Fiona woke up early in the morning since she had to go with her father to the farm. After her brother Ash had left she had decided to help her father on the farm, he had refused it at first and she had to push a little before he gave up. She was missing him, and the house felt even more empty now, just like when her twin Caleb had died, it was different with Ash, but it still changed the atmosphere of the house. They were all happy for him, they had asked the village chief after Ash had gone about the man, Derek, whom he had gone with. The chief had praised the man and congratulated them. They were less worried after that.
Now that Ash was gone, she had started thinking about her own life, she should have things figured out before, since she was older, but she couldn't after Caleb's death. Nobody really knew this, but along with Caleb his best friend Damion had died as well, who she was secretly dating at that time. Nobody knew, about them. He was always there with Caleb and as they grew up, she got to know him well. It was after she had turned eighteen, one month before the incident after everybody had gone to bed, they had met behind the house and kissed for the first time. Then one month later her world shattered, besides the pain of losing her brother, she had also lost Damion, they had only been dating for a month, but they knew each other much longer. Even after two years, she hadn't met anyone else.
She didn't have too many skills, only the little healing tricks and traits her mother had taught her. Maybe she should have also learned to fight, there was a small percentage of women who joined the army, the ones who wanted to live freely. It was more common in bigger cities.
She got dressed and met her father and they both headed for the farm.
"Wonder what Ash might be doing right now?" said her father.
"Probably getting in some kind of trouble" she replied and they both laughed.
They worked for a couple of hours when a noise somewhere far caught her attention. She looked at her father he was still kneeling in the waist-high crop. She looked towards the village on the horizon, she could see the houses from here, and there was smoke coming from somewhere in the middle. Then another noise echoed in the air, which sounded like a scream. This time her father heard it too and looked. The smoke was much thicker now.
"Stay here, I'll go and check," said her dad.
"Why should I stay here, I am coming too, it's probably nothing," she said.
"No! Stay here, I need to go and check on your mother" his father shouted at her and ran to the village. She stood there and looked at the place from where the smoke was rising. Their house was pretty far from the place so she wasn't too worried, she couldn't see her father's back anymore. She slowly started walking towards the village. As she got closer, the fire from which the smoke was rising became visible, was someone's house burning. From here she could see the forest below the mountain, some shadows were moving through the trees. There was something inhuman about them which made her stare trying to figure out what. A feeling of dread settled in her heart slowly but she had no idea why. She was about to turn and run towards her home when something smashed into her like a bull. She went flying into the ground, scraping her knees and elbows, before she could turn, the heavy thing was on her.
The monstrous growl shook her to the core, the urk grabbed her hands and twisted them painfully. She slowly turned her head and screamed. It was four times her size, with large fangs, and green ugly skin. His mouth was frothing as he growled. She screamed and shivered in fear. The creature looked at her and growled something which she didn't understand. Then to her horror, he turned her around and buried her face in the ground. She realized what was happening and fought hard trying to get away. But he didn't budge. He held both her hands in one of his large green hands, and with the other hand started to grab her legs, she screamed, and the creature growled, but then a whistling noise came from somewhere and the growling stopped. The grip on her hand loosened, she crawled forward in a hurry and turned around. The creature was on his knees, with an arrow sticking through its head. It was still quivering and dying slowly. She looked to the left, a few feet away, a boy Ash's age was standing with a bow raised. He was thin and his expression told her that he was just as scared as her, and it was his first kill. She got up from the ground and ran to him when the creature made a noise and slammed into the ground.
"Are you okay?" the boy asked with an expression of concern, he looked at her then looked away his face red. She looked down, her dress had been torn from various places, especially her front. She moved it around to make sure she was modest. The boy turned back once it was okay.
"We should get out of here," he said.
But then Fiona remembered her mom and dad. She turned back around and ran towards the burning village. The boy shouted for her to come back and then reluctantly followed. Fiona ran straight between two burning houses, she found herself in the middle of the village square, it was chaos, bodies everywhere, of people she knew, she barely managed to hold her breakfast in and ran towards her house. Their house was at the back of the village, in a separate clearing, her mother had liked it like that. She turned the street that led to her house and then stopped in her tracks. It was burning. Her heart seemed to drop out of her chest, she didn't see anything just ran straight to it shouting her mother's name. The house had fallen on itself, there was nothing left of it, she stopped at the edge wondering what to do, she looked around, for a sign. A large thud sounded to her close left, she turned from behind a tree, and an Urk came out, this one was twice the size of the previous one, and had a club in his hand, which was covered with blood.
He growled a sickening roar at her, she could barely move back in fear.
"Get down" the boy shouted from behind her and he released an arrow at the Urk. It buried in its shoulder but didn't stop his advance at all.
"We need to run" he shouted at her.
"I can't, my parents," she said.
"If they are in there you can't save them now, you need to save yourself, that's what they would have wanted" the boy came and shouted in her ear. He grabbed her by the arm and ran with her. The Urk, followed, although it wasn't fast, it was really big and would easily catch up to them.
"We can't escape it" she said, panting running beside him.
"I am not dying here, just after my life seemed to be getting less boring," the boy said and turned and started shooting arrow after arrow in a hurry. Most of the arrows missed in the haste, and the ones that landed didn't do any damage.
"In the leg," said Fiona.
"What? Look at it, its leg is as thick as a tree, that won't do anything" he said.
"In the upper thigh, right here" she showed the place on her leg. "There is a big vein here, if you can manage to cut it, he will bleed a lot and we might be able to escape then," she said. the idea had popped into her head from something her mother had told her once. The boy aimed his second last arrow.
"I am not a good shot, If this doesn't work, run, I'll try to give you some time, there are people on the north of the forest, we were passing through when we saw the Urks, my uncle should be there," the boy said, he pulled the arrow hard and then released it, she prayed with all her heart, and it hit it. The creature jerked and looked down, he pulled the arrow, out cutting himself even more, and blood started pouring out like a fountain. It looked up and moved his other leg toward them, but when he tried to move the other, it didn't respond and it fell with a large thud. Fiona grabbed the boy's hand and ran. They stopped when they left the village and reached the north forest, there were a lot of bodies here too, of the villagers who had tried to escape, she was searching for her parents. There were some other men too, the boy seemed to know them his expression told her, and then there were the Urks, there weren't many of them, but they were enough to have wiped the whole village. A small group of men and women were huddled around, injured among them. Some of them had carriages.
"That's my uncle's cart," said the boy. A middle-aged man turned when they approached.
"Thank god, you are all right, your mother would have skinned me alive otherwise," the man said to the boy.
"Are there any survivors?" she asked the man. The man turned to her and looked her up and down, the realization set into him, and he pointed at the back.
"Only these," he said. She looked, but her parents weren't among them, there were only a dozen of them some heavily injured, nobody she knew well.
"I am sorry," the boy said, as tears formed in her eyes.
"You saved her?" the man asked the boy.
"Yes, and Urk attacked her, then another big one chased us, but we managed to kill it I think, her idea," he said.
"I am proud, you have finally become a man, when we'll go back to the keep, I'll see you start getting some proper training, Ron".