Bright Lights: Stories I Wrote For Prompts & Contests

HF Smackdown: Round 1.2

Humbold paced the cell restlessly. A few hours ago, he would have sat quietly, cunning and sly, but now he could hear the sounds of warfare outside: shouts, the clang of metal on metal, and the cry of the doomed.

Boots squelched across the fens, where Humbold could picture the tall grasses bristling, the wind brushing through the stalks with a fury.

"Why can't I join the fighting?" Humbold exploded. The guard didn't even flinch. Humbold took another step forwards, "I'm fifteen for Fens' sake! Let me out to fight beside my family!"

"Orders are orders."

"So now I order you. Let me out." Humbold's voice had diminished to a ragged growl and his stance was threatening - like a lion on the verge of attacking, his claws splayed. Humbold's fists were clenched tightly.

But there were bars in between the dark, murky cell and the guard, who spoke lazily, "Do you even know who we are fighting?"

"No."

"Well then. How can you fight if you don't know the enemy's weaknesses?"

Humbold slumped onto the floor, his shoulders hunched in. There was a beat of silence in which the guard turned away, satisfied the trouble was over. But Humbold was broken - why could he not prove his strength? The village boys always called him "Feigling" (German for coward) and "Baby Gerold." Soon, they would call him a weakling, too. Humbold Gerold der Feigling. (Humbold Gerold the Coward.) It was a terrible name.

In a whisper, Humbold asked, "Who are we fighting?"

The guard slumped against the bars. "That should have been your first question. Your father will tell you when he comes back."

"And if he dies because I wasn't there to provide a helping hand?"

"Then it'll have been your father's decision to keep you out of trouble. Why do you think he got some hands to catch you and put you in here?"

"So I wouldn't be a nuisance. I'm always the nuisance around here."

"It was a rhetorical question, but alright. Humbold, remember you are young. The world is not ended yet. You are simply not ready."

And outside, the clang of armour and the cry that followed signalled another death; another few bones to lie in the fens till excavations picked them out again.