A Village Burning

Hey guys,

Apologies about the lack of posts recently, but I’m getting back into the swing of things now! This is a short piece about a tense escape from a small village, based off of a close friend’s D and D campaign. He’s created such an excellent world, which I hope to share with you in these short stories.

As always, I appreciate any thoughts or feedback you might have on the piece.

Cheers,

Jevan Thompson

 

“Quietly now.” Marks whispered.

The branches could not help but crunch and crack under the weight of so many clumsy feet. The sound was making him wince. With every snap that reverberated through the woodland, with each deafening rustle of leaves, he became more and more unsettled.

A bad feeling that he simply couldn’t shake off.

A voice flashed through his mind, one that was always talking.

“Should have left them.” Quiet Eye said. 

It unfurled and twisted though his head, like poison seeping through a victim. He shook himself swiftly, but could not help the feeling of shame blossoming up from inside him. With gritted teeth he helped Eela struggle up the steady incline, all the while talking to that voice in his head.

“This isn’t the pathfinders anymore. I’m not just leaving them behind.” 

“Of course you can you fool. You’ve done it before and you can do it again, now drop these dead weights and move while you still can.” Quiet Eye hissed at him, venom dripping from every syllable.

It was all in his head.

That’s what he told himself.

He’d always heard of folk talking about hearing voices inside their heads, telling them right from wrong, good from bad, but he wondered if anyone else’s voice was quite as loud as his.

Another rattling of branches snapped him out of his dark conversation.

To normal folk, they would have had to strain to hear it and even then, it would not be worth more than a passing flicker of interest. But to Marks, it was like a thunderstorm on a quiet night. The last person in the group, Ciera, had stumbled into a bush on her way up the incline.

“Leave. Them.” Quiet Eye said, pronouncing each word with a slow, meticulous care.

He ignored it and helped the flustered woman out of the foliage, quietly urging her to join the rest of the group ascending the hill. He could hear shouting and distant sounds of panic, coming from the village that they had left behind.

I hope we’re not too late.

******************************************

It was only when they were three quarters of the way up the hill in the woods, Marks let them catch their breath. He was conscious of the Cult sending out fanatics to find stragglers, but these people he was leading were not soldiers, certainly not pathfinders. Barely out of breath, he cast his gaze around the group.

They were a sorry sight indeed, all gasping for air thirstily in the small clearing. Beads of sweat glistened on their faces faintly in the moonlight, a worrying sign for Marks, who knew they were only a mile into their perilous journey.

His eyes were drawn to Arn particularly, who also happened to be the biggest man in the small group. As one of the village smiths, his strong frame was built on foundations of hard muscle, earned after many years shaping steel and iron. While that kind of strength may be desirable for a blacksmith or a lumberjack, it was certainly not desirable for a harsh, fifty mile journey at a punishing pace across difficult, undulating terrain.

Sat beside the huge man was Eela, his wife. She was almost a polar opposite to her husband in every way. Where Arn was firm, she was gentle. Where Arn was big, she was little. Where Arn was rough and beaten from his toil at the forge, she was delicate and beautiful. Marks noticed she was perhaps struggling worse than all of them, her pretty, fragile frame unable to cope with the rigorous pace.

Two more figures sat just a few feet away from them, both puffing and panting with exterion. Nathan and Ciera. Nathan was a carpenter who may have lacked Arn’s bulky physique, but possessed a sharp mind and nimble fingers. He oddly seemed to be coping well, all things considered, for after a few moments of recovery, he was tending to his wife tenderly.

Fear was written clearly on her face, which was about the most expression Marks had seen in his few weeks of knowing her. Although polite and kind, she was rather plain, prefering to keep to her business to herself, not willing to get tied up in the gossip of others.

The final member of the party was Diter, sat on a fallen log opposite the two couples. In the back of his mind, Marks thought that it perfectly summed up the young man. An outsider. When his parents had both died of illness, he was left to tend to his father’s tailoring trade. He was quiet, through and through. Sadly for him, his father’s trade was not useful right now.

Marks took a small sip of water from his skin and tried to ignore the voice in his head once again.

“Look at them Marks. You can see what I can see, you know what they are.” Quiet Eye sighed.

“They’re people, who have got no other choice-”

“They are not people. They are liabilities.” Quiet eye interrupted him savagely.

“They. Are going. To get. You killed.”

A hushed voice from Arn roused him, quieting the voice inside his head.

“Marks. How much longer do we have to run for? Surely we’ve put enough distance between us and them. The girls aren’t gonna be able to take much more of this. ” Arn said in a whisper, his deep voice rasping like gravel under a boot.

“Pathetic” Quiet eye remarked.

Marks tightened his jaw, thankful nobody else could hear the voice inside his head.

“I know it’s a fast pace, but we need to get as far away from them as we can right now. Once we reach Barkwood we’ll slow down.” Marks said evenly. He was trying to reassure them, but he couldn’t deny that a small part of him somewhere agreed with the whispering inside his mind.

Arn’s eyes went wide.

“Barkwood?! That’s another seven mile easily! Surely you can’t expect-” Arn began, his voice threatening to grow and bulge.

Before he could finish, Eela’s soft voice interrupted him.

“He knows what he’s doing Arn. I don’t want to be anywhere Hullwen at the moment, do you?. I’ll keep up.” She finished shakily.

Marks would have admired her show of putting on a brave face, but hearing her out-of-breath mouselike voice was almost comical to him, especially as they had only traveled a mere two miles.

“She’s right Arn. Who better to listen to than a pathfinder eh? Cinis and Lignum are smiling on us alright if he’s leading us.” Nathan remarked, catching Marks’ eye and giving him a half hearted smile.

Just hearing the name of his old unit made him involuntarily wince, he didn’t like talking about it and he most certainly didn’t like to hear others talk about it. Before he could open his mouth to tell them to stop, Arn’s big voice rasped once again.

“Gods…can you hear that?” He asked.

Instantly, they all quieted, their desperate breathing halting into a deathly silence. Marks, as stealthy as a mountain cat, dropped to a crouch and padded over to the big man. From his position, he could clearly see over the edge of the incline, giving him a perfect, albeit distant view of the village square.

He could make out the buildings which were now faraway specs of faint flickering light, all of them were firmly ablaze, lighting up the surrounding area like a beacon. There were people in the square, but they were a mere mass of shapes, too distant to properly see details.

What was clear, was the sound of screams.

The shrill sounds of terror and agony cut through the vast space between them and the town with a shocking ease. It never failed to amaze Marks, just how much noise a burning person can make. He could tell the others were dumbstruck at the sight of their burning homes, but Marks could forgive them for it and let them stare.

None of them have seen anything like this before. 

“Of course they haven’t.” Quiet eye snarled. “Do you think any of them would be here if they had?”

There was a pause before the voice in his head spoke again.

“Cut away now. You’ve got them out, that’s enough. You can still survive this. Leave them.”

“I’m going to make it out and so are they!” Marks hissed aloud.

He could feel their eyes on him.

He could tell they thought he was crazy.

He knew that they were wondering, who in the pit was he talking to?

Giving a small shake of his head to try and kill the voice, he turned to them all and spoke clearly.

“Come on. We’ve wasted enough time already, Barkwood isn’t getting any closer.”

Without pausing for another moment, he turned on his heel, and walked away. His footsteps made no sound, but the group scrambling to catch him up made up for it.