The Bloody Dawn

 I wrote what I thought was a rough draft for a novel, and upon completion realised it was more of a rough outline. So, I started at the beginning and tried to stick to the most interesting moments. Originally this intro was about twice this length.

The Bloody Dawn

965 words

‘Apologies, my lord.’

‘Watch yourself, wench!’

Cyrine froze in the empty dirt road through the Trader’s Quarter, turning to face the commotion. A bearded man in a light blue silk tunic towered over a slight girl curled fearfully around herself. ‘This shirt cost more than you make in a year,’ he sneered.’

‘If my lord had looked before rising…’

‘Enough excuses!’ He shouted as Cyrine approached. He stunk of wine, and not just from the purple stain near the hem of the fine blue fabric. She raised a mailed hand before him, her warhammer held loosely in the other. Glaring with her steel blue eyes, his gaze nervously avoided hers. ‘She ruined my tunic,’ he snarled, drawing his rapier.’

‘You would harm her over a mere garment?’

‘A garment which cost more than her life!’

Cyrine’s scowl hardened her stern jaw, which was intimidating even at the best of times. ‘Life always holds more worth than fabric.’

‘Hah! Tell that to my father!’ He pointed at the kingfisher intricately embroidered on his tunic in gold thread.

‘If your father values justice,’ she replied coldly, moving one foot between the girl and her oppressor, ‘he would see the folly of this bloodshed.’

‘If you value your station, I should stand aside, harlot!’ As he raised his sword, she swung her clenched fist. ‘Urk,’ he squeaked as her blow to the stomach left him breathless. Shaking his head, he readied his stance and raised his blade unsteadily in shaky, inebriated hands. ‘For the kingfisher!’ He cried, lashing forwards. The tinkle of metal striking metal rang through the street as he cut a bloody streak through the chainmail over her left shoulder, sending chain links scattering to the dirt road. 

She hissed, clutching her wounded shoulder in her empty hand as she ducked in to a crouch, readying her hammer. As he sprang forwards she swung, striking his front leg with a sickening crunch. He crumpled, his cry cut short by a second blow to the head. The air was strangely silent, save the weeping of the poor girl, and the slow drip of the noble’s blood that glistened from the iron head of Cyrine’s hammer, to the pool around his capsized skull. She scowled at the corpse, but her gaze softened as she turned to the girl. ‘Are you hurt?’

The girl shook her head, setting her curly black hair bouncing. She took Cyrine’s mailed hand, and rose unsteadily to her feet, her gaze fixated on the lifeless husk that had threatened her- It occurred to Cyrine it was probably the first death she had ever witnessed. The girl slowly turned to face her. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘That man has been harassing me for weeks. He says his ‘station’ allows it, whatever that means.’

Cyrine turned to face the now crowded street, which parted like a wave for Matron Giselle, flanked by two Sisters of the Mountain. Their polished steel plate armor gleamed in the sun; a stark contrast to the run-down tenements and worn out citizens around them. As leader of their Order, Giselle had been like a mother to her since she was adopted by the Order of the Mountain.

‘You are accused of slaying southern royalty, in the eyes of countless witnesses,’ Giselle intoned.

Cyrine’s eyes widened. Her memory rushed to the day she’d accompanied Giselle from the hallowed gardens tended by their Order, to bring justice to the lawless streets of Chill Wind Pass. A thief was caught red-handed, and given the choice of exile or servitude.

The thief’s eyes had welled with tears. ‘But my family,’ he choked, ‘who will feed them?’

‘Food is provided at my morning sermons,’ Giselle replied coldly. ‘Now they will have one less mouth to feed.’

‘At the price of listening to your hypocrisy!’

‘The rules of the Council are law.’

Now Giselle stood before her, that same cold look on her face. ‘The rules of the Council are law, and the punishment for slaying royalty is death!’

An angry murmur rippled through the crowd, who had witnessed an innocent girl saved from a bullying tyrant. Giselle’s scowl deepened as one of her Sisters whispered something in her ear. ‘Exile!’ Giselle proclaimed, as her Sisters readied their hammers to subdue the crowd, if necessary.

The deep thud of heavy boots announced the arrival of the militia. Their leather jerkins, reinforced with bronze studs, were like paper next to the burnished steel of the Sisters of the Mountain. Their short spears and bucklers looked like toys next to Giselle’s intricately cast  hammer, or her Sisters’ smaller, less ornate ones. 

‘Exile!’ Giselle repeated, pointing at Cyrine while glaring at the Militia captain. 

Cyrine’s role was obvious, her white robes stained blood red, crimson smears streaking her breastplate. The crowd parted before the guards and their charge, providing a clear path to the wooden gate. Cyrine looked desperately at Giselle, praying for an ounce of the compassion she was known to possess, but rarely showed.

‘By the will of the Council, Cyrine is banished from these walls, and our Order!

As the great gate clanged shut, Cyrine stared blankly at the sturdy wooden barricade before her.

Cyrine’s soul felt empty for the first time

Her purpose, her home, all her dreams were gone

What was she to do in an unknown world?

She turned, for the first view of her new world

Cedar trees loomed, in a space beyond time

Her family, her friends, her faith, were gone.

She walked alone, in to a foreign world

The comforts she had known and loved were gone

The future held nothing certain but time

She accepted what was gone, clenched her bloody fists to face the world, and bid farewell to her city, her home, for the last time.