9.6

Iwik was proud, he had gotten through the entire day without dropping a single seed of wheat in gleaning this harvest.

The hungry summer was coming to an end. Everyone would be finishing the harvest in maybe another five days and then they would dance the carola. It had been an exciting spring and summer.

More riders made their way going east and west than Iwik had ever seen any other year. One of them even traded his horse with the headman for Thistlejump! He’d paid silver on top of leaving a horse that, beside the exhaustion from running at a full gallop, was still hale as ever.

The poor thing just needed some grain and to be taken care of for a few days, and the mare was already almost as hearty as Thistlejump had been!

He was just making sure another bundle of wheat head was properly tied off and secured in its basket when he noticed a few strange men coming out of the woods.

That was odd, but there had been a lot of travelers.

He was just getting back into position to start bundling but Da, Uncle Jirzy and Uncle Jagel both had stopped in their work with the sickles.

Iwik looked ahead to see why.

More men were emerging from the forest, coming along the road but also arriving from the woods like hunters.

But their bows were drawn even as they came into the fallow fields and pasture lands.

Da spun on his heel and grabbed Iwik firmly on the shoulder and gave him a heavy shake.

“Iwik! Run home. Get your Mother and Sisters. Tell them to flee to the hide in the woods.”

The tone in his father’s voice was scared, his eyes wide. What was going on?!

“Wha? Da what’s”

“Run Boy! Those are Soldiers! They’re going ta take everything! Run to your mother and sisters, run and yell, tell everyone!”

Iwik had never heard his da sounding so frightened in his life.

Da spun his son around hard and then shoved him in the small of his back so forcefully it nearly put him face first into the ground.

But he got his feet under him, and Iwik was fast. It was not long ago he still was given the duty of harrowing during Birdbane and he preferred running with a switch branch over throwing stones.

He ran and he saw the rest of the men running with him.

Running and shouting.

“Raid! Raiders! Raiders in the Fields!”

And then he heard a sound that he had never heard before.

Sometimes, from the cliffs and sky you would hear eagles.

Sometimes, you hear wolves crying out from the woods.

Sometimes, you hear other things, like the scream of an elk.

This was louder than all of them, and more horrible.

It shook his heart in his chest with the sheer booming sound of it.

It came and then he felt a sudden roaring wind rush up around him, stronger than any storm he had ever felt. The blow of it lifted him clear off his feet. Tossed him into the air and as he was tumbling over he spotted the howling shape roaring ahead of him. The wind following behind it bowled over the men and boys trying to run.

Like a wide black arrowhead. Frayed at the edges with hints of feathers. But there and gone back into the sky before he could properly say what it was.

Wings?

Like a Chicken?

Or a Raven?

But one with wings wider than even a lord’s charger was long.

It was already gone and past the entire village, all the fields in the time it took Iwik to finish falling to the ground.

He tumbled like you did falling from a cart or a tree. Rolling with it lest you break your bones or head.

The dry earth, cut stalks of wheat and small stones dug into the skin of his arms where the sleeves were too short.

Ma had promised he’d have a new shirt this fall. She’d been working on the thread for it all last winter with his sisters and babcia.

A hand grabbed him suddenly around the collar of his shirt and before he could even finish getting his legs back from under him his dad was running alongside him. His taller stride made it hard to even get his footing back as he was pulled along.

“Fool boy! Run! Get your mother and sisters and GO! Don’t look back, just Run and Hide! They are here!”

He did not ask who they were.

Babcia spoke of it in winter. Some summers soldiers would come and it did not matter who they were.

As soon as he was able to get to his feet he was already running away from his father, not even stopping to brush the dirt and rocks from his forearms.

The scrapes from wheat straw stung his cheeks but he threw arms and legs ahead of him as hard as he could.

Behind him he heard screaming of his uncles and the neighbors. He heard cruel words in the voices of strangers.

But Iwik did not pause now. He ran, like boar and wolves were coming down on him, when he heard the terrible howling cry coming from his left he knew what was coming and ducked into the shelter of Uncle Jagel’s shed before the wind came.

