Chapter 7: Village of Nightmares

  Thomas scrambled to his feet from the hole in the floor and bolted to the front door like a madman. The blood pumping through him had been replaced by liquid panic. He tore open the door and ran outside. Aimee was a tiny figure down the road, and he took off after her.

  His immediate surroundings were calm, but Thomas could hear distant screams and cries joined by the occasional clang of steel on steel. A couple of smoky tendrils stretched towards the sky from the center of town, and Aimee was running toward it all.

  “Aimee!” Thomas called after the faraway figure again as he ran, the air hot in his burning lungs as his arms and legs pumped. She either didn’t hear him or chose not to. Aimee turned a corner up ahead and vanished from sight.

  Knowing these streets well, he tore down a different road to cut her off. Right as he made the turn, he tripped, falling hard on his face. Sharp pain blossomed inside his head, and he felt warmth spreading across his face and pooling in the dirt where he lay. He felt dizzy and couldn’t stand. A voice in the back of his mind told him he had probably broken his nose.

  When his eyes could finally focus, he pushed himself up with his hands and turned to see what had brought him down. Staring Thomas in the face was a woman, collapsed in the road on her stomach, limbs at unnatural angles. Her mouth was forever open in a soundless howl of agony and a crossbow bolt protruded from one sightless eyeball. The other blankly stared Thomas’s way and a puddle of crimson spread out around her.

  Thomas heard a bloodcurdling scream, not realizing it was his own. He clawed across the dirt to get away. He wanted to be far from such things. Once he looked around him though, he realized he couldn’t. It was everywhere, just as Sonya had described it. The streets were wrought with carnage. He was speechless, his ability to move stolen from him.

  He saw a man in armor bearing the Royal Crest kick in the door to a little house and vanish inside. He soon emerged again, dragged out a man by his shirt, and threw him to the ground. Stepping just beyond the threshold of the open doorway was a little girl, crying heavily in big, gasping wails. The man struggled to his feet and ran back with open arms to the crying child.

  Thomas watched in horror as the knight ran his sword through the man’s back and kicked him off the end of his blade. The man used the last of his strength before death to attempt a crawl towards the screaming youth, who the knight proceeded to hack away at. The screaming rose briefly with each swing, then stopped altogether. With gore still covering his blade, the knight turned to chase down a woman across the street.

  Thomas lost control of his body and he vomited. Blood still gushed from his broken nose, and it spilled to the dirt as well. A wave of vertigo hit him, and he fell again, the world spinning. He coughed violently as he inhaled dirt from the road and struggled to his hands and knees after the fit.

  Looking up he saw the knight catch up to the woman. He kicked her to her stomach, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and dragged her into a nearby house as she flailed about. Her screams and his laughter were muffled by the closing of the door.

  A sudden force struck his back and Thomas hit the ground again, more blood erupted from his face and spattered the dirt. He rolled over in time to see a length of steel arcing through the air towards him. He ducked his head to the side and the blade struck the road to the side of his head. With the adrenaline in his system fueling him, Thomas kicked at his attacker’s leg and caught him off balance. The knight was driven to one knee, gritting his teeth in pain. His resolve was solid though, and he rose his sword again. Thomas rolled to the side with hidden speed, muscles tightening as he put his body into motion. The blade missed its mark again, kicking up dust.

  “Stop moving, you bastard!” The armor-clad man yelled, wincing as he tried to stand.

  Thomas scrambled to his feet and bore into the man with an iron stare. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Orders.” It was a simple answer, unfortunately. One that explained everything and nothing at all.

  “Orders?” Thomas shouted. “Your orders are to raze a town and its people to the ground?”

  “I won’t speak of this to you.”

  The man stepped forward on his good leg and swung his sword at Thomas again in a downward arc. His injury had made him slow, however, and Thomas stepped to the side, almost clumsily, and lunged at the plated man. They both went tumbling to the ground in a mass of flailing arms and legs as they struggled for ownership of the sword. Thomas was strong, having been a farmworker and tender of horses most of his life, and he eventually overpowered the man of middle years. The blade fell from the knight’s grip as Thomas locked a solid hand onto the man’s wrist and twisted.

