Post by Taos on Aug 25, 2005 0:34:06 GMT -5
I ran.
It was what Father said to do.
It was all I could do.
The sun had barely reached its peak in the sky, and we had just gone back into the fields after lunchtime.
I was following behind Father, bundling up the wheat as he cut it down, when we heard something heavy
running towards us through the woods. Father and my older brother, Ravi, kept their weapons close by in
the fields, and they both picked them up. I remember seeing Father hold his sword tensely in front of him.
It glowed a faint white as it wavered in his grasp. He always told Ravi and I that it had been made on the
world we first came from, before we were brought to this mysterious and dangerous place. It was pure Elven steel, that his father had taken from the hands of a high lord of that race, a souvenir of a hard-won battle. The sword slowly traced circles in the air, as the world crawled to a stop around me. A tiny flying insect hovered near my ear, filling my thoughts with a high-pitched buzzing. The woods in front of me slowly parted, revealing a trio of dark shapes in the deeper gloom of the underbrush.
And then everything snapped back to speed, as Father yelled at me to run, run for my life, like the hounds of Ravana chased at my heels. For those shapes had fully emerged into the light, covered in scaly flesh like stone, fully 8 feet in height, their slavering jaws hanging open like dogs on the hunt. One of them carried two rusted and enormous greatswords in his hands, each one too large for any but the strongest of men to lift, even with both
hands. Another was largely hidden behind his giant oaken shield, and dragged a long and heavy spiked ball and chain through the dirt behind him. In between these two terrors of the dark, though, loped the leader, head encased in a massive black iron helmet, his shield made of solid metal, and his flail fully twice the size of his companions. Most horrifying of all, though, was the head of our nearest neighbor, quickly strapped onto his shield with great lengths of chain, fresh blood still trickling down the hot metal. I turned and ran then, terror and the blessing of merciful Rama giving me speed I never knew I possessed. Even before I reached the trees on the other side of the clearing, I heard Ravi's gurgled death cry and the bestial howls of victory from those things...those trolls.
As the survivors trickle into the village, mute with fear and eyes wide with shock, they bring with them strange stories of how the leader was unharmed by any weapon brought against him. Father would have said that such a story was a foolish tale to explain the superior martial skill and brute strength of the trolls. But as I sit here, watching the silent, tight-lipped re-entry of the guards of Mittelmarch, and how our leaders, our heros, brush quickly and wordlessly through the crowds, to their own councils...I wonder...
P.S. This was not written from Taos' perspective.
It was what Father said to do.
It was all I could do.
The sun had barely reached its peak in the sky, and we had just gone back into the fields after lunchtime.
I was following behind Father, bundling up the wheat as he cut it down, when we heard something heavy
running towards us through the woods. Father and my older brother, Ravi, kept their weapons close by in
the fields, and they both picked them up. I remember seeing Father hold his sword tensely in front of him.
It glowed a faint white as it wavered in his grasp. He always told Ravi and I that it had been made on the
world we first came from, before we were brought to this mysterious and dangerous place. It was pure Elven steel, that his father had taken from the hands of a high lord of that race, a souvenir of a hard-won battle. The sword slowly traced circles in the air, as the world crawled to a stop around me. A tiny flying insect hovered near my ear, filling my thoughts with a high-pitched buzzing. The woods in front of me slowly parted, revealing a trio of dark shapes in the deeper gloom of the underbrush.
And then everything snapped back to speed, as Father yelled at me to run, run for my life, like the hounds of Ravana chased at my heels. For those shapes had fully emerged into the light, covered in scaly flesh like stone, fully 8 feet in height, their slavering jaws hanging open like dogs on the hunt. One of them carried two rusted and enormous greatswords in his hands, each one too large for any but the strongest of men to lift, even with both
hands. Another was largely hidden behind his giant oaken shield, and dragged a long and heavy spiked ball and chain through the dirt behind him. In between these two terrors of the dark, though, loped the leader, head encased in a massive black iron helmet, his shield made of solid metal, and his flail fully twice the size of his companions. Most horrifying of all, though, was the head of our nearest neighbor, quickly strapped onto his shield with great lengths of chain, fresh blood still trickling down the hot metal. I turned and ran then, terror and the blessing of merciful Rama giving me speed I never knew I possessed. Even before I reached the trees on the other side of the clearing, I heard Ravi's gurgled death cry and the bestial howls of victory from those things...those trolls.
As the survivors trickle into the village, mute with fear and eyes wide with shock, they bring with them strange stories of how the leader was unharmed by any weapon brought against him. Father would have said that such a story was a foolish tale to explain the superior martial skill and brute strength of the trolls. But as I sit here, watching the silent, tight-lipped re-entry of the guards of Mittelmarch, and how our leaders, our heros, brush quickly and wordlessly through the crowds, to their own councils...I wonder...
P.S. This was not written from Taos' perspective.
