The Night Raiders

The small Hamlet

A single stream runs through our hamlet in southern Cornwall. The trees sway in the winds swept into land by the sea. The gulls wail in the early mornings and settle at night leaving the town silent and still. At night the only sounds to be heard where the crashes of waves on the sandy cove a few miles out and the drunken sing song of sailors and innkeepers in the local pub.

A light flickers in the distance from another village. Its 10 o'clock and one by one the lights switch off until there is no light and its like the stars themselves have disappeared. When I was younger I always wondered who the people where so far away in the distance. The lights always seemed so close but I knew they where miles away and it would take a day on Brambles back to reach the town.
Bramble was my fathers horse, He was a strong and powerful horse who helped my dad with plowing the fields on a daily basis. He was a young stallion and his chestnut fur looked glossy in the bright sun.

I gazed out of my window and looked into the inky sky full of stars like sparkling diamonds. The only light I could see was the moon beams on the gentle waves in the cove.

By now I should be in bed but I love the beauty of the country in the night time. In the night I could watch the people walk to and from the pub and see the events that shape their lives like they see the events that shape mine.

I barely ever dream when I fall asleep probably because I fall into a deep sleep but tonight was different. I dreamed about the cove and the town and the tales told to children to scare them into behaving. The night raiders.
"The night raiders will get you!" They use to say if I missed behaved. No one had ever met or seen one.. no one who lived to tell anyway.
They where smugglers and bounty hunters. They stole from innocent peoples homes and too the lives of those they where told to kill.

There was reports from up north that they smuggle illegal goods too and from countries and cities. People also said they didn't exist and where only told as a warning to naughty children.

They targeted small and unknowing
areas around the country especially in the rural areas where they could hide in the moors and vast countryside. I had never hoped to see a night raider as I did not have a death wish but I was always interested in the band of people that killed for the bounty there where due.

Then I heard a noise..

A clattering and voices near the cove. In the thick, foggy darkness I could see nothing then it dawned upon me...
Night Raiders..

I threw my blanket off me and darted downstairs as quick as I could.

Downstairs the embers from the fire began to sizzle as they died out and the clock chimed 11 o'clock.
In the chair sat my father. He snored as he lay in the chair with a beer bottle loosely in his hand. My mother was sat in a chair the opposite side of the room reading a book.

"Mum." I whisper, trying not to wake dad.
"Yes honey," she replies without looking up from her book.
"Theres someone down the cove," I replied.
"Is there? How wonderful darling..." My mum whispered stiffly. She did not care much about the town and its inhabitants as long as she earned a good wage up at the large estate she worked on she was happy to live peacefully in a village she despised. My dad on the other hand loved the village and where we lived and cared much for the people and there wellbeing.

"Can I wake Dad and tell him?" This made my mother look up from her book and into my eyes for the first time.
"Do not wake your father, he has had a busy day and does not need your tales and worries stressing him out. Go if you wish to the cove and see Im right! There is no one there Eliza!"

Quickly I stormed upstairs and grabbed my walking boots. I put them on carefully and fastened the laces before I rushed downstairs and out of the door, down to the cove where I had heard the voices and clattering on the shores.

Thanks for reading the first chapter! Let me know what you think in the comments!