I looked up and seen the smoke so I quickly called out to Reed. " Look Reed, smoke above the village! should we go back and see what's going on?" I asked thinking that maybe a house had caught fire or an accident at the barns had started a field fire.
My mind was going a mile a minute with all sorts of scenarios while Reed looked at the smoke in the air with wide fearful eyes as he nods his head and said "yes".
Reed quickly went to his pouch that was laying on the ground that held his water skin and some snacks and swung it over his shoulder he looked at me with a serious look in his eyes and said, "let's go, Bruni, let's hope it's just a fire." he said
I looked up sharply at him, with wide eyes, "you hope" I asked. what else could it be I thought to myself as I quickly followed Reed down our secret path that leads to the main game trail in the area before heading towards the village. I started to think of even more terrible things that could have happened! maybe the fire had caught on to a few houses because that to me was as bad as I could think of. If only I knew.
We got back to a large clearing outside the village and as we stepped out of the trees and could see the village we saw the smoke, we saw why there was so much smoke. the gate of the village was on fire and so was the guardhouse beside it. There were people fighting with swords just inside the village we could hear the cry's of pain from the injured and the clanging of sword on swords coming from the village. A few black shrouded people were lying dead on the field before the gate and we could see at least 2 dead guards as well.
That scared us a lot as our village only had 8 regular guards, and we could see a quarter of the village protection dead outside the wooden palisade!
We quickly went around the clearing towards the eastern gate hoping it was clear of fighting. Once we got close to the gate we couldn't see anyone Reed pulled out his practice sword. "Better than nothing," he said as we went into the seemingly deserted village we could hear fighting but the sounds were bouncing off the houses and the smoke blocked vision inside the walls.
We stayed near the edge of the road hoping to not be seen by whoever was attacking our village as we went and looked where all the adults were.
We came to the village crossroads it was dead center of the village and was the only place in this part of the village that the 2 main roads cross over each other, and we saw 2 dead black-cloaked men across the road from us with blood pooling into the mud making for a grisly sight for a couple of 15-year-olds.
As soon as we saw the bodies we stopped dead in our tracks fear in our eyes and we couldn't help but see how they had died. "where do we go" I asked in a small voice
Reed turned to me and whispered "we should head to Mayor Henry's mansion it has wood walls around it to and my mom always said that in case of an emergency and we had to go find a cover that we should head to the mayor's house as it was the most protected and he had 4 guardsmen living with him and his family. those extra guardsmen had bin trained by masters in the art of the sword and were the village's last line of hope against any would be intruders.
As we snuck closer to the mayor's mansion we heard swords ringing against swords and what sounded to be a big fight. we peeked around the corner and not more than 40 meters away was a group of 18 black cloaked men with swords and a few bound villagers and in the middle a particularly large man with a short sword in one hand and a meat cleaver in the other. and facing then 5 village guards, 6 villagers armed with axes and one had a sword who looked like Reed's dad and then the last 4 were the mayor's personal guard holding the wooden gate that behind which was what looked like all the missing villagers!
The big man in black yelled at the 15 defenders, "who among you is brave enough to talk to Gale The Blooded, for I would have words with your Leader before I am forced into more violence!"
We watched as gale pulled one of the villagers onto their feet by the hands and pulled off the hood covering the man's face. It was none other than Davin the tailor! "Come out as I do not have patients for cowards!" gale called out as he pushed Davin in front of him and pushed him down into a kneeling position facing the village defenders. As Gale stepped back he held up his cleaver like he was getting ready to chop into Davin's neck!
"STOP you bastard!" yelled Mayor Henry.
The Cleaver suddenly swung forward and made a WHOOSH sound as Gale decapitated Davin in one swing of his arm sending his head flying to the side as Gale said "Wrong answer! I am the one telling you what to do" With a mad grin on his face. He pulled out the second villager and took the bag off the women's head revealing none other, then my mum!!!!