In Search of the First King, Chapter 1

Men threw torches onto thatch rooftops and laughed as families ran screaming from their homes. The men wore the Sword and Dragon skull device of Lord Parson Dynes, a man known for shrewdness, wealth, and for total devotion to the Pure Way. The so called "Pure Way" was an excuse for genocide, oppression, unchecked and violent expansion. I watched Dynesmen burn homes and fields. I watched soldiers murder men and boys for daring to raise a defense. I watched officers dice for the women and children...by any merciful god or goddess they played dice for the children.
Any of a hundred soldiers that night would vehemently deny my claims and demand my execution. Except that I was one of the men dipping torches in oil, I was one of the Pure. Therefore as one of the Pure, my word could not be contested. I remember passing out five torches and counted myself responsible for the deaths of five families. I remember everything in crystal clarity, but most of all I remember a girl named Myra. She was one of the children our officers diced for.
Hazel eyes red with tears and smoke starred blankly from behind a curtain of dark hair. She was slight but tall, with lean muscles used to running across the lowland hills of Cadramor. She couldn't have been older than thirteen, to me she was a child, but to the officers of the regiment, she was woman enough. Her mind had broken, while the other survivors wept and held each other she just stood there while the gamblers played dice for her body.
"She's not worth your time good sir!" lied one officer to another, "She's too skinny and frail to support such a healthy bulk as yours!"
"She needs only worry about one particular part of my healthy bulk!" laughed the big captain, "She's not so frail as to break under that, immense though it may be!"
"But dear sir!" said the liar "She is of the fey-touched lowlanders! You can tell by the fiendish color of her eyes! The Way prohibits such a union for a man of your high station and breeding!"
"Do not quote the Way to me!" the big captain half-laughed half-bellowed "the Way cautions against breeding with our lessers not from 'unions' with such. But if it will ease your mind I promise that any abomination I get on this one I will not suffer to live past it's first wail!"
Myra accepted this without even a whimper; she had run out of tears. When the affable debate over her final destination that night turned venomous, Commander Hale ended the argument by announcing that she belonged to him. Again, Myra accepted this with no argument. Commander Hale stepped over to her, forced her mouth open and was delighted to see a full set of teeth. Myra endured his pawing without complaint even as Hale roughly grabbed her between her legs. Hale's normally dour face broke into the shadow of a wicked smile. Hale took her by the arm and led her away. I closed my eyes and cursed the bastard with all of my black heart.
I heard a scream from the dark like the screech of a dying harpy and the agonized groan of my Commander Hale. It seemed that some angry demon or bitter specter had heard my curse. I smiled wickedly and prayed that the girl was swift as well as fierce. Myra had swift legs, but what doomed her was her long, dark hair. Hale clutched a handful of Myra's hair in one hand and his manhood in the other.
"Good job girl!" I thought to myself.
"Old man!" Hale roared thick fighting man's muscles working, "Get a hold of this slut's arms!"
"Sir?" I managed, my innards twisting.
"I said MOVE!" I half-ran to the girl, about to be sick.
After Myra planted several hard punches on me I managed to get my arm around her shoulders from behind and grab her wrists. She hissed and spat and I loved her for her justified hate. Hale grabbed her legs and we carried her into the dark. Myra struggled and screamed and fought us every step and just outside the burning village my strength failed me. I collapsed and the Commander cursed at me.
"You little fey-bastard whore!" Hale growled, "I was going to go easy on you. Teach you the proper place for a lowborn girl, maybe make you my mistress. But for this humiliation I'll have you hard and when I'm finished I'll tie you to a post and let the regiment have at you."
I saw tears well up in the girl's eyes and felt the fight go out of her with a sob. The commander fumbled with his belt, he must have been at the flowers again because he stared at his buckle for a moment as if he'd never seen it before. I loosened my grip on her wrists and hoped that she could get away. But all she did was cry. She looked up at me without hatred or spite, just a pained, silent plea for help. The commander tore her thin shift down the middle and mauled her small breasts.
As the shift tore and Myra sobbed I felt a terrible breaking pain deep inside of me. I leveled my gaze at Commander Hale and felt something boil up in me that I hadn't felt in half a century: Rage, mindless, blind, hateful, overpowering, stomach-churning, white-hot, rage. It felt sickening and nurishing, wicked and righteous all at the same time. It felt good, familiar, like the old days. I looked into Hale's face and was offended by him. What right did this man have to cause such harm? What crime did this child commit that justified her harm? What crime did this village commit to justify being destroyed? None! The only crime committed was by my so-called comrades. And the crime about to be committed by my most beloved commander Hale.
"Commander Hale," I said in a voice that did not belong to an old man.
"What?!" he said as my sword flashed out.
"I mean to kill you sir," the look of shock and pain on his face brought me great satisfaction.
It was a shallow enough thrust, I used it to get his attention, it probably didn't even pierce his heart. But the second thrust most certainly did; the tip of my sword reappeared a good fourteen inches out the back of the man. He drew in a breath to scream, but I cut it short with a gnarled hand clamped around his windpipe. I watched the pitiful little man die, I struck quickly enough that only a small amount of blood escaped, it was almost as if his blood was a surprised at my strike as he was. I gently placed the body on the ground and withdrew my sword. Then he did bleed, a great sticky puddle that appeared black in the dark.
I looked at the terrified girl and was suddenly aware that she was about to scream. I moved more swiftly than I had in years and gently covered her mouth. I pulled my cloak from my shoulders and and wrapped her in it. I picked her up and looked at the burning ruin of Myra's unnamed home. I wanted to kill them all, the monsters who had done this horrific thing to so many innocents. But I was too old at the time. I would have to wait to punish the Dynesmen, and I was patient.