The Breaking of a Farm Boy

[Allielliot]

The day ended simply, quietly, as so many have ended before. Dane was guiding the last of the straggling sheep into the pen, and the sunset caught his gaze.

The sky was a sea of crimson and orange struggling against the oppressive black of the night. It stirred within Dane strange foreign thoughts of blood and battle, flames and death.

It was powerful
It was terrible

He winced

Suddenly the flames of the sky focused into a single blazing point, and the point in turn coalesced into the silhouette of an armored man slowly limping on the horizon. Dane continued to warily observe the stranger's approach as he finished herding the sheep

The Armored Man moved steadily despite the limp, with his right arm cradled awkwardly in his left. His short cropped hair was blonde, the same shade as Dane's older brother Sarin.

His mind wondered to Sarin as he watched the stranger approach, entranced now. Sarin, who had always been perfect in the eyes of his father and the gods. The envy of all the other lads, and the secret hope of all the lasses. He had left right after planting finished last spring. Clerics of Illmater had come to bless the fields and offer protection against the banites, and, when they left, Sarin left with them.

The man fell then, snatching Dane back from his memories, and, when the man didn't rise, Dane set off for him at a jog. As he neared however the man began to look more and more familiar. Despite the blazing platemail, and the blood and grime covering his face Dane could tell beyond a doubt; It was Sarin.

Full of panic now, Dane sprinted the last few yards. "Sarin, Brother, what has happened!?"

Sarin, looking pale, and gaunt stirred, "Dane, oh thank The Broken One. You must help me. I must tell them! It's a trap!" His eyes were feverish, and his skin burned to the touch. He faded out of consciousness. Desperate and confused Dane lifted his brother into his arms. His own flame red hair reflecting the burning sunset as it fell in a mess over his face, Dane cradled his brother gently in his arms and marched back to the farm house.

As he reached the house his father, Serge, tall and strong, with graying blonde hair to match Sarin's, opened the door, and, with a started cry, noticed Dane's burden. " Sarin! Dear Gods Dane what has happened?"

" I, I don't know father! I saw him approaching across the field, but he collapsed near the old oak. When I reached him he was delirious and rambling of some trap."

"Gods his arm...get him to the back room Dane!"

They rushed through the house to a back room, past Dane's mother and two younger siblings, and placed Sarin on a bed carefully removing his armor and searching for wounds. The house smelled of smoke and stew, but the metallic odor of blood coming from Sarin was strongest of all. His arm had been broken above the elbow, and the bone protruded through, and he had a poorly bandaged wound on his left side and thigh.

"Wha happened?" His younger sister Kyla blurted?
"Is et Sarin?" That from Benji
"Oh Gods it is" Dane's mother Myriam began to weep. " Serge What is going on!"

"Gods Myraim! Calm yourself and get Kyla and Benji into the kitchen! Dane Watch Sarin!" With that his farther flew out of the room, and his mother and the two younger children followed, leaving Dane alone with the stench of blood.

After a few moments the noise of sheep bleating could be heard outside, and was abruptly silenced. Sarin jerked awake. "They're here." He struggled to his feet. "Dane take my sword. I'll not be using it with this arm." Dane grabbed the sword, belt and all, and stumbled after his brother into the main room.

"You must leave now!" Serge, dressed in a set of old, faded padded armor with an aged wooden shield and a notched short sword was standing toe to toe with Dane's older brother as Sarin pleaded with him.

"I'll not leave this farm now, not after everything!" Serge retorted.
"You don't understand father. You cannot stop these monsters with steel!" Sarin pleaded again, and as his sentence finished a dark vapor began to seep under the door and through the front windows. "All of you run now! I'm begging you!" With that Sarin began to pray and a bright light surrounded him as he placed himself between the vapor and his family.

The family stood in stunned silence as the vapor attacked the light like a viper striking it's prey, until suddenly a few tendrils began to break through. " They're too strong! Run!" Sarin fell to his knees.

With clear agony in his voice Serge shouted to the rest of the family, " Now! out the back!" and they fled as the tendrils reached for them from behind.

They fled into the darkness and the fields. Serge with his short sword drawn, Dane awkwardly carrying his brother's sheathed sword and Myriam guiding the two younger children. They continued their frantic scurry until, at the edge of the fence line, Kyla screamed.

Dane turned just in time to see Benji knock Kyla out of the way of the swinging remnants of a broken long sword in the hands of a decaying skeleton. Benji cried out himself, but then Serge sprang into action.
He and the Skeleton exchanged a few quick blows until it lurched with an unbalanced strike, splintering Serge's shield.
Serge responded with an overhead swing that glanced off the skeletons left side, shearing it's arm off at the shoulder joint.

Then the world froze for Dane as, unfazed by the loss of it's arm, the skeleton thrust it's jagged hilt up under Serge's ribs. He blinked for a moment confused, and then he crumpled to the ground, dead.

"NO!" Dane howled in rage as he drew his brothers sword and, with a powerful two handed strike, cleaved the skeleton from shoulder to hip.

