This Day of Blood

Trigger Warning:  Assault, gore and violence

This day started out like any other but when it ended I was covered in blood.

The attack came so suddenly that at first I thought it was a simple Tavern brawl that had gotten out of hand.  I was in the kitchen preparing the stew for the dinnertime run when I heard shouting and crashing from the bar.  From experience I knew to stay out of brawls.  Stephen will handle it and one of the bar girls will come in to tell me when it’s safe again. 

I continued to methodically prepare the vegetables when I heard a scream from outside.  I froze for a second thinking I must have misheard but then a crash resounded outside.  I ran to the door and tried to push it open but it would only move a couple of inches.  Then a bloody hand flopped through the crack onto the floor.  There was something terribly wrong.  Now that the door was open I could smell the harsh scent of something burning.  I knew instantly it wasn’t a wood fire.  The aroma was distinctly metallic.

I ran back through the kitchen and slowly peeked out of the door leading to the bar.  The bar room was in shambles.  The few patrons who had been quietly enjoying a beer were all dead and lying in puddles of their own blood.  Stephen the barman was lying to the right of the door with an axe imbedded so deeply in his face it was practically in two.  A man covered in armour was standing over him trying to pull the axe swearing loudly.  I could hear faint crying and when I looked up again I saw Mary the barmaid kneeled over in the middle of the room her face bleeding.  She was being held by the hair by a man who was grinning wickedly and talking to another soldier.

Suddenly I heard him shout, “Marcus go look in the back to see if there’s anyone else.”

I quickly shut the door and went back to my cutting board.  There was no time to hide or run.  I continued to cut up my vegetables.  It seemed like barely a second had passed and he had opened the door.  Without turning I said, “Another brawl huh?  It’s almost like it’s every week these days.”  I desperately hoped he couldn’t hear the slight tremble in my voice.  I could hear his footsteps tap on the floor as he walked toward me.  Out of the corner of my eye I could see him reflected in the window his axe raised to strike.

At the last second I dodged to the side and the axe came smashing down on the bench.  With desperation I stabbed the kitchen knife into his neck and tried to slice cleanly through.  It got stuck halfway as the blade was dull and I was stuck trying to tug it out of his skin whilst the blood gushed out onto my hands.  As he collapsed his hands grabbed at me and he ended up clinging to my apron.  I frantically worked the ties behind my back apart and lifted the apron off.  As I let go he dropped down to the ground with a thud.

I wiped the blood of my hands onto my skirt.  I abandoned the kitchen knife in his throat and picked up another before I headed toward the window.  I pushed it open and looked out nervously.  The alleyway behind the tavern had a couple of dead bodies but it looked as though the soldiers had already moved on.  I squeezed out and as I hit the ground I heard a shout behind me.  Looking back I could see another of the soldiers had come through the tavern door. 

I could hear screams and sounds of struggle far away to my right so I ran down the alleyway to my left jumping over bodies and debris.  They must have tried to go through the door as I’d reached the end of the alleyway when I heard them smash through the window.  The small street was empty so I darted across, went up to alleys and down the third running as fast as I could.  As I neared the end of the alley I heard a deafening smash behind me so I was looking behind me when I ran out into the street. 

I ended up barrelling into a young soldier who was escorting the baggage train.  I knocked him off his feet and I fell to the ground.  In moments we were both back on our feet.  He put one hand on the hilt of his sword and held the other out toward me.  He said, “If you let me take you prisoner on my honour you will not be harmed.”  His face was kind and simple.  He didn’t look scary like the other soldiers.  He only seemed slightly older than me and simple enough to be townsfolk. 

I took a step toward him when I heard a scream behind me, “Don’t let that bitch get away!  She killed a soldier!”

The kind looking soldier lunged for me and I darted away.  I ran wildly down the road.  I dodged into one alleyway then another.  The bodies, the buildings and the fires all started to blend together in a dirty mix of brown, red and black.  The sounds of my pursuers were getting fainter behind me and I shot out of the town into the forest. 

