My breath sounded, everyone more painful than the last, as the whitening air rose towards the blue sky, like the flaming grey towers, that crept and stretched, gashed by the day's bombardment. The taste of iron, and the ringing in my ears permeated. The cold cobbles ate through my uniform, causing my bones to ache with the chill. Seconds felt like hours, a weak smile creeping across my face, as the pain in my abdomen stabbed at my ribs and leg. With one final push, I deftly grabbed at my red soaked pistol, raising it in front of me the trigger answered with a small click, before it clattered in front of me. I closed my eyes, the smile now tugging at my cheeks, as the shifting of heavy armour, and the shouting of insults came from the helmet beyond my eyelids. Followed by a cry....
“RICHOLD!” it echoed, words passing over the barren treetops, shattering my stupor.
I jumped up, brushing away the remnants of water and dew from my cloak, eating my last bit of bread and jerky, starting to jog back to the house.
I made my way down the small hill, almost sliding with the mud clinging to my shins, walking back through the sea of branches that like bare black fingers, stretched to reach the rising sun above. It honed into view, a small fence and beyond, the house, an almost cobbled together bunch of wooden planks and logs with 2 stout stone chimneys rising from each end of its rectangular shape.
The clank of the axe felt heavy as I readied the next log, I heard the creak of the back door, and my sister glided out before me. A mix of black and almond hair, combined with fair white skin and deep emerald eyes. she smiled, humming a simple tune. she started to hang washing on the drying line. I pulled my eyes away from the painting before me, shaking my head and slamming the axe into the next log. She continued to hum, ever so softly, her large dress, slightly gaping with a sudden gust of wind. She finished, dancing towards the door, basket in hand.
“oh” she exclaimed, backing out of the house with her empty basket.
“Father wanted you to go into town to buy the usual for the forge”
She smiled once more, making me chuckle as I Knock the axe back into the log, the handle falling slightly.
“The money is on the side” a gleeful remark came, fading into the house.
After, picking up the few bent copper and iron coins, I start making the trek into town.
The way was muddy, my sodden shoes digging into the dirt, and requiring focused effort just to pull them out again, I spy the hills around me, mist covering their dew-soaked sides. A seeming darkness covered the area with the sun struggling to break through the thick cloud. As I continued cursing my soaked feet, the world around me only got steeper. leaving the mist behind, the mountains in the distance came into view, their snow-covered peaks, and glaciers chilling the air.
I heard it before I saw it, a stretch of huts surrounding a feeble stone wall, that clambered like old wood stairs up the hills. The sound of business and jeering echoed through the streets. I approached the gate, the guards not batting an eye against the small line of feebly clad travellers and peasants. Just inside, another wall made of flesh and rotting breath, the constant sounds of feet on the trodden mud, the shouting salesman and stores, I had to force my way through to the other side.
Now the way was lined precariously with hastily built wooden homes, covered in scrapings of mud and refuse, limp signs hung from crooked planks that stooped over their doors. At the end of the road, an opening into the hill like a fissure torn with pickaxe ripped into its side. I heard constant shouting and ordering echoing from its dimly lit depths, over the constant clanking of metal on stone. Outside a number of tents and structures, with heaps of large sodden planks that littered the floor like rabbit droppings. In one corner of the makeshift circle stood a stall with a heap of dirtied bars that sometimes shone in the weak winter sun.
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“I need 5 bars” I said putting a variety of coins on the table.
“3 crowns” the man croaked, looking me in the one good eye, the other a fettered mass of red and leaking yellow. His face was coarse and bumpy, with one scarred hand he cleared the various coins on the table counting.
“7 shillings” I answered
“7 shillings and 9 p’nce” he added crossing his arms and hacking twice into his shoulder.
I cautiously put the remaining bent coins on the table and counted the bars, placing them into my sack, and beginning the walk back home.
“You did that quick” I heard a voice chuckle as I burst through the back door, wincing as I put the bag on the ground.
“Come on get those bars on the rack and then I'm sure your mother will treat you to lunch”
He took my hand with a slight grin, a mound of brown hair and blue eyes, slowly sorting through the sack and scraping the gunge to reveal the shine.
“I've gotten used to that path” I answered
“Burchard came by while you were away” he said, stopping for but a moment
“He wants a few new knives”
“But you made a set for him, just a few months ago?”
“he’s been training his son, apparently he made a real hack of one of Leoric’s pigs”
“ahhh, Neville, I bet Leoric was not happy with the result as well”
“Yeah, he went on wroth right there in the butchers, scared Neville white he did”
“How much can I use?” I asked
“Enough, just make sure you do not go through the batch you just bought” he said resting a rough hand on my shoulder, retiring to the door in the corner of the room.
Your mother will call for you once the stew is ready, I'll be off down the tavern” he said slowly shutting the door
“Oh, and please try not to burn the place down while I'm out” he said, with a following creek and click of the lock
I started to shovel coal into the fire, a small pain in my head, slowly started to grip, throbbing and stinging, like the pricking of a long spined finger into my skull. The pain began to become excruciating, as I dropped the shovel of coal in my hands with a loud clang. I started to cry and weep, as large drops ran down my cheeks, the stinging had stopped, and now in its place was the feeling of bleeding, seeping, like a sucking of being. My body started to contort and strain, I felt my bones begin to crack and numb. I could no longer cry, nor weep and scream, so that my hoarse voice came out as a whimper.
“I remember”
“I remember.....” I paused, the heat of the forge next to stifling my thoughts, everything seemed hazy, as I staggered, holding my head in my hands. I saw a woman at the door Infront of me, a worried look on her face.
“Richold? Are you alright?” she reached out to me, catching me as I nearly fell to my knees.
“Richold?” I answered, I ran through the events in my mind, the forge, my father, seemingly my mother before me, my sister. No. No no no.
“EIRA!” I heard a familiar voice cry
“Get father Godfrey!” my sister, now poking her head round the door, nodded, scurrying past and out the house.
I just remember sounds and light, the bite of a shovel, the crackle of an explosion, terrifying sounds that echoes through hundreds of miles of the dead and bleeding. The hoarse voice calling and shouting, the watching and waiting as they were no longer. Now a shattered mass of blood and brain where they had once been. The scarred grin on a grey uniform. The mechanical crank of another magazine in the chamber. The cold feeling of steel against my skin.
“I am alright” I said slowly getting to my feet
“I am not sure you are, you look pale”
“I am quite alright I assure you, just the heat of the forge” I picked the shovel back up
“No, I think you should just go to bed,” slowly taking the shovel out of my hands and leading me upstairs to bed.
I looked above me, in the wooden beams above, coated in inky black. This world is odd, I feel the cold of winter, and the heat of the forge, I have memories of these people and yet they are not mine. I pressed my hand against my head. What was it again, trying to recall it was difficult, just a blur, the heated shout of words, the flash of heat, the blue metal flickering in the morning sun.
“that's what happened” I murmured to myself, looking, and moving my hands, extending retracting. I felt it, the wet dripping of water down my face as I slowly started to retract into myself, crying turned into weeping. I do not remember much else, I woke up in the morning surrounded by people I did not know, in a world I did not know. The only knowledge I had is that they were dead, and nothing could bring them back to me.