  The knight yelped in pain before his other hand came up as a fist into Thomas’s stomach, doubling him over. He rolled off the knight, clutching his gut and gasping for air. The man found his footing and cleaved a metal boot into Thomas’s ribs. An explosive pain-wracked Thomas’s chest, making his already strained efforts to breathe impossible. He curled up in a protective ball in the dirt out of agony and fear.

  “You act like you’ve never thrown a punch in your life.” He didn’t wait for a reply. He kicked Thomas over to his back and knelt on his injured ribs, prompting a shriek of anguish from the downed man. He futilely clawed at the armor of the knight’s leg as he wheezed, moisture wetting his eyes. “Don’t worry a bit lad. It’ll be over soon.” He drew a small knife from his belt and leaned in with it, grabbing a fistful of Thomas’s hair and pulling his head back to expose his neck.

  Thomas eyeballed the blade with terror as it inched closer and closer. Giving up on the knight’s leg, he grabbed the man’s wrist with both hands, his arms flexing with the strain. He yanked hard to the side and pulled the knight off balance yet again. Thomas was given enough relief to twist out from underneath the knee on his chest and took the knife from the man’s loosened grip at the same time.

  Dagger in hand, Thomas roared as he tackled his opponent to his back. He rose the blade high and plunged it down into the neck of the surprised knight. The clad man began to panic, kicking his legs in the dirt and delicately groping for the handle protruding from his flesh as blood ran in streams, increasing with each heartbeat. Nothing came from his mouth but harsh gurgles as he drowned in his own liquids.

  Thomas backed towards a nearby house and leaned against it, sliding down its worn wood siding to land slack in the dirt. Unable to tear his eyes from the dying man, he could only look on in horror as the knight fought a losing battle with his mortality.

  He had never hurt anyone before in his life. Thomas looked down at his own hands, for the first time noticing the blood that covered him. Some streaks, some blotched, but most of them spatters that peppered his shirt. He stared dumbly at the mess, not quite seeing it. Then in a frantic burst, he wiped and clawed at the stains in a failing attempt to rid himself of the stuff.

  He pulled his knees up to his chest and held his head in his hands, eyes wide with panic. This is really happening. What do I do? What do I do? He couldn’t think straight. His mind was racing so fast he couldn’t make sense of a single thought. One stuck out to him above the others, however, and he clung to it, repeating it to himself over and over again. Aimee…Aimee…Aimee.

  That was enough to help the young man to his feet, albeit with a few grunts as his muscles and joints screamed at him. Shaking his head clear, he cautiously walked over to the dead man before him. He was indeed dead, eyes locked open in an infinite stare that pierced the abyss. Thomas didn’t want to look. The pain and guilt were too great. Instead, he searched for the dropped sword. He found it off to the side and retrieved it. He first noticed the weight of the thing. Not only the weight of the steel but the weight of its potential. The grim responsibility of using such a tool was heavy. He’d already gotten a taste and wanted no more, but it never hurt to be prepared.

  He started once more down the road, sword clenched tight in a death grip that was at the same time greedy for and unwelcoming of the responsibility. His focus narrowed as he repeated his love’s name in his head again. Aimee, please be safe. He didn’t know what he’d do if she wasn’t.

  Thomas walked with some semblance of confidence towards the general store. He couldn’t think of any other place Aimee would have gone. He only hoped she had made it to her father, and they were both safe. With the shape the town was in, though, he couldn’t be sure.

  He thought of his mother. Thomas hadn’t seen any sign of her, and his worry was a strangling grip around his throat. One thing at a time, he told himself. You can’t help everyone at once. He would go find Aimee, then together they would search for his mother.

  Thomas heard a shout behind him. He whirled around just in time to see a gauntleted fist coming at him. It struck him with deadly force square across the side of the head. His vision went fuzzy, and he fell limp to the ground. A boot dug itself into his stomach over and over again, stealing the breath from his lungs. He gasped for air, breathing in blood and dust.

  Then followed an excruciating explosion of pain in his back that sent shockwaves through his entire being. Another came after as his attacker hacked away at Thomas with a sword. The blade cut deep and opened ribbons of gore that crisscrossed Thomas’s flesh. He felt warm blood flow freely down his side, and Thomas began to grow cold from the shock. There came another shout, a clash of swords, and a grunting sound.

