The road seemed to split; it divided into three directions at its epicenter, each path seemingly endless in its journey. A pine forest surrounded the road, the tall trees covering light and sound from the outside world. The greenish surroundings were filled with tiny creatures, speckles of light, and eerie beautiful silence covered the area like a blanket.
Pebbles began to shake above the ground, accompanied with the stomping of horses and the shouts of men. At the entrance of the undergrowth, there was a silhouette of a carriage bursting across the trodden path, two horses pulling it forward as the coachman whipped them with a frightened face. Inside the carriage was a well-built man, a rugged face with a scar across his eye; he had chainmail covering his body and a sword hanging over his shoulder. Beside the man was a five-year-old boy, his hair covered his eyes, but it couldn’t hide his ruddy chubby cheeks. The man clenching tightly in his hand pulled the boy’s hand close to him, and dropped a flat metal; it was the common currency across the kingdom, a single golden Guilder that lay in the boy’s palm.
The boy looked up, seemingly confused as to what he was given, he stuttered and said: “Whattt iz thiz, Zuuuu-rik?”
Surik looked at the boy, tears welling up in his eyes, he hugged him tightly in his stocky arms. He said quietly whispering into the ear of the boy, “Little Lord, no matter the hardship, never forget how to smile.” He stood up, walking towards the carriage-door, opening it without looking back and jumping out of it. He rolled across the ground; the brunt of the impact distributed to his body, and then he stood up slowly drawing his sword. The coachman didn’t stop, he didn’t look back, and instead, he merely grunted as he whipped the horses to move faster.
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Within the carriage, a coin shined in the palm of his hand, the boy’s head sweeping throughout the carriage, he started to shout in panic “Zuuurik, wez are you!, whez are you!”. He started to fumble around the carriage, tears dripping down his rosy cheeks.
In the far off distance, an army of horses appeared, men with spears in their hands hurrying forward to the forest. A man in the front, a halberd in his arm, he scrunched his eyes to see the shape of a man holding a sword. He roared a deafening war cry, which echoed across the horsemen trailing behind him, pulling them faster towards to the lone figure.
Surik looked up at the vast empty sky, tinged with yellow marks, and flat clouds that filled the horizon. His bulky outline blocking the entrance to the forest, in an amused tone he said: “I didn’t expect to live this long, but damn I don’t want to die.” He looks straight at the raging horsemen rushing towards him, humorously he said “An old man like me against a whole battalion; If only it was twenty years earlier, they all be children and I’d be five times their size. I’d like my odds then.” Turning his head around, he couldn’t see or hear the carriage anymore, with a satisfied grin he began to charge forward with his sword pointing towards the carnage waiting for him.