Saint Seiya: The Legend of Seiya

70 - The Prisoner

Under a dark, frigid sky, a terrible wind blew through the canopy of snowy trees, scattering snow across the frozen forest floor. Walking with extreme difficulty, bracing himself against the trunks of the dark and hardened trees, comes a huge man with a very strong build, his arms bare, his white beard cropped close to his square chin while his disheveled hair falls to his shoulders. On his waist and on his back he carries a few dead hares on a rope.

His body, however, is all covered in wounds when he is discovered by a detachment of men with bows drawn.

"Stop right there! What are you doing in the Forbidden Forest? Don't you know that hunting is not allowed in this holy place?"

The huge man was twice as tall as any of those archer-guards, for, in truth, they knew that only their arrows would stand a chance against that giant. He didn't answer them and his body slumped against the trunk of a tree, as if he'd lost his balance.

An arrow whistled through the night and struck the trunk beside the giant man's ear.

"Get up and get out of here!"

"Stop!"

A female voice rang out from high above a snow bank, mounted on a white horse saddled with a belly-girdle made of golden filigree. The men immediately lowered their bows. Despite the negative cold of that region, she wore a long white dress and had very light hair blowing in the wind. The giant man, who by now had slipped to sit in the snow, opened his eyes to see the young woman get off her horse and walk towards him.

He looked away and his words were harsh.

"You can finish me off if you want."

"So you're the one hunting in the Forbidden Forest and giving it to the poorest of the village, isn't it?"

"I said you can do what you want with me."

"I'm very sorry." she said. "I rule this land and yet I can do nothing for our people."

The words lightened the huge man's face.

She approached him and saw, very close, that his stomach was fatally punctured from a wound that was much earlier than that hunt. She saw in the white snow the trail of his blood that stretched far away.

"I'm a dead man walking." he babbled, and his lips were terribly cracked. "Give these hares to your guards, as they will soon starve to death as well."

She had a deep sadness in her face and held the man's huge hands, which by then were like blocks of ice.

The giant saw how, around that young woman with the long fair hair, manifested a white aura that shimmered in a constant flux in which it expanded and then subtly contracted. It was a comforting energy. An aura that invaded the giant man with an immense peace, with a warmth that perhaps he has never felt in his life. A comfort he had certainly never experienced. And so he took his last breath.

Later, on the same day of an endless night, the girl climbed a few steps in front of a colossal statue taken by snow. Her eyes shed tears as the howling wind of the cold blew away.

"Why God-of-mine? What happens that this land gets worse and the night seems to become more and more eternal? Colder and colder! But what sin is this that we have committed that we have to endure such a terrible ordeal? What cruel fate is this to rule not able to do anything for our people who are dying of hunger, cold and sadness?"

She drops to her knees on a small rise immediately below the Colossus. Between it and the stone statue, an enormous abyss opens up, the darkness of which is lost at the bottom of the ditch.