Alana felt as if she was drawing strength from her dead friends. She ran uphill, hiding from the soldiers as fires blazed over the hay roofs and arrows buzzed by her side.

Her heart pounded like a galloping horse as panic pulsated through every fibre of her soul. It made no sense, the collapse of her world unfolded before her eyes, like a nightmare come true. Left and right, she saw people she had known since childhood, some fighting for their lives with whichever tools they found, many bloodied on the ground, and some, especially women, elderly, and infants kneeling against the walls, cruelly watched over by Imperial soldiers.

What had they done to deserve that?

Badratz had died, and Uncle Jovus, and Atila... And then, left of her, she saw Tor, the mute boy, running away from a soldier with bloodied sword in hand, they passed close to her, near a round house with an intact roof of hay and wood.

Alana screamed out her lungs. “Leave him alone!”

She ran, then grabbed the child's arms, and pulled it, then shielded his body with hers. The boy sobbed by her side, his black hair covering terrified blue eyes.

“Leave him!” she repeated, lifting her chin at the approaching soldier.

“Get out of there, wench!” the soldier snapped, his bloodstained gladius held forward, facing her. The smallpox scars on his face made him more frightening.

“I said leave him!” Alana wrapped her arms around the boy’s head.

“We have orders,” the soldier scoffed, his square face was dark and small-pox beaten. “You let him go if you don't want to be punished. It'd be such a shame to waste you.”

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“Over my dead body!”

“Foolish girl. We will kill him, so stop getting in the way. We must kill all men capable of telling the tale, and this one will talk.”

“Talk? The boy is mute!”

The foot soldier wiped the sweat from his forehead. Then, he laughed like a madman. He stepped out and reached for Alana’s arms, forcing her to let go of Tor, then pushed her to the side. She fell on her elbows and groaned when the rocky path bruised her skin.

“Are you really mute, boy?” the soldier said, grabbing the boy’s face and lifting it up, pushing him against the round wall. “What’s your name, vermin?”

Tor opened his lips, but an unintelligible sound came out.

The soldier lifted his sword menacingly.

“No!” Alana said, stretching her hand.

“Talk, you vermin! Come on, what are you waiting for?”

The soldier pressed the sword against the boy’s neck. Tor panted, turning his head away, Alana cringed when a single drop of blood formed above the tip of the blade.

“Come on, say something or I cut you up slowly!” the soldier growled.

Tor would not speak. He just could not.

Suddenly, the soldier faced her.

“Girl, you know what? I like your bravery. Maybe I want to keep you for myself.”

He glanced back at the boy, clenching his teeth, as if resisting the urge to slice his neck with a flick of his wrist.

“So, we don’t have all day, kid,” he muttered. “Say something. I know it’s in you. Say it in one… two...”

Alana got up silently, on her tiptoes, and grabbed a sharp rock from the road and jumped at the soldier with it, smashing it on his head.

The soldier collapsed forward. He growled furiously and got up, teeth clenched and eyebrows tensed. Anger flashed in his eyes.

“Now you’ll see!”

Alana gasped. She knew she had to run. Her feet responded quickly, and she rushed upward.

“Get back here, Gadalian whore!” the soldier’s rough voice called, and she heard his pounding feet chasing after her. She thought of running into a house, but as she approached one, fire blazed on top and threw fiery ashes beneath. A rider loped in front of her, blocking her path. The horse neighed and rose on two muscular legs.

She stepped back, losing her balance. As she tried to go around it, its armoured rider spurred hard, and the white horse lunged on her, raising clouds of dust and ash. She could not run away and tripped forward. The horse's hooves surrounded her, and she curled her body defensively.

The rider spurred, the horse rose its forward legs, and she rolled out of its way, crawling on her hands and back. She stood up and reached for a passage in between two houses. She raced through it as the flaming roof was collapsing and bathing the ground around with fire.

But it was too late, as the foot soldier dashed out of the other side and lunged at her, pushing her to the ground. She crawled back to the wall, as the man pointed his bloodied sword to her neck. She swallowed and looked up.

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“Up,” the soldier growled. “Up! We don’t have all day!” he said.

“Walerius, what are you doing?” the rider spoke from above. He was way younger than the foot soldier.

The foot soldier turned. The rider glared at him bitterly.

“Get on with the program,” the rider said. “Stop wasting time and bring the girl.”

Alana heard a sound like a foreman’s whip next to her and jumped in fright. The man had struck the ground with his blade, then drawn a line on the ground.

He looked up and spat on the road.

Suddenly, he reached for Alana’s hair and pulled. She screamed, frantically grabbing his arms.

“Come on,” Walerius, the foot soldier, said, facing her with his scarred face. Alana felt his warm breath, it smelled of garlic and cheese. She dared not to breathe to not smell it again. He quickly let go of her hair, and she stepped back, her body against the round wall.

“Get your hands off me!” Alana said.

“Don’t make this any harder,” Walerius said. “From now on, you will behave, or we will not treat you well. Understand? Be a good girl, we’ll treat you right. Be bad, you’ll see what we mean.”

