Kenna, The last Pagan

Part 1

   It was a typical fall morning. The sun began peaking over the horizon, the light dancing on the lightly frosted grass and spider webs frozen in time. Herds
of deer started to appear as the sun's warmth began to burn off the misty coolness. The song birds that remained greeted the dawn with a symphony of sound as the silent whisper of a river could be heard in the distance.
   This morning was different though, it was the morning after they came; the Dark Elves. They killed everyone and everything and took nothing but books or anything with markings on it; they were merciless. They could have been watching in the tall grass for days and no one would have known. Or, they could have stumbled upon the small settlement by accident, but they were relentless and for Elves, not very thorough.
   A young girl stood all alone. She was blonde with very pale skin and piercing blue eyes. She was wrapped in a red cloak that was covered in dirt and debris. This was going to be her thirteenth winter but now it seem she would not live to see it. She stood in silence, looking at what remained of her small hamlet.
   She saw the bodies of her mother and father, their heads removed and staked to the ground. Others lay with slit throats or had been left limbless to bleed out and suffer. There was also evidence of their use of magic. Chard remains could also be seen, elemental magic had been used.
   She found herself standing in front of what was left of her home. She was numb with confusion and sadness as she gazed at the smoldering heap of wood and stone. A sudden crash startled her and she spun around to see where the sound came from. A wall from the Great Hall where she, her family and all the other residents celebrated their holy days and had great  feasts had finally collapsed, revealing a horror within. As the flames roared back to life she could see the remains of smaller bodies huddled in the corner in an attempt to hide. They were the remains of all the children of the hamlet.
   She had no choice, she had to leave. Hopefully she had learned enough from everyone in her hamlet to survive. She rooted through the remains of each house and storage space to gather what she thought she would need. She found an old shoulder bag in one house and a small sharp knife and a piece of flint in another. She took some thin wire she found in the remains of a barn that would work for a snare. She also knew she may have to defend herself at some point and needed a weapon she could carry. She ran back to the smoldering remains of her home and began rummaging through the wreckage. There it was, her father's chest and it was still intact. She opened it and her eyes widened and she sat for a moment in silence.
She lifted something out that was wrapped in a fine cloth that her mother had made. She laid it on the floor and unwrapped it. Her heart almost stopped. She picked up a sword that was as long as her arm with a serpent shaped blade. The blade was dark and dull in color, it was also very light and didn't feel like steel. The handle and guard were of the same material and were the same color. The only thing her father had ever said about it was that it had been in his family for a very long time.
She took the sword and bag and ran across the small square to one of the many root cellars. There she found a few potatoes and the remains of a cheese wheel. She put what she could in her bag and grabbed two waterskins that she found and stood in the square and looked one last time. She saw the body of the only dead elf and walked towards it and looked. His high cheek bones and his slender nose and slightly pointed ears gave him a royal smugness. It was the blackness that ran through his brow and down his nose, fading as it past his cheek bones as well as hair as black as night that gave him his ferocious appearance. She spit on the body and walked away.
She stood at the edge of the smoldering hamlet and gazed at the horizon.

"Which way?" She wondered to herself.

She could see the outline of the great mountains to the west. That's where she had to go.
Her name was Kenna and her story was just beginning.

It was late afternoon and Kenna had been walking for hours at a relentless pace. She was following the river upstream, trying to remember the teachings of her elders. How to hide her tracks, always try to stay upwind, what plants she could eat and which will heal and to always keep an eye on the sky.
She saw the grasslands slowly disappear as rolling hills began to fill the landscape before her. In the distance, the afternoon sunlight danced on a small lake and gave hope of a place to rest for the night.
The sun was beginning to set when she reached her destination. There was a small group of trees not far from the edge of the lake where she made her camp. The long grass and the reeds that grew close to the shore would keep her hidden. She quickly got a small fire started and finally felt she could rest.
From her bag she took out a potato and the piece of cheese. She cut three thick slices of potato and placed them on a hot rock beside the fire. Then she cut a piece so thin it looked translucent and set it aside. She did the same with the cheese, three generous pieces were cut and set aside with the crumbs and the see-through potato.
She stared into the fire as her meal slowly cooked on the rock. She began to wonder why the Dark Elves had come and where did they come from? She turned her potatoes slightly and took a drink from her waterskin. Why did they have to kill everyone and everything, and why take books and writings when there where items of greater and more important value?
  She remembered a time when her father and some of the other men from her hamlet would be gone for weeks hunting. They would meet with men from the north and some would hunt deer and bison, while others would fish the rivers during spawning time. For the last two years the men from the north never came and it was well before Kenna was born that the men from the south had been seen. She wondered if the Elves had anything to do with their disappearance?
   She took the now hot potatoes and placed them on a piece of bark along with the cheese. There was a large tree stump that was slightly concave that she poured the last of her waterskin into and place the meal beside it. She knelt before the stump and was about to close her eyes when she spotted three perfect, tiny white flowers. She gently plucked them and placed them on the stump as well. She closed her eyes, cleared her mind then spoke.