morgan; beginning

chapter 2

CHAPTER 2 We were playing one of our many dice battles on the wooden floor of Arans room as the banging on our front door had woken up the whole house. I could hear my father calling for them to 'hold their horses' as he banged around my parents bedroom looking for his evening robe, my mother muttering about 'who could be at the front door at this hour'. Before they both trampled down the stairs. We stopped playing as angry shouting had erupted. Our older sister Loren sticking her head in the room telling us both to get to bed before she raced downstairs to offer her 'support'. Which meant getting her twopence in on any argument, no matter who was involved. As always, we hadn't listened, instead we tiptoed to the top of the stairs and crouched down, peering through the simple hand carved railings to get a better view of our late night visitors. I wish we hadn't. Not even my worst nightmares could have prepared me for what we both saw through the doorway.Three men, three men we knew, were outside with our family. One of them held my mother by her hair as she struggled and cried to get to away. Blood from a cut over her eye and tears streamed down her face as she tried to fight against the hold of her captor. My sister Loren was screaming and sobbing, her face pressed awkwardly into the ground by a second man as he pinned her down. Her nightshirt hitched up her back as the man forced himself onto her, laughing at her vain efforts to free herself. The third man rained punches and kicks down onto my father who was now curled up in a foetal position on the ground, blood and dirt caking his face. Through sobs we could hear him pleading with the men to let them go, just to take him. His attacker did not seem to be affected by what was going on around him or at my fathers pleas. I watched as the man dragged my father to his knees by his hair. I watched the man pull a long knife from under his cloak and thrust it across his neck, blood cascading from between my fathers fingers as he tried to hold the wound closed. The man didn't react. He just wiped the blade clean on his thigh and then kicked my father to the ground. My father didn't move again.I tried screaming at them to stop but Aran had his hand over my mouth dragging me back into the bedroom I shared with my sister Loren. Our beds on opposite sides of the room, the areas around them were complete opposites of one another. My sheets were in a heap at the bottom of my bed surrounded by a moat of clothes and old books. Lorens side of the room was neat and tidy, nothing out of place apart from where the sheets had been pulled back to race to my parents aide.'Shhh,'Aran shakily whispered as he let go of my mouth.He quickly grabbed a few items from my side of the room and threw some clothes at me.I just stood there, frozen, hugging the clothes to my chest. 'Put them on, we need to go...NOW!'.....Every time I had closed my eyes I saw it all happening again. Each time we had managed to find cover and attempt to rest it flooded back and now as I opened my sleepy eyes it felt as if I physically had to push the thoughts out of my head just so that I could see what was real around me.We had all known the men that had come to our door that night. My father drank ale with them at the local taverns and they had been invited on more than one occasion to my mothers hog roasts. These men were classed as friends by my family which made this situation even harder to swallow. Although I couldn't remember their names I knew that the men belonged to some form of faction or sect up at the Keep. The Keep was not quite as grand as a castle, more like a cross between a Manor house and a prison with a few turrets thrown in for good measure. Its outer walls were made of cold grey stone with the odd moss patch and climbing ivy thrown in. No one knew what went on in the Keep. All we knew was that there are more men there than the three men who were at our house that night and that some of them followed us now. They all dressed in the same black clothes with aubergine and gold hemmed cloaks around their shoulders which was how you recognised the Keeps members. You would sometimes see them clustered in groups of four and five with their hoods up talking quietly amongst themselves. The hoods on their cloaks cast their faces into shadow and to look at them sometimes you might think that they had no faces at all.Aran used to scare Loren and I with tales of the men when we were younger, about how they would come in the night and take children away from their families or that they could smell when a magical being was close. I remember I used to hide, frightened, under my bed for days after Aran would tell us one of these tales. At least I used to think they were tales until it happened to my family. The one thing that was a constant in the stories that there was never any survivors.I could hear the faint sound of twigs snapping and of leaves rustling from below the tree we perched in. I felt a tug on my sleeve as Aran moved closer on the branch beside me with a finger pressed to his lips, indicating at me to be quiet and still as he carefully untied the rope from around my waist. I tried to calm my breathing.'We are never going to find them here!' A voice growled from beneath the leaves,'if Valdour hadn't tripped over that root at the edge of this cursed forest and begged Mildan to stay with him, we'd have them by now and then I could get back to Marie at the Bears Inn and her juicy steak and a good mug of ale'There were four men tracking us. There was only three at our house. Where had this fourth man come from? I made a mental note to ask Aran if we got away from our hiding spot. 'Calm yourself Lento you'll get back to Marie and her juicy....welcome soon enough.'Lento sniggered at the other mans comment.'Besides Mildan's the one who has the 'talent' so if we cant find her and take her back to the Keep then its on Valdours head,not ours.''Well, personally I'm glad it'll be his head and not mine Stello.'Lentos agitation was clear in his voice.'I've had enough, I can see no sign of them here, we must have lost track of them somewhere farther back.' He threw a stone in annoyance towards the base of our tree. It didn't hit the trunk but sailed past it by a foot at least.Stello laughed.'Marie must be blind now with your aim.'Lento grumbled something unintelligible before stalking away through the trees pushing brambles out of his way. Stello slowly turned his head to search the vegetation around him. Looking for some clue of our whereabouts. For a second I though his eyes caught mine, my heart threatened to throw itself out of my chest at the fierce gaze coming from those deep brown eyes, I seemed to be frozen on my branch mesmerised by this man beneath us on the forest floor, luckily he must not have seen me as he turned and strode off in the same direction Lento had. My heart slowed back to its normal rythym as he disappeared from my sight. Thank the heavens he hadn't seen me. I turned to Aran who was pulling out the last of our measly rations from his pack.