Sudden Attack

The Orphaning

Lee Chun Soo slept in the barn that night. It was punishment for the risks he’d taken at the waterfalls.

'You shall not have your sword until your eighteenth birthday son' His father had insisted. 'Kim could have died! You shall sleep in the barn tonight, and no supper for you'

Lee’s stomach had grumbled in protest. But he couldn’t help thinking that the punishment was a bit half hearted. Lee had seen understanding in his father’s eyes; after all what fourteen year old boy wasn’t desperate to take the rites of manhood and claim his birthright? In fact his ‘punishment’ had probably been what saved his life.

They came from the north. Tall men with spears, riding on horseback, softly through the thick fall of autumn leaves on the forest floor. The lookouts, on their windy perch high in the chalk hills didn’t see them. Their attention was bent southwards, towards the river fords where trouble had always come from in the past. To the north was the forbidding forest of Witching deep, surely none would pass through that dark place willingly? And beyond that was the plateau, abode of the overlords of the empire, givers of laws and protectors of the people. It was inconceivable that an attack would come from that direction.

Nevertheless they rode down from the north, urging their mounts into a charge as soon as they cleared the line of ancient oaks that marked the forests edge. The people of the village were taken completely by surprise. Yesterday had been the celebration of the centennial, three hundred glorious years since the arrival of the overlords. There were still paper lanterns hanging from the eaves on some of the houses and burnt patches on the ground showing where the people had danced around rosy bonfires. The villagers had all retired early, nursing sore heads and tired limbs from the evening’s revelry.

The attackers rode straight to the centre of town, no longer with any pretence of stealth, laughing as they threw burning brands onto the timber and thatch houses as they went. Lee, sleeping on his lofty bed of straw in the roof of the barn was woken by the sounds of screaming. He woke with a start, not sure what had woken him, so he lay there in silence for a while longer. The sounds came again. He stood up brushing hay from his hair. There were other sounds now, he could hear horses whinnying and men shouting. The barn’s floor, a good four meters below was dark. The barn doors below and in front of him were slightly ajar however and Lee thought he could see the flickering of orange flames. He stopped himself from scrambling down the ladder to go and help. The screams just didn’t sound right somehow. And whose were the horses? There were only a couple of horses in the village and they were kept by the lookouts in the chalk hills. It didn’t make sense. He looked up. There was a small hole in the roof of the barn that had caused Lee no small amount of discomfort in the night, with a mischievous wind blowing rain drops through the gap onto his shivering form. He now turned this old adversary to his advantage and standing on tip toes peered out into the night.

Outside it was absolute pandemonium.

Many of the houses in the village were aflame, blazing hotly into the night, despite the snow that had begun to fall. Men and women, forced from their homes by the fire were running for their lives. Tall men on horseback rode down the villagers mercilessly, running them through with their long spears whenever they could. Lee couldn’t believe what he was seeing! He instinctively looked towards his home. It was on the far side of the village; smoke obscured his view. Lee hoped his family were still unharmed.

Before he could consider this further he heard the barn doors creak open below him. Dread knotted his stomach like an ulcer. He dropped down onto all fours, ears straining for another sound. What he heard was the last thing he expected. Rising up through the cool night air in the barn was the unmistakable sound of crying. Surprised Lee edged on all fours towards the lip of the platform and peeped over the edge towards the darkened barn floor. Huddled in the corner, half hidden by one of the doors was a girl. From the flicker of flames Lee could see her clothes were torn and her face was blackened by soot. It was Amanda. Sixteen years old and already growing into a woman she had been very popular amongst the older boys in the village. Several years his senior Lee had always held Amanda somewhat in awe.

Amanda was in a sorry state. Fate had turned her beauty against her and she was very much afraid of what these evil men would do to her if she were captured. She thought of poor Kimmy lying in a pool of her own blood and knew she would rather be dead. She clasped a small knife tightly in her hand. Her hands were sweaty but the knife was sharp and glinted, reflecting the fiery demise of everything she had ever known. She knew what she had to do. Taking the knife in both trembling hands, blade facing inwards she prepared for the end. Before she could draw breath for the final effort however, a voice spoke out of the darkness. 'Amanda' Was she dreaming? 'Amanda. Look up' The voice came again, a barely audible whisper coming from the upper level of the barn. Her eyes followed the ladder upwards, rung by rung. A pair of eyes looked back at her. Was that Lee Chun?'Come up; quickly!' He insisted, more loudly now. 'Some men are coming this way!'

Amanda sprung up, her limbs galvanised into action by fear. She flew up the ladder taking the wooden rungs two at a time, half jumping, and half sprawling into the deep hay.

