DEADLY SEVEN

DEADLY SEVEN - .THREE.

♈
.THREE.

MANY CENTURIES AGO, England

THE SHARPENING OF SWORDS AND CLANKING OF METAL AGAINST METAL RANG INSIDE THE FORGING PLACE. The blacksmith dipped the flaming sword into the pool of water next to him. He was breathing heavily and bathing in his own sweat as the thick layers of smoke covering his workplace.

"Henryk!" The Blacksmith called for his son.

There was silence, only his breathing and the angry steaming flames answered him.

Dorion, the Blacksmith, stood with worry; his banging chest did not help soothe his current situation. He abandoned his work and used his hands to move the rising steam as if he could touch them.

"Henryk!" The bulky man called again. "Son, where are you? Henryk! Answer me, goddammit!"

He walked slowly into the eerie, misty land outside. He squinted his eyes to help see a better view, but it seems that the mists were thicker than he thought. The long walk to leave his forging place was getting scarier each footstep he takes and the echoing of his steps only indicates that he is alone.

Now, he was unsure if he really had already left his workplace or not, because he seems like to be walking in circles.

Where was he? Is he just dreaming this? Why does it feel and look real and why does his village seem . . . misty and isolated? In fact, too misty and isolated that it makes it suspicious yet creepy in many aspects.

Where's everybody? Is he alone? Why then?

His pace accelerates when he is not walking on the normal cobbled stone path anymore. He panicked when he did not hear the village's jester playing his ridiculous songs that everybody fancies, even his son.

Yet, where is everyone?

He stopped dead in his tracks when he heard a loud, yet soothing country-acoustic guitar, playing in the distance. It was not long until he heard a familiar song being played by a stranger:

"As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies makin' a mane,
The tane unto the t'other did say-o,
'Where shall we gang and dine to-day, o?'
'Where shall we gang and dine to-day, o?'"

"Twa Corbies," Dorion muttered, remembering the title of the song and its melancholic story. The Two Ravens, in translation to the common tongue.

"Down behind yon auld fail dyke,
I wot there lies a new slain knight;
And nane do kens that he lies there-O,
But his hawk and his hound an' his lady fair, O,
But his hawk and his hound an' his lady fair, O,"

The story was all about a knight who lost in a battle and was abandoned by his hawk, hound, and even his lady. While the two ravens hunt for dinner, they saw the dead knight and decided to eat it—with gruesome details being narrated—and this was witnessed by the traveler (who originally wrote and sang the ballad).

As the ballad gets deeper on its story, Dorion almost sang with the lonely lad behind the mists, but he just shook his head and thought otherwise.

"His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the moone-fowl hame;
His lady's ta'en another mate-o,
So we may mak our dinner swate, o!
So we may mak our dinner swate, o!"

With the hawk leaving elsewhere, a hound to hunt somewhere, a lady to find a new man to give her fame and fortune, and none even caring on finding the slain knight, the two ravens can eat their sweet dinner in peace, at last.