  His mind swam on the border of consciousness and his breaths became shallow. He was vaguely aware that a building near him had begun to burn and was soon engulfed in flames. The heat quickly became too much for him to bear as he lay crumbled and immobile, too weak to move away. He closed his eyes and drifted off as the inferno before him consumed those inside.

. . .

  Aimee ran down a road of nightmares. Never in her life did she think she’d ever see such sights, such pain. She didn’t think the human soul could commit so gleefully to such atrocities. The expressions on the faces of the attackers were nothing short of elation, and it terrified her. She cried for the people she had known her whole life as they died around her. She cried for herself as well as she ran past them without a second glance. Her weakness was palpable, and it frightened her, but what could she do?

  Tears fresh on her face, Aimee charged up the steps of the general store. She burst through the door and slammed it behind her, barring it shut. The candles that lit the space were out, and even though daylight poured in through the windows, the place seemed dark and eerie. She tried to keep her worry and hysteria under control, but a few sharp, gasping sobs escaped her nonetheless, and she attempted to stifle them with a hand.

  “Father!” She called out with a shaking voice. “Father! Where are you!”

  A face peered cautiously around the corner of the stairwell in the back. A pair of eyes took her in from behind an old pair of glasses. When they saw her, they widened. Don emerged from his hiding place and ran to his daughter, arms wide and welcoming. “Oh, thank Ovaro! My precious girl!” He kissed her face and forehead, his tears wetting her skin. “I was so worried.” He squeezed her tight. “What in the name of Ovaro would cause the Holy Knights to turn on the people?” He didn’t expect an answer, but he got one.

  Aimee gently caressed the pin in her hair, the feel of it on her skin was almost revolting now, yet still, the trinket represented so much joy for her. “It’s this…” she murmured, eyes becoming vacant as she drifted in thought. She recalled her memories of sitting underneath the giant tree with Thomas, their laughter, their moments exchanging words laced with love. She thought of his smile, his kindness. Suddenly, her need to be by his side was overwhelming. She ached for him as she felt her heart sink into her stomach. The void it left behind in its place was a suffocating, deep pit that ruled her.

  Her father placed a caring hand on his daughter’s cheek, bringing her back to the here and now. “The pin, dear? What do you mean?” He was confused, and his brow furrowed to show it.

  She ignored him, grabbed his hand, and pulled him towards the back of the store. “We have to leave!” The anxiety in her voice was unmistakable. “We can’t be seen!”

  Together, they ran to the back door. As they came up to it, the door shook in its frame. Don and Aimee froze, a terror creeping into them. A heavy force struck the door a second time, and its hinges screamed with the strain. Scenarios flashed through Aimee’s mind, all ending in her death. She felt helpless in this moment that demanded an iron will.

  Luckily, her father took hold of the situation and fled up the stairs with his daughter pulled close behind. As they reached the top, the door below them was kicked in, a loud crashing sound boomed through the shop and up the stairwell. They ducked into the doorway at the top leading to their living space and locked the door behind them.

  “What are we going to do!” Aimee panicked.

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  “Keep a level head, my dear. We’ll see through this, I promise you.” Her father somehow managed to sound encouraging, despite their peril. “Come with me.”

  He led her across the small living room to his bedroom in the back, locking that door tight as well once they were inside. They both heard pounding footsteps coming up the stairs and Aimee fought to suppress her fear.

  “Father,” she started, feeling a choking sob crawl up her throat. “I…I can’t do this.” Tears grew in her eyes and her lips shook as she tried to control herself. “I’m scared.”

  Her father turned and grabbed hold of both her shoulders. “I failed to protect your mother.” He sounded pained, but he smiled through it. “I won’t let you down, too, sweetheart. The moment that burglar’s knife pierced my love’s heart I knew I would shake the earth with my resolve to save you from the harshness of our world.” His eyes were kind, his words as sure as steel. “We will live to see the sunrise, my dear.”

  Aimee was somehow reassured. Either by his words or by their definite sureness, she was soothed to some extent. That didn’t stop her legs from shaking or her tears from falling, however.

  “What do we do?” She asked.