She frowned and looked at him in the eye.

“You’re worse than a monster. You...”

The rider yelled at his comrade.

“Come on, Walerius, everybody’s finished already except you. Here.” The rider took out a rope from the saddle and threw it at him.

Walerius pulled one of Alana’s hands and drew it toward him. She kicked Walerius in the shin, trying to break free.

“Now you do put up a fight.” He rushed to tie the rope around Alana’s wrists, then got up. “Let’s go,” he said, pulling her close.

“We will kill you, just wait until our legionaries come,” Alana said with a frown, pushing her arms away.

“You don’t have to worry about them,” Walerius said.

“Just wait!”

He forced her back into the rocky road, and she looked up at the hill where her roof was now burned to ashes, and a bloodied arm lay nearby, the body hidden by other houses’ walls, its palm up, inert.

She did not need to see her father’s face to know it was him. There was something around his palm, a cloth of red and green. It was the scarf she had weaved during the week.

She looked away and shut her eyes again when he passed through the bodies of people she could recognize. Wailing buzzed through her ears as she wished to shut out the world around her but could not.

Finally, the soldier pulled the rope and let her fall on her knees in the town square. The carriages that had brought the soldiers stood in the middle. Its horses still. A trail of women were sitting on the floor, backs against the carriage or each other.

On the opposite side, a more gruesome sight ensued, and Alana looked away instantly; the bodies of the men of the city were piled against the round walls. All killed by sword and bow. Most of them unarmed. A race of warriors killed when they were the meekest, when they enjoyed time with their families.

“Sit there and wait with the others,” Walerius scoffed.

Alana looked around. She caught a glimpse of Irema. She was sitting, with her back erect, a painful expression on her face and tears coming down.

“Irema!” she said and rushed through the wailing women to sit next to her friend. Irema stared at her, stood up, and wrapped her arms around her. She pressed her face against Alana’s shoulder. The hug became tighter.

“Alana… They killed my fiancé. They killed him,” Irema said into Alana’s shoulder, Alana placed her arm firmly on her back.

“Irema...” Alana shut her eyes, her spirit sank lower and lower, vibrating around her. She did not know what to say. She wanted to be reassuring, she wished to strengthen her friend’s spirit, but her own heart had been torn to pieces. She had also lost her father, though she dared not speak those words. Thinking of what she had just seen hurt to the very core.

“Why...” Irema muttered. “Why?”

“Enough!” She heard a voice, and a soldier pulled them apart. “If you two don’t keep quiet, you’ll see.”

Alana nodded silently and drew her eyes away from her friend’s. She stared at her wrists, now bruised, and sat between the women.

“They killed them all,” a woman next to her whispered. “Why did we even come to this land?” the woman lamented.

Alana shook her head. Her mind raced through possibilities… She fantasized of rising up, all the women standing up at the same time, stealing the soldier’s weapons and using them against them.

She looked around. Not possible.

Women young and old, girls, small boys, a few elderly men, sitting close to each other, awaiting their destiny.

Her heart pounded so loudly she could almost hear it.

Was this really happening?

Father… Was he really gone? She felt as if a stone had settled in her stomach.

And what would happen to them now?

She slid her fingers down through the rocky floor and gripped Irema’s hands tightly.

Suddenly, the captured multitude started to turn their heads toward the road uphill.

There they saw Aranus the Elder stepping out of the shrine escorted by two Itruschian soldiers. His face was pale, almost matching his white beard as if he had seen a ghost, or worse; his village massacred.

As the people fixed their glance on him, he lifted his arms.

One of the guards approached him and spoke into his ear. Aranus turned swiftly and spoke, protesting to his words; then, turned back to the crowd, determined.

“My beloved people...” he said, his voice trembling. Everybody’s glance was fixed on him. “Today…” He cleared his throat.

Alana thought, whatever he was going to say, the guards had forced.

“A day of mourning, a… A consequence for a nefarious plot on which the men...” He paused for a moment.

The guard next to him continued on his behalf.

“On which the men of this village had partaken. And not only here… But Gathians, Hunyars, and the Sons of Wanaz. They have also been dealt with.”

Aranus had lowered his head.

Alana looked at Irena.

“By Ares… What do they want to do with us! They are killing everybody! What did we do?”

“Lies!” said a woman in the crowd, standing up with both fists in the air. A handful of others imitated her.

“Liars!” another woman shouted, as many others accused Aranus of treason. “My husband would never do that,” said another.

A woman grabbed a rock, threatening to throw it but seemed paralyzed. Was it the Elder’s aura? No… They could not harm a man of the gods.

And then, Aranus stepped forward and said in a loud voice:

“Please… I beg of you… Let us comply with the guests who have allowed us here… Until…”

The women protested, and a few rocks did fly in his direction, but failed intentionally.

“Until the Sun of Ares is set upon our stars again, the scourge of giants is raised, and… the sword is found. We shall submit.”

The soldiers stared at each other, in confusion.

Alana understood.

And so could only the ones who knew the legends.