There was shouting, a girl screamed, and then laughing. He stayed curled up in the corner and trembled. His father stood to the side of the door with his sword in hand. At his feet were the bags he had hastily packed and that were not spilled out on the floor. Outside, there came the stomp of boots and more shouts. Then there was the sound like a lightings crackle and he could hear many men wailing shortly, as it was swiftly stopped.
Footsteps grew closer to the door and then the familiar knock was heard against their home. His father opened it and he could see his aunt in its frame. Her dark red hair rustled against the night sky and blended with the flames that were burning their city. Her dark mail was still pristine, but her face was hollow and furious.
"I heard the explosion, Shari," his father said, "Scytale?"
"Yes," his aunt growled, "the whore's bastards took him." Then for a moment it seemed as if his aunt would cry. She had never cried his father had told him. Not once in her life she did and not here would it be either. She clenched her fist and smiled with malice. "But he took more than they could suffer, as we knew. Most of their strongest are dead."
"Most?"
Shari raised her hand. "Nilis is still alive."
His father spat, "That weasel never dies, does he?"
"It seems not," she said, "we need to go though, I can feel her coming. We have some time as I have bound her to the earth but same with us. We have to move on foot."
His father simply nodded and picked up the bags and motioned harshly for him to come stand by his side. He rose and his legs shook beneath him as moved over to him. With one swift motion he was picked up and placed on his aunt's shoulders.
With his sword his father drew blood from his hand, which quickly healed. Then with a swift motion of the blade his blood danced through the air and plucked shadows as it did so. The sight of their bodies was gone, but their bodies were still there. Only three shadows that of the color of blood now remained in their place.
He peered over his aunt's shoulders as she ran and he saw the brutality being laid on the place he knew as home. Buildings were burned and outside of many of them were the bodies of its inhabitants. They had been killed in all manners. Heads were caved in, throats cut, babes skinned, and heads pierced through by spear and displayed like a trophy.
As they made their way through the courtyard he tugged at his aunt's shoulder and frantically urged her to stop. In the middle near the fountain he could see his friends. Mable, a guardsmen's daughter, was curled beneath the feet of a man dressed in a grey plate. In his hands, he held a shackle and he pulled up Mable with a sharp twist of her hair and she screamed loudly.
The man placed the shackle around her neck and chained her other children. Another of which, he recognized as Orion, his friend who he studied calligraphy with. His friends were bloody and the men and things that weren't men, pawed and inspected them. A man in a dark surcoat had crouched to hold Mable's face in his hand, his fingers brushing against her lips and a hungry look in his eyes.
One again he urged his aunt to stop, "It's Mable and Orion we have to help them. We can't leave," he pleaded.
His aunt did not respond though. She kept moving forward.
His father whispered solemnly to him, "We have to move on, I'm sorry."
"But they're my friends, we can't leave them," he choked and he felt hot tears on his cheeks . "They…They're going to hurt them." he sobbed loudly and his words echoed through the courtyard before they became a gurgle. His aunt's hand threatened to break his jaw.
The man in the dark surcoat released his hand from Mabel's side and looked about for the source of the noise. His aunt and father had stopped and silently watched the enemy.
"We can't save them. If we save them you die," his father said he looked down ashamedly.
From across the courtyard the man in the dark surcoat was directing the others and pointing at where they stood. Though he could not see them. Then he barked orders and motioned at some of the children.
"Go find it and get rid of these, they're too old," he said as he jammed a spear into a boy's head. Some of the children screamed in turn and were hit until they stopped. The rest simply stared into oblivion, accepting defeat.
His aunt still had his jaw in her iron grip and he struggled against it, but it would not do anything. Once she had someone no one could escape. She had not started to move again and was watching the children. Then in an instant a blade appeared in her hand. If her hand was still visible. Instead only her shadow grasped it. The blade itself hovered in the courtyard and at its appearance the man in the dark surcoat had stopped and was wide eyed. His men and creatures looked at it with astonishment. The man in the grey plate was at the front. He tried to maintain them and attempted to get them to fall back, but it was too late.
Blood already dripped from her blade. With movements he could not see, it had fallen and intertwined with the shadow and manifested into a force that had torn across the courtyard faster than the blink of an eye. He saw only the aftermath. The men and beasts had been ripped apart. Their shining white bones now poked from their bloody corpses like dim glowing candles and everywhere was their blood, even on the children who now sat silently. With looks of peace on their faces and satisfied with their captor's deaths. Mable and Orion, like the rest of the children, held a smile. Bright and red it covered their necks and showed the single tooth of their spine.