Stephen Zimmer - Crown of Vengeance

Straightening up in his saddle, Aethelstan gestured to his companions, and nudged his horse to turn about. The horses continued to eye Gunther’s Jaghuns nervously, skittish in their mere presence, but the beasts made no move to impede their passage.

The one in their path immediately behind them stood up and loped quietly away, keeping a wide berth as it cleared the passage before the Saxans’ horses.

Gunther and the Jaghuns watched until Aethelstan was gone into the night, the soft clopping of the horses’ hooves finally fading out as they made their way back towards the Saxan encampment.

Aethelstan did not see the woodsman break out into a run, accompanied by his Jaghuns, as Gunther hurried in the direction of his dwelling.

“Stay? With an army approaching here?” Ryan exclaimed in exasperation, shaken out of his drowsiness after listening to the first alarming words from Gunther upon the woodsman’s return.

No matter how intimidating or formidable Gunther might have appeared to them, Ryan had not hesitated in his blunt response. From what Gunther could tell in looking upon their faces, the youth had adequately expressed the sentiments of the entire group.

The other three had shuffled into the first floor room just behind Ryan, having also been roused abruptly from sleep. They had only recently gotten settled down to rest, probably with the hopes of finally getting a full night of undisturbed repose. Still half-asleep, they had trudged down the wooden stairs to the main room, gathering close around Gunther with inquisitive looks.

Those looks had swiftly become pensive, even a little fearful, as their heads cleared swiftly. It was evident that they perceived that something was very amiss. Gunther had then related to them the troubling news from Aethelstan. His mood was anything but pleasant as he conveyed the tidings.

So much was running through his head as he spoke. He was a formidable warrior in his own right. The recognition of that was not born of any hubris, but simply of honest assessment. His well-trained Jaghuns made him a capable entity within the woodlands, but definitely not for the likes of an entire army.

In the face of the looming threat, there was one option that seemed clear enough. It was the one choice that would allow him to remain close, without becoming embroiled in the futile affairs of humankind again. It was a spark of hope, even if the idea was rather unprecedented, and not altogether certain of success.

As that idea coalesced, he had announced that they were not leaving, drawing the incredulous response from Ryan. It was quickly followed.

“What kind of plan is that?” Lynn stammered, clearly sharing Ryan’s feelings. “They’ll just flush us out of this deathtrap, and put us all to death. Your creatures out there can’t stop an army. I know you can probably fight anyone out there… one on one… but I know you can’t fight an army off by yourself… not unless you are some kind of god we don’t know about. If you are, it would help if you would tell us.”

Gunther nodded, his face showing his increasing irritation at having been so abrasively interrupted by Ryan and challenged by Lynn. He worked to keep his voice controlled, having some sympathy for their exasperation. “I know that I cannot stop an army. I may be many things, but I am not unrealistic,” he stated slowly. “If you would let me finish, you would see that I am not planning to stay in this building. I am just planning to stay in these lands. We are far from being trapped. Have you forgotten the door so soon?”

He gestured sternly towards the large, wooden door at the rear of the room. All four pairs of eyes followed, and stared towards the iron-banded slab of wooden planks.

“It is time for you to find out about that door, and what lies beyond it, though I certainly had no idea that it would be under these circumstances,” Gunther added gruffly.

Erin asked tentatively. “You mean… the Unguhur?”

“Yes. An underground world, and one that even a small army would not wish to encounter,” Gunther retorted curtly, and confidently, the idea seeming better with every second. “The passage beyond that door goes into the depths of the world. You will be quite safe there.”

“Won’t the enemies just follow us down?” Lee asked.

“It would be a great and terrible mistake for them to do so,” Gunther stated firmly, with a dark expression spreading upon his face as he considered the consequences. “But we will go down there only if we truly must… when we truly must. Until then, we stay up here. Maybe there is a chance that this storm will pass us by, or dissipate before breaking upon this area.”

He quietly studied the faces of the four strangers.

They were taking the somber news with a dismayed silence. Their all-too-brief respite from the trials and travails of the new world was over, and Gunther could not fault them for feeling great frustration and resentments.

Gunther watched Lee look sadly over to his companions, from Ryan, to Erin, and then finally to Lynn. All of them had beaten, weary expressions, and the glances that they shared amongst each other confirmed his evaluation.

They were exhausted, and not just in a physical sense. There was little that Gunther could do for them except to steel them as much as possible for whatever might come.

“I am sorry… very sorry,” Gunther then said to them, in a low and gentle voice.

Walking slowly past the broken segments of palisade at the entrance, Logan, in a brooding silence, looked around at what remained of the village. He was not alone, as many had begun to return to The Place of Far Seeing to search through its ruins.

Others from villages in the near vicinity had begun to arrive. For the most part, they were fellow members of the Onan tribe, some of the men with blood ties that resided in other villages due to a marriage. Logan’s gut clenched as he saw the shocked, horrified looks sprout upon their faces, as the new arrivals set their eyes for the first time upon the interior of the village.

The morning’s light had arrived following the devastating events of the previous evening. Instead of bringing a sense of hope, it nakedly revealed the full extent of the monstrous horrors that had been mercifully hidden by the night’s shrouding darkness. The sources of countless miseries, shattered dreams, and heavy burdens were brought into the unyielding light of that pitiless dawn. The destruction was spread everywhere that anyone could possibly look.

The crushed, collapsed shambles of former longhouses now littered the village interior. Gaping holes had been ripped in the sides of short segments that were still erect, though much had been consumed by the sporadic fires that had been loosed by the sprawling violence.

Numerous bodies lay amid the wreckage, still awaiting removal. The rubble from the boulders that had been dropped down upon them in the night was strewn everywhere, from large, jagged chunks to smaller fragments, whose sharp edges made Logan careful about where he stepped.

The presence of the rocks caused Logan to reflexively wince nearly every time that he saw one of the badly misshapen corpses upon the ground. He knew full well the brutality with which the contorted, broken villagers had met their ends.

A deeply forlorn and sorrowful assemblage of sights surrounded him. His eyes hardened in anger and regret as he saw some of the village women cradling the crushed bodies of their children or husbands, shaking with sobs and piercing the air with their sporadic wails.

Some children were crying in agony amid the ruins of the village, several newly created orphans just realizing that their parents would never again be there to comfort them. An infant wailed from somewhere off to his left, drawing Logan’s attention. He saw that it was just now being pulled out from the lifeless arms of the mother who had used her own body to shield her baby, saving its life.