“Run!” Fabien shouted, his voice hoarse and cracking.

The beating of Fabiens heart slammed against his rib cage, his body shook with adrenaline as he ran behind his mother in the dark of night.

The echo of feet on cobstones behind him and his mother urged them on. They grew closer and closer. 

Moonlight fought off the darkness, trying to infiltrate the corners and angles of shadows in the small alleyways of Galeth, a small trading city on the coast south of Landor. 

His mother, Lucille ran in front of him, small gasps and ragged breathing as she slowed in their race against their foes. 

Fabien felt the blood of his Praetorians still wet on his face and dampening the cloth of his shirt. The thing stuck to him, cold now.

His heartbeat echoed in his ears. 

He’d shouted and shouted when they’d first been attacked. 

The people of Galeth, many of them rich merchants, or sailors did not have doors to knock on along the streets. Long stone walls, iron gates and space between the places was all  to be found in the night. The shops all closed, windows shuttered, darkness complete. 

This was not a place that you wanted to find yourself running for your life. 

So, Fabien and his mother ran for their ships. A set of Ralarian cutters, aFabien knew that if they could make the shoreline, they would live. Their soldiers, whom they’d foolishly told to stay on the ships would be there. Only two had come with them . Two who’d been savaged by four clocked men emerging from the darkness.

The Sunborn Praetorians. Hard men of war. 

Fabien glanced back grey cloaked men. They’d said nothing in their killing of the Praetorians. Simply fell upon them as they journeyed back to their accommodations. 

The four men were close behind, inky splotches in the dark behind Fabien, fading in and out of shadows in the lamplight.

“I can see the masts!” Fabien’s mother shouted. 

Fabien wrenched his gaze from behind and looked up atop the buildings. 

In the pale moonlight, the masts of the ships were growing closer. A beacon of hope against the darkness.

A scream filed the night.

Fabien looked down from the masts in time to see his mother falling to the hard cobbeled stone road. 

Fabien had to throw himself to the side to avoid falling over his mother. He lost his footing and spilled ot the earth, slamming into a long stone wall. 

‘Mother!” He shouted, gasping for breath and scrambling to her side. 

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He pulled at her, looking backward as he did. 

The men were gaining, almost upon them. 

“Go!” His mother pushed him away. 

“Get up Mother! We have to go!” Fabien pleased, pulling at her arm. 

A scream of agony came form his mother, one he’d not heard from her before. One h’ed only heard on the battlefields of the South. 

A scream that he knew, but could not accept. 

“Save yourself! Go! I cannot go on!” His mother sobbed,. 

Fabien felt dread creeping into his heart. 

His mother’s leg was bloody, laying at an unnatural angle to her body. 

“Son, please, GO!” She shouted. 

Fabien could see torchlight beyond them, down towards the docks. Men shouted in the night. 

Small shapes moved in the darkness. 

He knew in  his heart that they would not be able to save him and his mother. 

Fabien felt the tears, looking back through blurry eyes at the gray cloaked men. 

“Fabien!” Lucille cried again.

Fabien could hear fear and anger in his mothers voice and it broke his heart. She knew they faced death. He knew it to. But he still held hope that he might save her, or at least give their Praetorians time to get to them. 

The assassins were upon him. 

“I love you mother.” Fabien said to his mother, a tight smile on his face. 

Fabien stood upright and drew his sword. He sucked at the air, breathing heavily from his run for his life. 

Four men against he and his mother? Four men who’d killed two of the best Praetorians n all of Landor?

He knew then that they had to make this ships.

But now? He knew that the sword was the only answer. 

Gone were the sobs from his mother. Gone was the flights for life. 

He breathed in, and out, watching. 

The four men arrayed themselves across the street, from stone wall to stone wall. 

Fabein rolled his shoulders, squaring himself to the middle of the pack of killers. Their blades glinted in the night, catching what little light there was from the mon. 

Fabien breathed in, and out. 

Calm yourself. Focus. 

He preached the words of his blade master, Gorthos of the Ambi. A slight tribesman of the North. His slight frame made many underestimate him, his skills with a blade almost mythical. 

“Who are you?” Fabien asked, his voice cold but ragged. 

The four men in gray cloaks said nothing, fanning out as they came at him. 

Fabien bounced on the balls of his feet as he focused on the killers in front of him. He would not cower, he would not beg. 

He would fight them to the death. 

He was a Sunborn, he was the son of Dragh. 

“HIC SUNT DRACONES!” Fabien screamed out, 

The young Sunborn leap forward to meet the charging killers. He swung his sword to the right at the furthest man, fiending a down stroke from the upper guard and them thrusting his sword into the man’s chest. 

The hooded figure blocked the savage thrust and turned Fabien’s blade upward, pushing it into the cloaked man’s shoulder. 

Fabien kicked out at the second man closest to him and pulled his blade back from the first.

The two men on the left pushed forward, towards Fabien’s mother. 

Fabien shouted something unintelligible and launched himself at the other two men, hitting the first one, wrapping his hands around the man’s body and driving him into the other. 

The trio crashed into the stone wall that lined the street and collapsed to the ground. 

Fabien lost his grip on his sword as he fell to the ground. He kicked and punched, not sure which way was up as he rolled with the two gray cloaked men.

A blow to the face dazed him momentarily. 

“Son!” His mother shouted.

Fabien glanced back at his mother, now on her one good leg, blood soaking her bad leg. He could see the tears on her flushed face. He felt a crushing realization that they were going to die. That nothing he could do would save her. 

Gray robes blocked his view as he felt a sharp pain. 

Fabien let out an involuntary scream as he felt a blade in his stomach, the pain exiting his back. 

He thrashed out at the third man who’d stabbed him. 

He lost consciousness for a moment, then woke to more stabbing pains. His body erupted in a fiery pain. Searing where blades entered his body.

Over and over the killers stabbed him. 

A heart wrenching scream came from behind Fabien. He lacked the strength to move now, his front bloody from the sword thrusts. His eyes grew heavy as the ache of his wounds 

“Mother.” Fabien coughed blood. 

The scream was cut short as Fabien’s eyes closed, true darkness fell over him.