It was a massacre... A massacre. A massacre. Lucien’s words rang through her mind for a long time. Even when everyone had left the meeting room, she was still sitting there in stunned silence. With a pale face, she realised how stupid her words were. Help? How could I possibly help with this?
She sat there hugging her knees beneath the staircase that led to the attic. She didn’t even know what to think after hearing all that. Her head was sore from when she hit it, and a welt had already started to form, but she ignored it.
Maybe I should’ve just stayed at home. Her mood was dampened, and she no longer wanted to try and help. She knew it wasn’t something she could do anyway. Her father probably wouldn’t even be able to handle it, so how could she?
Maybe they were all right? Was I pushing too hard? She began to think back on how she had been acting. She had messed up, and she would admit that. It was no wonder that the adults wouldn’t want her help when it was anything serious. I should just stick to learning from my father and helping people run errands.
Having lost all motivation, she snuck back out the window, scaled down the wall, and climbed back into her room. She sat there on her bed staring blankly at the wall, thinking about everything that had happened recently.
~
Leaving the town hall, Lucien followed behind Paul. He didn’t visit Haderfield too often, so he didn’t know his way around the place too well. “I’ve already got enough supplies to last me a while. Just take me to a horse and I’ll be off.”
“You don’t want to stay and rest at all?” Paul asked in concern.
Lucien looked up at the sun and saw that it was still morning. “I can still make good time if I leave now. Who knows, maybe I’ll make it to the next village before nightfall.”
Paul saw his determination and knew that he couldn’t convince him to stay, even for a little bit. “Okay. Just make sure to take care of yourself. I don’t want to see you drop dead before you even make it to the next village.”
“I’ll be fine. You have my word,” Lucien said.
“Just, try and rest every once in a while, okay?”
Paul brought Lucien to a stable where there were a few horses currently being fed by a stable hand. “These horses belong to the town and are trained for sending long-distance messages between villages and towns. They are generally quite easy to get along with, but I’d suggest spending some time to find the best one for you.” Paul left Lucien with the horses and went to go work things out with the stable hand.
Lucien knew that Paul was using this as an excuse to get him to rest and relax for a moment. But he also knew that it was a good suggestion nonetheless, so he went along with it.
There were four horses currently housed in this stable, enjoying their meal. There was a village to the west, bordering the plains of the Wulfric clan, that was well known for their horses. Wesley went through a lot of effort to get these four horses from there, deeming them well worth the expense despite the mayor’s complaints.
Lucien didn’t know too much about horses, so he wasn’t sure what breed they all were. He could only make his decision by intuition and interacting with each of them.
Three of the horses were bay-coloured, while the other was chestnut-coloured. Other than that, they all looked somewhat similar to each other, with only a few differences. Clearly they were related to each other to some degree.
Their heights ranged from thirteen to fifteen hands tall, with one of the bay-coloured horses being the tallest.
Lucien grabbed some of their food and went about feeding each of them one by one. When he was done feeding one, he would run his hand through its mane and study the creature closely. He looked each of them in the eye, wanting to get an idea of how they were thinking and their personalities.
The shortest of the four horses, also bay-coloured, was more playful. It had even nibbled lightly on his hand when he was feeding it.
They all seemed to be quite easy-going and docile, which was to be expected. They had to travel long distances, potentially even over challenging terrain, so things would be difficult if they were temperamental. They had to be willing to do such stamina-heavy and intensive work.
One of the horses in particular caught his eye. It seemed calmer than the rest. It gave Lucien the feeling that he could trust it to carry him far. Its appearance didn’t stand out at all. It was the third bay-coloured horse, was right in between the others in terms of height, and didn’t look as strong as the chestnut horse. But it felt more reliable than the others did.
He felt he could put his trust in this creature. Lucien trusted his instincts, and decided that this horse would be the one. But he still had to check with it to see if it was willing to join him.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He asked for permission from the stable hand to let it out of the stable, and upon being allowed to, guided the horse around the connected paddock, holding onto its lead and walking by its side. He took it for a casual and slow stroll to give it time to familiarise itself with him. It was a very relaxing and peaceful moment, for both him and the horse.
Paul had, at some point, left, but came back carrying a few things when Lucien had finished walking around. He had gathered all of the necessary riding equipment that Lucien would need for the journey, and helped him put it all on the horse.
Stepping back with a sigh, Paul looked at Lucien one more time. “Are you sure you don’t want to rest for a day?”