He got a better look of the black wedge of midnight feathers as they swept by overhead. Saw a few of his neighbors that had not found shelter thrown to the ground by the terrible wind in its passing.

As soon as the torrent fell away he was running again towards home. His throat was burning as he yelled.

Voice joining that of the others, men that he knew were brave when it came to driving wolves from their goat herds strained sharp and high with terror.

All of them were the same in their fear.

“Soldiers!”

“Raiders!”

“Gryphon!”

The last one he quickly learned meant that another terrible cry was coming from the air. That he needed to take shelter in the lee of something.

Before it’s passing tumbled by in another gale.

The looser thatch was being ripped from the roofs of houses all around him by this wind.

Straw scattered in its wake like the hay harvest came again.

Everyone was running and fleeing for home or already sprinting for the tree lines away from the soldiers.

All but one man.

One of the hunters was coming up from a crouch from where he had sheltered from the gale and was stringing his bow.

The shout of “Gryphon” and then another terrible cry set both Iwik and the man to duck into their shelter.

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When it passed though the hunter was ready.

He was drawing an arrow and taking aim for the sky.

He was choosing to face the monster that screamed like thunder and whose passing was a storm.

No one else was making a stand, and Iwik could not help but crouch frozen as he watched.

There was fury to the man’s face. He was someone strange, only come to their village last winter. Iwik’s Ma and Da told him to keep clear of the man.

Hunters that wander from town to town were not to be trusted.

But here he was standing tall and drawing arms while all of them were running.

Like a Hero from a story.

Like a Knight there to slay the monster in one of the ballads that Ma didn't want him to listen to when travelers were telling tales and singing songs for bread and board.

He drew his bow, ready to take aim and then was letting loose an arrow. He did not wait like a hunter to spot a hit.

Already he was drawing another and trying to take aim.

Iwik braced to run but he was transfixed on the man with a bow aiming to the sky. Ready to see a hero slay the beast like all the stories said they would.

But two arrows were loosed and then-

There was no howl this time, there was no cry to warn from where the monster was coming.

There was silence and then blinding dirt and sand tearing through the middle of town.

Instead of simply loose thatch being torn from the roofs, entire sides of them were stripped bare of straw and some of the thinner supports underneath snapped and flew free of their bindings.

Sailing into the air above him like spears.

Sheets of straw flying into the wind like a careless scythe big as the sky had made a harvest of the village’s roofs.

Before he even realized it was happening he was tossed in the air by that wind.

It threw Iwik up from his crouch and then back to the ground, he heard screams and cracks of bones against wood and rock from others caught in it.

The wind was knocked out of him from hitting his back before tumbling over onto his side and lying still. Left stunned and gasping helplessly.

He heard the sound of torn timbres and wooden supports from houses landing and sometimes the landings were wet and paired with cries of pain or worse silence.

He saw people thrown against the walls of their homes all around where the man that he thought would be a hero had stood. But he had been thrown onto his side looking away.

He struggled to fill his lungs, to regain the precious air, but he could not pull any but the shallowest breaths.

There had been an awful wet sound and a splash. It was like a sound from the butcher when an oxen was set to slaughter. But far too loud.

So much louder and harsher by far.

When Iwik finally could breath a full chest worth he stumbled back to his feet shaking his head, his ears feeling off kilter and his legs wobbly he could see where the strange hunter had taken aim against the monster.

Half of him was still there.

Legs thrown out and askew as if he had fallen.

It was almost comical.

It was like his boots, leggings and tunic had just been tossed to the ground in a way Ma would have berated Iwik for.

But it was not clothes lying there.

It was legs, still in boots and cloth.

At the waist was a ugly tangle of red and purple and pale flesh with hints of bone.

Spread out like spilled milk from a turned over pail was the dark muddy color of blood in the road.

It seemed like far too little blood for half of a strong man.

The other half of the hunter was nowhere to be seen. His bow was a good twenty feet along the road and snapped in two the string loose and coiled up between the two halves.

People were still screaming, the same words as before.

“Soldiers!”

“Raiders!”

“Gryphon!”

He did not realize that he was screaming too until he was throwing open his own home’s door.

The thatch he had watched his Da and uncles work this spring on repairing was stripped to the rafters on the side that had faced the hunter and his stand against the monster.