As the skeleton fell unmoving, Dane dropped the blade and looked at the scene, His mother and Kyla fruitlessly trying to rouse father, and Benji staring back at the farm in horror, his left arm bleeding and his sleeve slashed.

He moved to Benji to check to injury and, as he laid his hands upon the shallow gash, it mended itself before his eyes. Confused, but grateful, Dane noticed Benji's horrified gaze.

He looked back at the house to see dark flames leaping over it consuming the building and the light from the stars and moon in equal measure. Where a normal flame would fight the darkness of the night, this one fed it and reinforced the darkness.

With one last look of terror and revulsion, Dane bent to retrieve his brothers blade, lifted Kyla in in his left arm and simply stated in a numb voice. " Father is gone. It's all gone. We must leave"

[Allielliot]

They stumbled through the night, each weeping softly to themselves, too stunned to talk as they passed the abandoned farmsteads of their former neighbors. As the night wore on and their exhaustion grew, Myriam and the two younger children began to cough and itch. By morning, they reached a stream and were forced to rest.

Rashes had begun to form around Myriam and the younger childrens' mouths and they were pale and feverish. All but Dane passed out in exhaustion and sickness. He kept watch a few hours until he too was claimed by the exhaustion.

When he awoke with a start it was evening. None of the others had stirred from where they fell. The rashes had spread, and they looked more pale and gaunt than when he had fallen asleep.

Dane tried to wake his mother but she responded only with groans. His younger siblings were no better. Exhaustion, grief, panic, and hopelessness battled within him for dominance, but it was determination that won out.

Starting with Kyla he stripped each of of them down to their small clothes and bathed them in the stream. He then covered each of them in whatever he could find to make a warm blanket. He striped himself down to shirtsleeves and breeches to use the extra garments keeping the others warm.

He searched within eye sight of the makeshift camp for lumber and herbs, caught a fish from the stream, made a broth and attempted to feed what he could to his slumbering family.

Things went on this way for several days, maybe more than a week with Dane finding less and less food, and his family seeming to suffer more and more. Not one of the others woke during this time, but Dane rarely slept.

He was glad for the sword, and even had reason to use it a few times; once when a small pack of hungry wolves thought the sleeping family might make a good meal, but they were deterred by the sharp blade, and a makeshift torch Dane had fashioned. There was another incident in which Dane awoke to find a wiry little goblin creeping into camp.

Catching the little creature by surprise as it was looking over Benji, Dane was able to snap its neck with one quick twist of his hands. He threw it into the stream to let the water carry it away from his family.

Finally, maybe 8 or 9 days in, Dane was unsure how long exactly it had been, his determination began to waver. There had been no food for days, what was left of his family was wasting away and starving before his eyes. Three or four days after they had stopped the others had begun to have spells of uncontrollable shaking. Next they began to cough up blood, and finally the skin began to peel back and melt away where the rash had been.

It was too much to see them suffer so, and as the sun set, Dane began to pray to Illmater to ease his family's suffering. He prayed, and he wept through the entire night. He begged that they be released from their pain even though it meant he would be alone.

By morning his prayers had been answered.
They were all dead.

Through a haze of tears, broken sadness, and mingled relief at the end of their suffering, Dane dug each of them a grave using his bare hands and his brothers sword to loosen the dirt.

When the morbid task was finished at sunset, He strapped the sword on his belt and began to walk, oblivious, and uncaring of his direction.

He wandered again through an entire night, and, as the sun was rising, he found him self in a swirl of red and gold activity.

Who were these people, where was he? The tower bridge? Maybe..
"Are you okay lad?" "...looks like he's been through the nine hells.." "..What do we do with em?"

It was all a swirling mess. Why were they grabbing him, what did they want. Why couldn't they just let him keep wandering?

Then, suddenly there was a burst of silver and blue.

"You there! Boy!" Yet another man grabbed him. This one hand the bound wrist of Illmater etched onto his gauntlets. "Where did you get that blade?!"

Dane could only stare in response, too lost in his own mind, in his own grief, to find words.

The new man shook him hard, threw him to the ground, and drew is own blade, pointing it at Dane's throat. "You will tell me where you found that blade or I will end you here and now!"

"M..My brothers..." Was all Dane could manage to mumble.

The new man dropped his own sword then and pulled Dane close again. "Who was this brother?"

"Sarin...oh Gods Sarin...everyone..." Dane drifted back into the recesses of his mind again then. He was vaguely aware of the man in silver retrieving and sheathing his blade before lifting lifting Dane to his feet and leading him off down the road.

The boy who was Dane no longer cared. At least he was moving. It didn't matter where he was moving to. They walked, and at some point there was a strange sensation of being moved sideways. Then they walked through a city. The Boy watched it all from deep within himself.

Eventually he was led into a temple and the Silver Man began talking to another older man.

"Said he got the blade from his brother..." " Seems pretty shook up..."
Then the older man, softly "Get him to a bed for some rest. I'll talk to him soon enough, but he looks half dead now" and The Boy was lead away again, placed on a soft bed, and fell away into nightmares of loneliness, black flames, and death.