‘Help me,’ said Lee. He began struggling with the ladder, attempting to pull it up from the ground to prevent access from below. He struggled valiantly but could not do it on his own. Throwing off her paralysis in the face of their need Amanda grasped the ladder below where Lee had a grip and together they edged it up into the loft and pulled it out of sight of the ground. It was done not a moment to soon. The barn doors creaked fully open and gruff voices floated up from below. They spoke the common tongue of the Empire and their words could easily be made out over the general chaos of the slaughter outside.

‘Where’d she go?’ Said one, his voice was rough like sandpaper.

‘I dunno. But by the gods she was a pretty one!’ The second one was more softly spoken but his words held the greater menace. ‘I’ll tell you what mate; if we find her we can enjoy her in privacy. No need to share such prime flesh with the others unless we have to.’ This was greeted by a short, bark-like laugh, as the first man concurred with this hideous plan.

‘That elusive bitch must be around here somewhere’ he replied

The two men began searching around below, throwing boxes and barrels out of their way with increasing ferocity as they anticipated their prize. Lee and Amanda lay in the loft, a terrible, paralysing dread settling upon them. Lee could feel Amanda trembling uncontrollably. Their fears were soon realised as the invaders looked up and with gasps of exclamation saw the upper level of the barn in the flickering firelight of their torches.

‘The cunning little harlot must be up there!’ Spoke the man with the soft voice. ‘But how to get up there?’ he pondered. ’Are you up there precious? Do you want some loving!?’

Amanda whimpered as the sounds of the other guttural mans laughter drifted up to them. ‘Let’s bring her down to us!’ He cried, and with a grunt of effort sent his burning torch sailing up over the lip. It fell, still alight at the feet of the terrified pair. It had not, fortunately, fallen amongst the hay in which they were huddled but the heat was already sending up wisps of smoke from the nearest straws.

‘Dammit man you didn’t throw it far enough!’ the softly spoken murderer complained. Lee and Amanda huddled closer together as they prepared to be engulfed in flames. Neither of them held out any hope of making it out of this dire situation alive.

Then, in the nick of time, they heard another voice calling from outside the barn.

‘Silus! Ajax! Get out here now! Some of this scum are putting up a fight on the far side of the village. We need you now! COME ON!’ The voice was deep and full of command, it would tolerate no dessent and Silus and Ajax obviously knew it.

‘Let’s go Silus’ the roughly spoken man said

‘If she’s up there she’ll soon be toast!’ Silus replied obviously disgusted with their misfortune.

And with a curse and a grunt of effort as he threw his torch sailing up towards them, he left the barn, Ajax only a step behind.

Amanda couldn’t breathe as the flaming torch flew almost to the roof of the barn, and then started to fall towards them, straight into Lee Chun Soo’s waiting hands. He wasted no time putting out both torches. He shook Amanda gently, forcing her to focus on him.

‘Amanda. We have to get out of here.’ He was surprised with how calm his voice sounded. ‘Do you know if anyone else is still’…. He trailed off unwilling to complete his gruesome sentence.

Amanda came back to her senses slowly. ‘Oh my god Lee, you don’t know, do you?’ Lee stayed silent.Amanda forced herself to speak. ‘Your parents came round to our house in a great hurry. You father was carrying his sword and you mother looked very worried, obviously wondering if you were alright. They said the village was under attack. Right then were heard sounds from outside and some men with spears came bursting in and attacked us. Their spears were too long to fight indoors really, and your father killed some of them. But there were too many of them. My dad grabbed his sword and shoved me through the back door, telling me to run for the woods. Some men, those men we heard saw me and chased me. They forced me to run into a burning building. They didn’t follow me. You see it was Kim’s house and I knew you could get out my climbing out of the window in her room. Then I found her Lee!’ Amanda was crying freely now. ‘She’d killed herself, slit her throat, I think some of those men had, you know’…Amanda looked like she had seen to too much horror to hold in her head without bursting. But the grisly narrative continued. ‘The house was starting to collapse so I managed to pull myself together and climb out onto the tree right outside Kimmy’s window. It’s then that I saw your father, Lee’ Lee was grinding his teeth together trying to look brave. ‘He was being dragged from my house,’ she stumbled over the words ‘He was dead Lee. I saw some other people running, my parents and your mum among them. They were trying to make it to the tree line. The attackers, they used archers. I don’t think any of them made it.’ She trailed off her head bowed.