The thinner wood that supported the bound straw had been torn loose of the ties that were meant to hold them together and hung or had fallen loose on the floor already.

Some were gone entirely.

He rushed into the house but Ma and his sisters were gone, the door was ajar, bundles were missing but furniture and spindles and the other tools for housework were left on the ground or table.

The house was empty.

Were they gone?

Were they dead?!

It took him long shocked minutes staring at his empty home with the morning light shining into it before he realized what it actually meant.

They weren’t gone.

Not like the hunter was.

Torn apart and away by a black horror sweeping down from the sky silently or screaming in vicious glee to scatter them like spooked sheep.

They did what Da told Iwik to warn them to do.

They Ran.

They Hid.

He was pretty sure where they would be found.

Every family had a hide in the woods.

Some of his friends made extra ones just for themselves away from the usual family ones.

Secret places everyone needed.

Somewhere you’d be safe if there were monsters in the village.

Monsters.

He shook himself down and prepared to join them in the woods, he would find their special hide away and they would meet up with Da and Uncle Jirzy and Uncle Jagel.

He just had to run to the woods. As he turned in the doorway to make deeds of this thoughts-

“Gotcha!”

Iwik screamed and nearly wet himself!

Only realizing it was human hands on his shoulders kept him from pissing in fright.

A stranger had grabbed him from behind and before he could squirm away they spun him around and lifted him up. Pinning his arms to his sides then planting him hard enough his heels were sore, jerking his wrists behind his back.

And then there was a man in front of him.

He looked like some of the guards from the lord up in the hills that sometimes came around to inspect them or receive reports on the quality of the harvest.

He had leather with a glint of metal like one. Also like some of the riders that passed by, but he wore different colors then the ones that had been riding through.

He had a helm, but his face and eyes were there clear as can be. The steel guard making his nose seem crueler than Iwik ever remembered such being.

Or was that just the glare and the hungry light to him as he looked him dead in the eye.

“Now then, boy. You're gonna tell us where the rest of ya family has smuggled themselves and their goods off too.”

There was a smile there that was anything but friendly as he leaned in close. His breath smelled awful and sour. Like old goats milk and boiled marrow.

Outside and behind him there were very familiar voices, neighbors, friends and family. Iwik knew their voices.

They were screaming, they were crying, there were wet heavy sounds and grunts and cries of pain.

There was another terrible howling cry from the monster far away in the sky.

His breath was coming in rapid gasps and pants. His head felt light.

A slap of leather across his face shook him out of it and forced tears to his eyes.

“Hey there! None of that, boy! You need to focus here and now. It’s Important, you see?”

The same leather clad hand grabbed his chin and turned Iwik to face the awful sharp-eyed man with his stinking breath. Matching the boy’s eyes to his.

“We need a bit of cooperation, you see, we need a bit of food and such is all. Weary travelers, all us soldiers. But you all always go and hide it. But I ain’t mad about that, none you worry.”

There was a solemn nod and again a smile that Iwik could not see as anything but ugly.

“That’s understandable, isn't that right, Ulrik?”

The one holding his arms behind his back spoke above him with a far younger voice than the man in front of him that looked like a guard.

The hands on his wrist and arms were not gloved but they still felt coarse, like they did proper labor.

“Yeah, sir, it's what I’d have done if I was back home and some men marched in like this. What my ma told me you do.”

And the awful man nodded.

“So you see boy, we know how it is, but it is how it is. We all gotta eat, after all. So here is how I’ll make it easy for ya.”

He leaned in close and smiled, his breath was just so awful.

“You are gonna tell us where your family keeps their special stashes, and then we will let you go and run and hide in the woods after. Or else... well food will be tight you see.”

Iwik tried to shake his head but the man’s grip tightened hard enough to hurt his jaw.

“Now, again none of that boy I’m trying to save ya here. Ya see if food is tight we will have to make do with what we have here boy. And well for the most part that’s just you and I just don’t like having a boy’s blood on my hands.”

And then he said something that made Iwik actually lose control of his piss and wet himself.

“The Gryphons get mighty hungry ya see.”