Warlocks

Chapter 1 - Hopeless

Two full moons of different size hung up in the night sky as they partially illuminated the dark forest.

White pristine snowflakes slowly descended from the sky and unto the dark forest covering the dirty brown ground and green grass in pure white snow, the trees stood tall as their leaves swayed with the wind in a serene and calm manner.

Under the shadows casted by the trees a scrawny figure dressed in a dirty and tattered cloth with visible wounds on his body slowly ran through the forest, his hair looked unkept and disheveled, while his eyes had dark circles under them as he struggled to keep them open.

His face was dirty and pale, as he stumbled and staggered at interval, cold steam spewed out of his mouth as he gasp for breath, while the wind blew over him, making him shiver under the assault of the cold.

It was quite clear he hadn't had a good rest for a long while, as he tries his best not to fall asleep even though he felt extremely dizzy and exhausted.

"No I can't fall asleep not after what he went through so I could escape" he said out loud assuring himself in a false courage.

Phil couldn't help but tremble in fright when he recalled how he had ended up in this situation, his village had been invaded by a group of raiders who attacked and kill villagers as a form of sport and entertainment, they would loot and plunder things of value from villages, while at the same time taking survivors who would later be sold as slaves.

The memories of how his mother was slain in cold blood was still fresh in his mind, he could still hear her voice yelling at him and his older brother to run, he could still remember how villagers were brought out of their home and slaughtered on the streets and how some of the brave men tried to hold off the raiders while others escape.

Yet only few were able to make it out alive, and he felt extremely lucky to be among those few.

Dejected he continued running through the cold without stopping.

He needed to get the hell out of the forest for who knew what could be hiding amongst the shadows. Thinking about this frightened him as he took a quick glance behind his back when a flurry of actions caught his attention.

A few meters from where he stood were faint glow of torches burning in the dark mixed with the sound of muffled voice.

Realizing what they were he shuddered, those bastards hadn't stopped chasing him

Just the mere thought of what they would do to him if he was caught made him shudder in fright as he increased his speed, while at the same time using the dark shadows to hide his scrawny figure from the raiders.

But no matter how fast he ran he couldn't help but notice that he hadn't increase the distance between the raiders and himself instead it had only decrease.

He chuckled to himself dejectedly, he was just a weak, frail kid, a poor commoner, even before the raiders came, it was already a problem in finding what to eat.

He probably didn't even have enough food on his plate when compared to these men who were incredibly stronger and had been in worse situation than he was currently in, it was just like comparing a broom to a tree.

But he couldn't give up, no not after escaping, he couldn't afford to be caught again, as he forced himself to keep on running under the snow.

His path was only illuminated by the two moon in the dark sky, almost as if they were giving him a chance to survive.

straining his neck, he took another quick glance behind his back, as seven dark figures obscured by the huge trees chased after him through the woods, three of them had torches in their hands lighting up the way as the rest followed behind.