  “Come, dear. This way.” He guided her to a window that led to the roof. He pulled it open and pushed her to it. “You, first. I’ll be right behind.”

  It was obvious he meant for her to slide down the roof and to the ground. On a normal day, she would have thought it crazy, but today was anything but normal. The doom trailing behind them superseded any fear of heights she had and made this feat seem trivial by comparison. Aimee didn’t think twice about crawling through the open window.

  She only had one leg over the sill when the door at the top of the stairs was kicked in like the first. The sound sent a shockwave of dread through them both, and soon there came a pounding at the door to the bedroom, the last barrier between them and their deaths. In Aimee’s panic, she almost fell getting her last leg out the window, but her father provided a steady hand.

  “Hurry along, dear. I’ll be close behind.” He let go of her hand, the loss of touch froze Aimee’s blood and stole what little bravery she had mustered.

  The door trembled as it was kicked by a heavy boot.

  “Father?” There was the beginning of a terrible realization growing within her as she looked into her father’s eyes. Those eyes only looked at peace as Don’s whole face smiled back at her.

  “What’s my favorite phrase, dear?” He asked.

  Aimee held back a sob. “Everything will be right as rain…” She went pale.

  “That’s my girl.” With that, he slammed the window shut and locked it.

  Adrenaline shot through her body as she clawed desperately at the edges of the window, trying to remove the obstacle that separated her from her father. She managed no progress, however, and the window remained. Her father turned to an old sword resting in the corner of the room and drew it from its scabbard, letting its blade breathe after many long years of rest.

  The door buckled with another heavy kick, the hinges snapped, and the door fell to the floor at Don’s feet. In stepped a man clad in armor, the mark of the Holy Family and The Star of Ovaro shining brightly as light from the window poured in and threw reflections about the room.

  “Father!” Aimee cried as she pounded on the window desperately.

  The attacker stepped forward, sword sweeping in a downward arc. Her father parried with a clean upward swipe of his blade, deflecting the knights' blow and casting his sword arm wide. Don kicked the knight in the chest, causing him to stagger backward. The man quickly regained his footing and Aimee watched in horror as he kicked back, throwing her father back against the window. His head struck and cracked the glass. Spiderweb fractures spread out in all directions from the impact.

  “Go!” She heard him yell. He stood and advanced on the knight again, sword at the ready.

  Aimee turned away and ran across the roof, her movement seemed no longer her own. She looked around across the town. From her vantage point, she saw homes burning. Bodies lay strewn about the streets and the screams drowned out all other sounds. The most dominant noise to her though was the pounding of her own heart in her chest.

  She heard a whistle as a crossbow bolt passed inches from her head, causing her to lose her footing. Her ankle bent at a sharp angle, and she collapsed, hitting the roof and rolling down its sloped surface. Her hands searched frantically for purchase as she slid, but they found none. She reached the edge and fell to the ground, landing on her arm. An explosive pain shot through her body as she heard the loud snap of a breaking bone. A scream erupted from her mouth, and she clutched the dead arm with her free hand.

  Everything will be right as rain, she said to herself through the pain. She struggled to her feet, the throbbing in her ankle making it difficult, and staggered toward the alley beside the shop. She could hear shouts from behind her and charging footsteps. The panic she felt enabled her to fight through her body’s aches and she made for the narrow opening.

  Aimee felt a strong hand grab her long braid and she was yanked hard off her feet to her back. She looked up in terror at a grinning man who licked his lips as he peered down at her.

  “Well, well. Aren’t you a pretty one?” He squatted on his haunches as he pulled her head up by her hair. “Do you know what I’m going to do to you?”

  Aimee’s face was covered in tears and dirt, her mouth quivered, and she sniffled as she sobbed. “Please…please let me go.”

  The knight shook his head. “Not a chance. I bet you’re as tight as they come. I’m not passing this up.” The gleam in his eyes was an evil thing. He stood and began to drag her to the door of the shop, and she wailed and flailed as she was pulled along the road.

  “Havor!” A booming voice called out and the knight froze. He turned and looked into the face of a mounted man clad in superior armor. The knight dropped his fistful of blonde hair and snapped to attention.

  “Captain!” He gave a small bow.

