The Hunt

O N E

" Lena Kay, your crimes against the empire are resulting in the highest form of punishment, the death penalty." Gasps filled the air, onlookers shocked that such a high decree of punishment was being given, but then again if they knew what I had done then their shock would dissipate and fill with hatred. 

I felt no remorse nor guilt. The man I had killed had deserved it. A powerful member in the Royal Council of the empire, but power only increases corruption and greed. Although, getting caught had not been on my plan, killing that man had. My dagger encased in his flesh and his body bleeding out on his smooth furs that lay across his bed. 

So this is how I was gonna die. At the hands of an executioner who would use his dull axe to whip off my head, a cold and gruesome death. 

Just when I thought cold hands would come to grab me and lay me on pedestal, so they could chop me into a bits, a different voice filled the air. " No, the punishment has changed. The Royal Council has decided to let the girl live, but her sins will not be forgiven. She has killed Lord Sarnill, a man who has been loyal to her kingdom for long. So we have decided that  the girl will be forced into the woods and where she has a chance of survival."

Just like I had suspected the people of Lemora changed their pity into sharp anger. They were taught to respect and appease the Royal Council, so if the council deemed something immoral or wrong then it was set in the people's minds as well. 

The Woods. They are sending me into the woods, the most dangerous place in the entire kingdom. Some say that death was a better fate than being sent into the woods, for the animals were notorious for tearing apart flesh painfully but even worse it was said to be home of The Faces. The Faces were rumored to be those who had died and come back into life as a spirit, ready to haunt and terrorize anyone in their reach. Most people of Lemora feared The Faces, not knowing whether it to be fact or fiction, but nevertheless a fear had been forged into everyone including me.

A hand grabbed me by my shoulders lifting me off my knees. There was no point in even trying to fight it for it was the hands of a knight, decorated in shiny metal armor and hands laced in gauntlets. They were creating a procession out of the whole thing, making it almost ceremonial.

The Knights and members of the Royal Council forced her towards the rise of a hill. Once they arrived, a crowd gathered behind me, and stared as the knights forced me down the hill and into the woods. Fear struck my heart as a gruesome scene unfolded in front of the woods.

A body was strewn at the top of the tree, a branch gutting him through the stomach, and his face ashen white. Who had done this to him? 

I tried to fight the hands but they were too strong, and a terrorizing realization shot through me.

I was trapped, and had nowhere to go but into The Woods.

(Hi everyone other chapters will have more entertainment or fighting, but I just wanted to see if anyone was interest in reading this. If you are interested in reading more please leave a vote to let me know. Thanks)