How the Axe Falls

Chapter 1

THWACK!

The crowd cheered; half, half-heartedly; the other half, spurred on by the sudden reminder of mortality.

One man, caught in the first spray of blood, looked torn between euphoria and horror.

THWACK!

The headsman lifted the half-moon blade of his axe to the slit in his rippling veil and scratched his head, as if trying to remember if he'd properly sharpened the blade beforehand.

Boos rang around Talon.

'Get it over with!'

'We don't have all bleedin' day!'

'Chop 'er head off!' the man dripping with blood shook his fist at the headsman.

With a shrug, the headsman heaved the axe with both hands above his head and brought it down for a third time against the bloody mess of bone and sinew.

It was as his mother's head rolled towards him after the fifth fall of the axe that Talon began to wonder how old Copper Conlin remained Edge Cliff's headsman.

'Look away, lad,' Talon felt Uncle Jack's hand squeeze his shoulder tightly.

Mud covered jaw slack and eyes wide, his mother's head stared at him.

He could still remember his mother's last words as the Viscount's men dragged her out of their house.

'Back straight, chin high, Talon!'

So his father had said months before her and his sister a year before him.

Talon was pretty sure the headsman had growled similar advice to them all before relieving his family of their heads.

Was it some kind of joke? He looked questioningly into his mother's glazed eyes. Or were you all warning me?

The hand clamped to his shoulder trembled as Talon's Uncle quietly wept above him.

'There's nothing we can do,' Talon patted the man's hairy hand. Yet.

As the crowd began to peel away Talon watched Copper plant the shaft of his axe into the mud and take a cloth to the wide blade.

Three strokes across, three strokes down. Talon had the ritual memorised since his sister's blood had stained the headsman's axe.

The headsman's cloth paused at the top of the axe, his veiled head tilting in Talon's direction.

You'll be next, boy, the little black coals of his eyes seemed to say.

The strangest part about it all, was that ever since he'd first seen that tree stump, ravaged by axe marks, Talon had a nagging feeling that he too was destined for the headsman's block.

He spat into the mud, as close to the headsman as he dared. But not for a long time yet.

'Come on Uncle,' Talon tugged at his Uncle's sleeve, guiding the man away from the ring of blood-soaked mud.

He could not blame old Copper really, certainly not any more than he could the man's axe for killing his mother. There were only two types of people in this world: the tools and those that wielded them - how the axe falls, so the saying in Edge Cliff went.