. Both were dead. To survive she must find the living.