  Captain Groyce loomed over the two. “What are you doing, soldier?”

  “I was just about to have a bit of fun, Sir.” He seemed puzzled.

  Leon dismounted and strode over to the man and the panicked woman. Aimee curled up in a ball on the ground and wished desperately to be somewhere else. The captain of the knights looked down at her and a sparkle in her hair grabbed hold of his focus.

  “Well now. I thought I saw a glimmer.” He knelt and grabbed her face with a death grip, smashing her cheeks and mouth together. The man pulled a dagger from his belt and held it up to the corner of her eye. “I bet you have quite the story to tell me.” The tip of the knife pressed against the white of her left eye and she reflexively jerked her head away from the sting, but the man held firm. “Start talking.”

  “Please,” she sobbed, “I don’t know what you’re asking of me.” The tip pierced the soft flesh of her eye and she screamed in agony. The pain was beyond anything she had ever felt before in her life. New tears poured from her eyes, mixed with fresh blood, and rolled down her face in streams.

  “Don’t fuck with me, girl.” The captain growled. He grabbed the pin in her hair and tore it from her head, a tangle of blonde came with it. He held the hairpin up to her face. “You're going to tell me where you got this.” His voice was like fire.

  “It was a gift!” She shrieked. Her whole body trembled, wracked with pain and fear.

  “From whom!” The man yelled.

  Aimee paused for a moment, not saying a word. She stared up at the captain as her vision in the punctured eye began to fail her. Her silence was a mistake, though, and the knight captain held her head against the ground and dipped the blade’s tip toward her eye again.

  “No! Please, please don’t!” Aimee pleaded; her face contorted in an expression of unthinkable terror. Through the fingers of the hand that held her head, she saw the brilliant steel close in. She was too paralyzed to clench her eyes shut. Too shocked with disbelief to do anything but watch. Aimee's dissociation quickly deflated the second the cold metal slipped under her eyelid.

  The Captain dug his knife behind Aimee’s left eye, cutting through flesh. Aimee screamed like she never had before, thrashing about and clawing at the man’s hold on her face. Warm blood gushed from the mutilated meat within her head and ran down to fill her other eye. What remained of the girl's vision reddened, casting the world she saw the shade of horror. With a sickly, sloppy sound, accompanied by the tearing of wet flesh, the eye came free and was ripped from her socket. The crushing pain made her dizzy and she felt on the verge of vomiting. Aimee brought a hand up to the hole in her head, still screaming and rolling on the ground. The noises she made didn’t sound human as she rolled in her own fluids pooling around her head in the street.

  The Captain held the freed orb up to his face and inspected it, turning it over several times. "Such a stunning blue." He complimented the eye itself, not the screaming woman. "Thieves do not deserve the eyes with which they mark their spoils. Liars do not deserve the tongues that give birth to their twisted words." The man dropped the eye and it plopped down in front of the writhing woman. It stared up at her as if in wide wonder, but with no sympathy for her suffering. "Will you lie to me, girl?"

  Aimee only shrieked and rolled in the dirt like an animal. Her cracked, bloodcurdling screams and sobbing vied for dominance over each other, creating an unintelligible cacophony that split her mind as much as the pain did.

  "What shall we do with her, Sir?" The clad man asked uneasily, clearly put off by the display.

  The captain looked up at his knight. The man was still standing at stark attention. “This might take a while,” he said.

  “Shall I prepare a room for interrogation, Sir?”

  Groyce looked back down at Aimee, who was curled up tight, sobbing with a hand to her face. “Yes, immediately.”

  Everything will be right as rain, was Aimee’s last thought as she was dragged back into her own home, her cries echoing down the streets bathed in blood and fire.

. . .

  Thomas woke from the blackness to the tickle of grass upon his cheek. He tried to lift his head and pain tore through him. He let his face drop back down to the soft grass and he suffered through a fit of coughing that lit the gashes on his back on fire and he cried out with the intensity of it.

  How long have I been out? He had no way of knowing. Is Aimee safe? Is she alive? He shuddered with the thought and a wave of sorrow washed over him and tears flowed soon after. They crept down his face and turned red as they crossed into the blood-caked there.

