Gwenllian's Story

Chapter One

I was awoken by someone frantically shaking me.  "Gwen!  Gwen!  Wake up!" a voice in my ear demanded.  I recognised that voice.  Groaning, I opened my eyes and sat slowly up.  My head hurt a little.  It usually does the morning after a night out at the inn.  I looked up at the owner of the voice, blinking through the haze of sleep.

"Donna?"

"Gwen, come quickly!  Something's wrong.  Something's very wrong."

"Wha...?"  What could be wrong?  It wasn't even sunrise yet.  "What's going on?"

Donna ran her grubby fingers through her dark hair and bit her bottom lip.  "It's Ragnar and Jojo.  They've... something's... Just... We need your help."

Ragnar and Jojo.  Those two were always getting in trouble.  Damn them.  One of these day's they'd bite off more than they can chew and I wouldn't be around to save their hides.  Still, Ragnar, Jojo and Donna were the only family I had.  The fact that they weren't actually related was a mere technicality.  We were a tight little group of street kids, scratching a living from the unyielding residents of our muddly little village.  They were all I had, and I was all they had.

"What?  Where are they?"

"In the church outside of town."

"What?"  I looked around.  A few people were asleep at their tables in the inn.  Idiots.  While I was sometimes permitted to sleep in the dining hall on cold nights by the innkeep, these people had money.  They had paid for rooms.  Then they proceeded to get too drunk to use said rooms.  What a waste of perfectly good gold.  I turned back to Donna.

"What are they doing there?"  I asked the question even though I was already up and moving out of the inn.  Ragnar and Jojo were in trouble.  That's really all the impetus I needed.

"They were... we were hired.  For a job."

I scowled as I strode from the inn and up the street.  "Hired?"

This was new.  Ragnar and Jojo always told me when someone came forward with a job that only our particular set of skills could get done.  That way, we would each get a cut of the reward money, and we might all be able to eat for a week or two before resorting to pickpocketing, panhandling and petty theft.  They never told me about a job.

"Who hired them?"

"It was a sorcerer," Donna said, her voice sounding small in the cool pre-dawn air.  "He wanted us to steal something from the church and..."  Donna clamped her mouth shut and stifled a sob.  "Gods, Gwen.  It's really bad."

I scoffed.  Caught by the priest, no doubt.  The priestly class had access to all kinds of magic.  It probably would be really bad if they had been caught trying to thieve.  I placed my hand on the hilt of my short sword.  I named her Blodwen; white flower.  The blade is vaguely petal-shaped - if petals were long and lethal - and the blade shines a milky white.  It's a strange weapon for a street urchine to have, but it was left with me when I was abandoned here.  The family who took me in never sold it, even though they were as poor as dirt and it would have fetched an impressive price at market.  Bless their souls and may they rest in peace.

The pace I set was was not easy for Donna.  Despite being an elf, I am not tall at all being only five feet and six inches, or thereabouts.  I've never actually measured myself.  Donna was shorter still, and she had to trot to keep up.  The sun broke over the horizon as we arrived at the church.  It did nothing to lift the oppressive feeling of the small building.

Located on the south eastern side of town, it sat away from the unwashed masses.  One had to make a decided effort in order the cleanse one's soul.  I never went.  Like most small country churches, it sat in the middle of a graveyard, the few stones standing in the yard covered in lichen or moss.  The place was ancient, and it was falling apart.