The Secret of the Kingdom

Chapter 1: The Attack

"Yes, that's all what I have, Drake. I haven't received anything else and I won't receive more weapons until next weekend," said Harry with a sense of dissappointment in his voice.

"Well, I think that will be enough. How much is this then?" I said, trying to cheer him up.

"Umm... Twenty jewels."

I scratched my pockets slowly, looking for my jewels and took them, and I looked at Harry again; my brave young friend and also the guy who selled weapons in the village. He wasn't very tall or strong but he was a good friend. His hair was black like mine, and it looked like mine, to be honest. His eyes were golden like the sun and his face was rather handsome. I remember when we were younger, all the girls from the other villages liked him. I was just the guy next to him. He wore the same kind of clothes everyday; red shoes, black pants that always had a hole on the left leg for some weird reason and a white shirt. He started selling weapons about two years ago and his job has been good. His store wasn't too big. It was just a little wooden room with a stone floor and his weapons.

I kept thinking about Harry and his life while I was holding the jewels in my hand. I looked around me. And while the time passed I got trapped in my thoughts more and more. But suddenly I heard something that had fallen onto the floor, which woke me up from my thoughts. They were the jewels that had fallen from my hand.

"Hey, Drake, are you alright?" asked Harry.

"Oh, yeah, yeah. Don't worry," I answered nervously while I put my knees onto the floor to take the jewels.

"You look so nervous, is everything alright?"

"Yes, Harry, I'm just tired" I said, trying to make him stop asking me questions. I didn't want to talk in that moment, but I didn't want either to be rude so I just answered that. I only wanted to go and hunt some animals for dinner and go back home before evening.

I gave him the jewels and left the store quickly, without saying a single word, as if that way I could erase that shameful situation. Outside, I started walking around Landcaster, the village, visiting all the buildings without any reason. I saw the houses as always, their stone walls, wooden roofs and the same sound of the wooden planks when the people stepped on them. And the houses were completely organized and clean. It was just a normal day in the village. I looked the sky for a moment. Nothing interesting at all had happened, it was a boring day so I started singing one of the pieces I had composed. Everyone was working on their stuff and everything was normal. I visited the library to see if I could get an interesting book to read, I also visited the smithy and talked to the smith for few minutes. I know we talked about something interesting but I don't remember exactly what. The day was so boring that I even sat next to a wheat plot just to see it. After an hour I went home and inside everything was normal. Allyson, my best friend, was in my kitchen preparing something I couldn't figure out what it was. Everything was organized too, the chairs of the table, the beds, all the clothes were in its place and even the kitchen was clean.

I went to my bedroom and placed the things I had bought on my wooden shelf and I took the book from the library, I sat down on my comfortable chair and started reading. It was an interesting book. It was about the different creatures that existed in the kingdoms. It talked about their biology, nature and different minds. But that's not the point. We'll talk about it later. Let's just say I stayed there reading for about an hour.

By four o'clock, I equipped my stuff; a polished bow that I won in an archery competition and was very well-made, my arrow bag which wasn't very good but anyways useful and filled with some polished arrows made by me, my sharp knife and my bag in case of finding something useful. I left home, with the purpose of looking for animals to hunt or, as a second option, to go and visit another village to find more weapons or to go to the forest or the lake, but instead of that I walked around the village again for about an hour, looking if something had changed but as always I found nothing. Then I just entered the tower of the village. It was a tall tower, made of polished stone and the top of it was a good place to practice archery and also I could see if there were some animals near to hunt.

Then, as a normal person would do, I went upstairs until I reached the top of the tower. I looked around, but I saw nothing. There were no animals or something special. I only saw the desert far away in the north and the road to the Castle Elencore. I pointed to the sky with the bow and shot an arrow to a random place. It hit a tree.

"Mm... I shouldn't waste more arrows," I thought.

But when I was going to go downstairs and get the arrow I saw a little shape of a person running from the desert directly to the village. I looked at the desert again. There was a huge dust cloud there. I thought it was a sandstorm so I didn't pay so much attention to it because those kind of sandstorms had never reached the village. Then I came back to my job and located again the tree where my arrow was. I wanted to go and get it quickly. For a second I looked again at the desert and I saw the sandstorm closer.

"This is new," I thought, while I kept staring at it. Then in that moment, I knew something weird was happening.

Suddenly I saw a bright thing, coming from the sandstorm. It got closer very quickly. After a few seconds I noticed it was an arrow coming to me. I dodged it as fast as I could and I saw the arrow completely nailed on the hard stone of the tower.

"What was that?" I asked myself starting to become nervous.

I looked at the sandstorm one more time and looked at it better. I saw some rock-shape things which looked like people and they had swords and bows. I remembered the book I was reading a some hours ago and in that moment and remembered it said something about those creatures but I had no time to think. I breathed heavily and with all my force I shouted as loud as I could.

"Hey! Watch out! We're being attacked!"

All the villagers, organized and doing all what they had to in a quiet way, suddenly became another dust cloud, everyone was desperate. Some of them locked the houses and others just ran away as if there was nothing else to live for. I shocked and my reaction was to take my bow and start shooting arrows as crazy from the top of the tower. While I was shooting at them, I tried to remember what I had read in the book, it said how they were called but I couldn't remember; I was so shocked. My shooting skills were very good but for some reason I felt I didn't even hit something, unfortunately, and also they were too many.

I heard a noise behind me. I saw another dust cloud coming from the other side. I aimed them thinking it was another group of enemies but it wasn't. Fortunately, I didn't shoot at them because it was the King Ermer and his knights. I stopped shooting arrows for a while and saw the exciting fight between our enemies and the King while I kept trying to remember the name of the enemies. But I noticed the creatures were very strong, at least stronger than us, and powerful then I took my bow again and continued shooting as crazy. I thought we were winning but suddenly I felt a kind of earthquake which made me fell onto the tower floor. I stood up as fast as I could and I looked down. What I saw made me shocked, I noticed our enemies had destroyed the base of the tower and it was falling like a tree when loggers cut them down. I gave up and I thought it was my end while I was falling. I just saw a light and an eternal darkness and just as my vision became black I remembered the name of the enemies.

"The Litherades".