Lee stayed silent. A single tear traced its way down his face. Right now he wanted to die too. But a terrible anger was burning in his chest; these people had to pay for what they’d done. His father had taught him well; Lee was a good fighter, unarmed or with a sword. It was a necessity if you were to survive in this unpredictable and violent age, his father had said. And none in the village of his age could match Lee, so hard had he worked under his father’s tutelage. But he couldn’t punish these men alone.

Lee was surprised that he could still think relatively clearly. It was like he was waiting for his world to collapse on itself. Well until it did, he thought defiantly I’m going to keep thinking, keep fighting. That resolution made he grasped Amanda’s chin and brought her head up.

‘What are we going to do?’ She said morosely

‘Make for the trees, like my Dad said. If we do it quickly, those bastards should still be busy on the other side of the village.’

No longer paralysed with fear, forcing themselves to carry on regardless; they wrestled the ladder back into place and one after the other descended into the barn. Peering out surreptitiously from behind the barn doors Lee and Amanda surveyed the devastation. The village had been totally put to the torch. The barn was the only building in sight that was not on fire. Mercifully there didn’t seem to be any bodies about; but from the acrid burning smell the dead had been thrown back into the burning buildings. It was as if their assailants wanted to cover all trace of their crime. ‘Nothing is forgotten’ Chun Soo whispered with a quiet forcefulness. Amanda said nothing, just looked around with wide eyes.

Luckily for them the marauders were indeed all at the other end of the village; the sounds of fighting could be heard over the crackle of the fire. They wasted no time and broke into a run for the tree line. Lee noticed that as they ran they left tracks in the pristine snow, which was falling ever more heavily. They would be tracked! His mind veered away from that possibility and from all the events of the night that had destroyed his world. His only concern was to get away, as fast as possible. As they reached the line oaks a cry went up behind them. Lee wasn’t sure what was said, the distance was too great; and he didn’t need to know. With a fresh burst of panic inspired speed, Lee and Amanda ran into the woods.

As they got further from the burning village it became very dark in the woods. The trees grew closer and closer together and keeping their footing became more difficult as the ground became more pitted with ruts and potholes. Soon their run became a more cautious trot, and before long they were moving much more carefully; with arms out in front to ward of unseen branches. They were constantly spurred on by the sounds of pursuit, scrambling to their feet every time they fell over; mindless of all the cuts and bruises they were suffering. It sounded to Lee and Amanda that a great many people were searching for them, but that their pursuers were spread out thinly behind them.

After a while they heard the contented tinkle of a small stream and scrambled down its banks. The water was freezing but only went up to their ankles. Nevertheless Lee and Amanda were both exhausted by now and wracked by shivers by the time they clambered up the opposite bank. Looking around Amanda could see very little, but the air felt warmer here and smelt of pine cones. Wordlessly she took Lee Chun’s hand and stretched her other hand out in front of her. By edging forward she soon felt the prickle of pine leaves. They had entered an evergreen part of the forest.

The snow looked much thinner on the ground here; it should make it impossible to track them in the darkness. They were both so tired; Amanda didn’t think they could go on. And even in the pine forest, the night was only going to get colder. Fortunately for them, Amanda’s father had been a forester and some of his encyclopaedic knowledge of the woods had been passed on to his daughter.

‘We have to move on 'Manda’ Lee said ‘I can still hear them!’ Indeed the sounds of men shouting as they tried to coordinate their search efforts could be heard in the distance, behind them and to their right somewhere.

‘I have an idea’, replied Amanda, ‘Somewhere I think would be safe, and will keep us warm’

Going down on her knees Amanda parted the pine leaves of a great fur tree whose branches extended all the way to the ground. Moving forward on her hands and knees she pushed through the branches into the cavity concealed behind, Lee following soon after. It was surprisingly cosy inside and was soon warmed up by the heat produced by their bodies. Leaning against the trunk they were protected from snow and wind, and only an experienced forester would ever think of looking there if he was searching for a pair of scared, runaway kids.

The night was not a pleasant one despite their shelter, it passed slowly as they lay huddled in their hideaway, listening to the sounds of pursuit coming closer, and then finally moving away into the distance. It was a night in which Lee and Amanda mourned for their families, unashamedly weeping in each others arms. Yet they endured. In the morning Lee managed to get a fire started and they crowded round the bright flames warming numb fingers and scaring away the shadows of dark thoughts that had taken root in their minds. They had survived the destruction of their village and had, for now, evaded capture. But now they would have to endure the clutches of winter in the wilderness.

To be continued…..

This is a chapter of a fantasy story I am attempting to write. So far this is the only completed chapter. Let me know if you think it’s too pants to continue writing it, or if you think it’s good.