The Terror of the Raiders

Chapter One - Little Devil (Revamped)

Being born black never had gotten Charles much anywhere. When his litter mates would walk the village's streets or mew pitifully at the corners, humans would come over to pet them or sometimes even give them a tasty scrap.

It didn't matter that Charles' purr was louder than any of the other kittens' and that his fur was softer. The humans never treated him that way. Instead they would flinch when they saw him coming or point their long, clawless fingers and shout at him. Some of the older women would even grab their straw bound brooms and run after him with them. But it was the children that treated him harshest of all.

The ones that were too young to whisper and prune at each other, almost adults and playing at seeking for mates. These children were also too old to hide behind their mother's long skirts and creep up to pet him when their parents were turned to the other way. Charles called these children the betweeners. Charles knew that the humans had a proper name for the children around that age, but it seemed as if the humans had a name for everything, and he never could remember them all.

Betweeners was a strange name, he thought, but no stranger than any of the human ones he'd heard. Stuck in the middle of everything, most of the adults and other children in the village would ignore them or blame them even for things that were not their fault.

At such times, Charles could sympathize. But it didn't stop those little, half grown monsters from being the most vicious of all; they were always the first to throw a stone at him.

According to the old tome who lived at the edge of the village with his blind human, the betweeners had always behaved this way. For all of the twenty-three Summers that he could remember. The tom, who had forgotten his own name and was so much older than all the other village's cats tha no other feline knew it, had told Charles plainly;

"They will become older children and change, just as the younger children will grow into betweeners, as you call them, as change as well. Only the betweeners are this awful. It is simply best to hide from them until they grow a little more."

Charles took this advice to heart, as well as everything else he was told by the elder cat in exchange for a piece of prey. "I'm old," the tom would tell the kitten. "My body is no longer young and spritely like yours. But I know things no other cat does, and I will share my life with you if you help me keep alive."

Charles, who had to be quieter than any of than any of the other cats to be able to hide from the humans, had also become a successful hunter. He thought that for the price of an extra rat or vole each week, the old tom's company and advice was a wonderful deal at his end.

So, Charles learned to avoid the betweeners.

He knew how they felt; to always ignored or in trouble for things they didn't do. The black kitten had been treated the exact same way ever since he had opened his eyes. But he wasn't always ready and eager to cause pain to those around him, and he couldn't understand how these betweeners were.

Unfortunately, it was one of the few things that the old tom didn't seem to know either whenever Charles would come visit with a meal each week. They would spend the day stretched out on flat white stones in the warm sunshine, near where the tom's old human would sightlessly work on her loom to make cloth that the village's other women would sew into clothes. If it was raining then they would curl up by the dying coals in the fire place, or occasionally the old tom would let Charles join him in his human's comforting lap and soft woollen dress.

The only human who could not see Charles' black fur and judge him for it. He might have only been two seasons old, but Charles treasured those rare days most of all.

The rest of Charles' average week was spent dodging the village children and grandmothers, accompanied by shouts of "Black Misfortune" and "Little Devil" as he hunted the various stables for rodents and other small pests to eat. A good rat would last him three days if he could keep it hidden from the dogs.

On the last day, the day before he would go see the old tom, a man would ring the village bell. He was tall and thin was a constant limp under his ankle length robes, always carrying around a heavy looking leather tomb that none of the other villagers could read.

Charles could never figure out whether or not this particular human liked Charles, or hated him with how he acted.

Most of the time, he would ignore Charles the way the rest of the adults did. But when the bell rang, he would pick Charles up and carry him into the village's tallest building. If he didn't see Charles, then the man would sent the blacksmith – who would bring the kitten far less gently.

Every time he would dump Charles into a raised basin of water and force him to sit in the pool that came to his chin whilst the man made funny hand gestures for the assembled humans and used words like "banishment", "evil" and "demon". It would last almost two hours until the man poured more water over his head and the entire village would say a chant together as they knelt on cushions stuffed with straw and held hands.

"Oh Glorious Aether, in wonderful ways you enlightened and redeemed mankind. Give us steadfast minds to resist the allurements of sin that we may attain the joys of eternal life in your clouds."

The humans would all clap their hands and bow, before standing once more and streaming back outside. The man would stay behind with two betweener boys until everyone else had left before ordering the children to tidy.

He was cold, we and miserable.

But Charles had learned that it was best to quietly wait for the man to return rather than run off at the first chance. His body would shake in the horrible liquid as he kept still.

And then the man would pick him up out of the water and wrap him in a thick wool blanket. He would spend the next half hour rubbing the shivering kitten until he was dry and his fur would stick out everywhere.

Charles would be placed back on the ground and given a large strip of dried meat that would take him all day to chew. There would be a single pat along his spine.

"Scram." The man always told him after, "I'd better see you on the next Blessed Day, and not before."

So, Charles always ran back to the shadows until the bell's next toll.

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading this revamp. Please vote and comment as it really helps to motivate and improve my writing. I love hearing from you guys.

Don't be afraid to shout out any ideas about where you think this story will lead. As this is a revamp and I am changing the direction and a lot of the style, there's a chance that your idea might end up in this book or one of the next. (I'm planning a trilogy - do you think that's enough books?)