I kept running through the undergrowth, changing directions and crazily choosing first this path then the next.  My breath was starting to labour.  As a cook I’m not used to running of any sort and I was quickly tiring.  I spotted a familiar tree that I could hide behind and dove into the undergrowth at it’s based.  I willed my breath to slow and focused on breathing silently.

Suddenly a face popped out from the underbrush to my left.  He was dressed in hunter’s leathers and he held a finger to his lips.  He crept into the underbrush next to me motioning that there was someone coming.  I closed my eyes and just as he had motioned I could hear the soldiers working through the undergrowth. 

Forest 10 by Octopus https://octo-pus.deviantart.com/art/Forest-10-326177302

In the next instant they were there, cursing and cutting at the forest around them.  “Where did that ugly bitch go?” the one who saw me escape the kitchen said.  Another soldier who I hadn’t seen before replied, “I saw her go in this direction.  How far could a kitchen wench in skirts really get?”  I looked at the hunter and he silently shook his head.  I agreed the soldiers would probably outmatch him but I was fighting with my instinct not to run.  I desperately wanted to be away from these soldiers and the death they brought with them.

A long moment passed and the soldiers were past us heading further into the woods.  I let my breath out and turned to find the hunter holding a piece of rope.  He put his finger to his lips again and motioned to borrow my knife.  I frowned at him and he made a cutting motion on top of the rope. I wasn’t sure what he wanted but he was motioning toward the soldiers and drew a knife across his throat.  I handed him the knife.

He grabbed the knife and his eyes suddenly grew cold and his smile sinister.  He threw the knife behind me and in a swift motion grabbed my wrists and bound them together.  With the confidence of a trained woodsman it took him mere moments and my arms were completely incapacitated.  He stood up and pulled me out of the brush by the rope.  As I looked behind me my knife lay painfully out of reach in the dirt.

The hunter shouted, “Cal!  Horace!  I think I found your mouse!”

I shrieked, “No!  Don’t!” and desperately tried to pull away but the arms holding the rope had muscles like coiled rope.  The soldiers quickly made their way back and one of them slapped me hard in the face.  The hunter stepped in front of me and punched him back hard.  The grunt went down and the hunter said, “Who said that you could damage my property?”

The grunt held his chin when he was punched and said, “But you said you found our mouse?”  The hunter replied with a superior smile, “I did but I never said I was giving her to you.”  The hunter knelt down beside me and took my face in his hand.  He said, “Little mouse I am your new master and you will call me such.  You did well to get this far but you have truly appalling luck.”

He stood up and pulled me along roughly. I was exhausted from running but he kept a back breaking pace.  We exited the woods and entered back into the town.  He quickly marched me all the way to the town centre where it appears most of the remaining town folk had been gathered.  Mary was there cowering and bloody.  She looked up at me with dead eyes as though she no longer recognised my face.

My new master pulled me past the crowd and walked up to an important looking knight.  My master threw me down at the knight’s feet and said, “Little brother I encountered the five wizards escaping through the forest.”  He held out his hand.  Five snarled and bloody blobs of flesh rested on his hard.  On closer inspection I could just make out an earring.  The knight replied, “I’m glad your plan to flush them out worked so successfully.”  He looked down at me and made a disgusted expression.  He asked, “What is that?”

My master chuckled and replied, “This is my new toy.  She managed to avoid all the soldiers and made it out into the forest where I was hunting the wizards.”  The knight said, “Do what you wish.  I couldn’t care either way.”  The knight turned away and headed towards the gathered townsfolk.  As I watched him walk away I caught the eye of the kind looking knight who I met earlier.  He looked at my master holding the rope and back at me.  I’ll never forget his eyes at that moment.  They were filled with horror, revulsion and pity. 

My stomach turned and as I looked up to my master wickedly grinning at the spectacle of my ruined home burning in the twilight I realised that I had made an incredibly bad mistake.