Archer

Chapter One

Edited on December 30, 2013

Rain came down from the heavens, beating the ground like a blacksmith hammering iron. It was relentless, thunder clapping above and lightening brightening the forest like it was mid-day. The small village of Tronoly, far out of reach of the Kings hand, was dark and empty. No one was out for fear of the storm. Every shutter was tightly closed, every lamp had been put out, every door was barred. While wooden signs above shops clamored in the wind, rain a horse and rider appeared on the outside of town. As they got closer it could be seen that it was indeed a horse and rider but someone was leading the horse though the storm as well.

"Hold on Malya, there is a village just ahead," the leader of the horse called to the rider above the wind and rain. The man took one last look at the rider before pulling the horse through the mud towards the village. "Help us! Please! Somebody help us!" he yelled over the sounds of the storm, "Please someone, anyone! My wife! Please!" tying the horse to a post he ran to the nearest door and began to beat on it. To no avail he went around town pounding on each door, hoping and praying that one would open. Finally a door did, revealing an angry looking woman in a nightgown. She held a candle, the only light in the whole town, the light that would save this mans family.

"What do you want? Can't you tell it's night man!" she yelled over the storm.

"Please, my wife, she is about to give birth and we need help. Please," he said breathlessly. The woman looked into this mad mans eyes when her eyes were drawn to a scream. The woman on the horse, double over in pain clutching her pregnant belly.

Without another thought the woman nodded to the man, "Bring her, hurry." The man took off at a sprint towards his wife, helping her down from the horse and carrying her to the woman's home. He kicked open the door with his foot and the street was flooded with light from the candles the woman had in her house. She had a fire blazing in the far corner, blankets and a pillow laid out before the fire. "Hurry, hurry man! We haven't much time till we lose the both of them!" The man quickly went and laid his wife down on the pile of blankets as she cried out in pain once again.

"Get some cloths in the kitchen, there should be a pot of water on the stove as well, bring me the cloths and then go back to the kitchen and bring me the hot water," she instructed gathering the woman's skirts. Grimacing, the woman ripped the blood stained under clothes from the woman's body and reached for a knife next to her. Slipping the tip of the knife at the woman's waist she cut her soaking skirts from her body.

"Spread your legs girl," the woman commanded the pregnant girl. The man came in at that moment with the cloths and handed them to the woman, she didn't even look up when she grabbed from him, unfolding two of them she helped the girl lift her bottom and slid them under her. She looked up to make sure that the girls husband had went to get the water before she looked back to the girl.

"Girl, lean forward just a bit, there that's it. Now here, give me your hands. Good, good. Grab your knees and pull them to your chest, there you go, easy," she instructed the girl slowly, helping her through every step. Once he girl was positioned the woman checked the progress of her labor. The child seemed lodged in the birth canal, and her suspicions where confirmed when she felt her go through another contraction the girl cried out in agonizing pain. The man ran back into the room at that moment, his face contorted into a mask of horror and pain for his wife. Her mind raced, thinking of all the things she could try to get the baby out of the birth canal without risking the child or the young girls life. There was only one thing she could think of.

"I have to cut the child out of her," she practically whispered.

The man looked at her in horror, "She will die! She will bleed out! And what if you harm he child?"

"That is a risk that I will have to take if we want to try and save both of them, even if we only save one of them," she woman went back to the knife that was laying next to her. "You will need to hold her down, mainly her hips. I cannot have her moving around."

The man nodded slowly and turned to his wife, "Malya, calm down. Please calm down." He slowly climbed on top of his wife straddling her, standing up, and holding her hips down. He placed one more kiss on her pregnant belly, tears spilling over and landing on her exposed flesh, "Alright, I've got her."

The woman slowly placed the tip of the knife on the girls birth canal and began to cut around the child's head. The girl cried out in pain, trying to pull her hips away from the knife.

"Daniel! Daniel please make it stop!" she cried, thrashing around while her husband held her down. The muscles in his arms bulged and strained in attempt to hold her down while tears spilt down his face onto her naked belly. The woman kept cutting, blood spilling onto the floor staining it an ugly color of red. Finally, the woman was able to slip her hand into the birth canal under the child's head and guide it out of the girl. The baby was a girl. She was slippery from the fluid and blood from the birth. Grabbing another cloth from the pile next to her the woman wrapped the wailing child up tightly and laid her on the floor next to her. She stood, gathering her skirts and ran to her basket of sewing supplies in the kitchen. She came running back in, needle and thread in hand and began to stich up the girls vagina, her hands shaking with the wailing of both child and the wailing of the mother growing softer. Her gut told her the mother would die if the bleeding didn't stop, and this was one of the few ways she had seen it done before. She finished the hasty job of sewing up the her vagina before dipping a few cloths in the warm water and pressed them to the wound. The girl had stopped thrashing and was finally beginning to calm down. Her husband, Daniel, released her hips and sank down onto the ground next to her, burying his face into her dark brown hair, drenched in sweat and rain.

The woman picked up the newborn baby girl and unwrapped her before gently bathing her and wrapping her up again, cooing softly the entire time. She wrapped the baby up once again and handed her to the father. He was now sitting behind his wife, her head in his lap, the baby in his arms before he handed her over to her mother.

"Does the child have a name?" the woman asked standing and wipng her bloody hands off.

"Arianna. Arianna Redwind," she girl said softly cooing at her new born baby. Fair skin, eyes as green as the forest trees, and hair as dark has ebony.