Lucien hopped up into the horse’s saddle. It was a little bit of a struggle getting up with only one arm, as he wasn’t able to get as much support as he would have liked. But in the end, he still managed to do it, even if it wasn’t as quick and easy as he would have liked. I should practice this when I have the time. Who knows what I’m going to have to deal with?
“There’s no need for that. I’ll be heading off now. Stay safe my friend.” He nodded at Paul while double checking that his satchel was firmly attached and wouldn’t fall off while he was riding.
“I should be the one telling you that. Take care.” Paul waved him off as Lucien rode down the road and towards the northern exit to the village.
~
Lynn had spent a while in a daze in her room, staring up at the ceiling. Her mind was still reeling from what she had overheard. It was only when she heard the sound of footsteps approaching that she was snapped out of her daze.
The footsteps stopped out the front of her door and were followed by the sound of someone knocking. Her mother’s voice came from the other side of the door.
“Your father needs your help with something, he said to meet him at the south entrance.”
She perked up hearing that, and immediately got out of bed. She slapped her cheeks to fire herself up. “He actually wants my help.”
She rushed past her mother and raced out the door, running straight for the south entrance to the village. After a moment of excitedness, she calmed down and began feeling nervous. This was a big thing for her. This was her chance to prove herself and finally cast aside what everyone was saying about her.
But it was also way too big for her. She didn’t think she could help defend the village at all, especially after hearing what happened to Locham. Yes, when the time came, she would still pick up her sword and fight to defend her people like her father taught her to. But she was way out of her depth for anything beyond that.
She slowed down to a hurried walk. She was nervous. Nervous for herself, and nervous for her village. They had never faced anything like this before. They knew next to nothing about their enemy.
How many people they had. What weapons they used. How strong they were. The villagers knew very little about that. All they had to go off was the stories spread by travelling merchants. And that only made her more scared and worried.
What if I mess up? What if I mess up so bad that everyone dies? She started getting inside her own head. Her father had called her out to help and she immediately put all the pressure on her own shoulders.
She saw her father standing there in a group with a few of the other guards, discussing something while looking at the entrance. When she got closer, she was able to hear what they were saying.
“We might not have the time to create proper defences. We don’t know when or if they are going to attack us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try and prepare ourselves,” said Wesley. He then began delegating tasks for everyone to follow through with.
Some rushed off to inform the other guards who were either on duty or resting. One went off to have a conversation with the blacksmith. The last two were to scout the surrounding area to the south for any signs of the bandits. They knew the urgency of this matter, so they rushed down the south road.
Wesley was left alone to figure out how they could shore up their defences. He turned around at the sound of footsteps and nodded. “Good, you’re here. I need you to go and hand this to Edna at the sawmill.” He handed her a handwritten request for lumber with his signature on it. “Also, get the carpenter and his team here. I need their opinion on something.”
He sent her off with a wave of his hand and went back to mumbling to himself while surveying the scene.
She wanted to say something, but hesitated. Sighing, she turned around and ran to the carpenter’s house to the northwest, which was closer and on the same side of the village as the sawmill. She wanted to help out more. She wanted to do more than just run errands and deliver letters.
But, she also knew this was for the best. This was a serious matter, and the stakes were far higher than they were before. So she settled for doing this job. And doing it well. “Do this, and maybe there’ll be more for me to do,” she whispered to herself as she raced through the streets.
It wasn’t long before she reached the carpenter’s house where she luckily found Huxley inside. He was an old man of a similar age to Paul, but was still physically fit and strong enough to do heavy manual labour.
Both men were apprenticed under the same man when they were younger. But while Paul dedicated himself to making smaller and more dextrously adept works, Huxley went the route of building larger things, like fences and the frameworks for houses.
Him and his team of builders would be instrumental in creating a defensive line as quickly as possible.
After passing off the message to him and seeing him start to gather his men, she continued to the sawmill. While the carpenter’s house was close to the village centre, just to a couple streets away from her house, the sawmill was further out and on the northwestern edge of the village.
This was because the sawmill had to be placed on the river, which flowed roughly south to north and acted as a natural line of defence, protecting the western side of the village.
Running there, she was slightly out of breath now, but managed to find Edna outside and handed the note to her. She was relieved at completing the tasks quickly, and decided to stop by the bakery to get something for her father.
Standing outside the bakery, wondering what to get him, she spotted Lucien saddling a horse off in the distance. Seeing him awkwardly climb into the saddle, a thought raced through her mind as she quickly purchased a loaf of bread and ran back down south.