  Thomas became aware of others around him. Moans, cries, and gasps of pain. He painfully turned his head and saw other people once his eyes adjusted. He gathered they were survivors, like him. Several were awake. A child cried in the limp arms of a motionless, slumped old woman, her jaw and other features were slack. A man lay on his back, sobbing, shaking, and weakly holding a hand to a large cut on his face that left his eye hanging from its socket.

  Closest to Thomas was a sobbing redhead hunched over the body of a dark-haired woman, her face smashed in, and her throat cut open from side to side. The redhead had a hand to her face as she cried and the other held the hand of the dead brunette. Through the mix of shaking fingers, curls of red hair, and tears, Thomas could see a colony of freckles dancing across her face.

  Another bout of coughing from Thomas caught the woman’s attention and she looked up at him with startled disbelief. She stared into Thomas’s lazy, tired eyes. After a pause, she jumped to her feet and ran off, her footfalls on the grass fading. Thomas heard distant discussion that turned into shouts of surprise. Soon, more footsteps approached from behind him, and he heard his name.

  “Thomas!” It was Sonya. He knew that much. “Thomas! Thank Ovaro, you’re alive!” She said, kneeling at his side.

  Sonya carefully pulled up his shredded shirt to check his back. She applied something to it that stung, then lowered his shirt again.

  “Aimee…” Thomas managed through gasps of pain. He felt the urge to allow himself to pass out again, but he resisted.

  “The knights left a while ago,” she said, ignoring him.

  Thomas's concern began to rouse him from his daze. He put the heels of his hands on the ground and was barely able to push himself up to his hands and knees. “Where…is Aimee?” He said through a wave of vertigo that threatened to pull him back down to the ground.

  “Your wounds weren’t fatal, but you’ll need to rest.” She avoided it again. She looked as though she were holding back a dreadful truth, tears swam in her eyes from the burden.

  Thomas struggled to his feet, his many cuts and bruises pounding him with agony. “I said where is Aimee?” He was able to yell it this time. Sonya didn’t say anything. She only held his gaze.

  He managed a few painful steps and his wounds bit violently at him, but he stayed standing. Looking around the field of survivors, he found no sign of his fiancée. Thomas turned his attention to his town, a good many of the buildings still on fire, and began the excruciating walk back. A hand rested on his shoulder, and he lashed out at it in anger. Sonya was there, hurt in her eyes.

  “Don’t go, Thomas,” she pleaded.

  Thomas once again disregarded her in this request and turned toward the town. Sonya let him go, tears in her eyes.

  It took him a while to make it through town. Bodies and debris lay strewn about the roads. He found he was numb to it all. The pain, the gore, the smell. It all stung his senses. He staggered down the main street where the market had been. Everything was in shambles. Wares of a wide variety littered the road all up and down its length and not a single stall was unmarred.

  Thomas turned a corner to find a long line of pikes stuck in the ground, bodies impaled on the end of each one. He was gripped with terror as he took in the sight. Every corpse was stripped naked and scarred beyond recognition. His eyes moved from one to the other, seeing each as the work of a demon. It scared him to know such evil existed in the world.

  He walked along the line of bloody poles, searching the features of each body. Some he had known all his life; some had been close friends. He brushed one of the poles as he passed it, his hand came away red and sticky. Thomas didn’t bother with the mess on his fingers and let it stay. He kneaded the slick goo between two fingers, unbelieving.

  Then he saw her. There, towards the end of the line, was Aimee.

  Thomas struggled to make the last few steps to her. Like the others, she rested high up on a pike, impaled through the back. Her arms and legs hung down, swaying gently in a soft breeze, her bloody hair danced with it.

  At first, Thomas didn’t believe any of what he was seeing. He felt empty, a blank slate. He failed to remember where he was, what he was doing. His mind had shut off. Nothing made sense. He very slowly reached out a trembling hand, and when his fingertips brushed the dangling foot of the dead woman, it made all he was seeing, real. Reality came crashing in on him so aggressively he was overwhelmed with all around him. He had never before felt such a strong urge to just turn off. He wanted to not see, not feel, to be gone. He wanted to desperately to die.

  Shaking, he fell to his knees, tears filled his vision, and he screamed.