Storm Break

By Max Cooper, (22/10/2021)

The storm broke across the beachside, rain pelting, waves crashing against the sand.

If you looked closely through the haze of rain falling you could make out a boy, average height with a shock of blonde hair, weaving up and over rocks towards a nearby village. Here more safety would be found from the storm than out on the sand and rocks.

The boy was agile and leapt across gaps between rocks, going up and up towards safety. When the rocks finally came to an end the boy was gasping for breath, shivering in the cold, his shabby clothing unable to keep the rain from his body.

Still he ran, the storms ferocity growing with every passing second. He ran on towards the dimmed lights of the nearby town. Growing slower and slower as the rain pulled him down, around him trees creaked and sighed in the wind.

Finally he turned a corner in the muddy road and saw the town wall. Logs with spiked endings pointed in the air. This town was a victim of raiding goblins and orcs. The spiked endings prevented the goblins from climbing up the walls, a tactic only used in frontier towns.

The boy collapsed a mere fifty metres away from the entrance to the town. The wall looked unpassable and not even the guards were on watch along the walls tonight, the storm raged too hard.

The boy lay face up looking up into the rainy sky. He took a breath and blackness consumed him.

When he woke his surroundings had changed dramatically. Gone was the harsh rain and squelching mud. His surroundings were now wooden walls, light and another human.

A young rough looking man, brown eyes framed an unkept beard and scarred skin from fighting in the Goblin Wars. The man's rough brown clothes marked him as a huntsman or woodworker, but his scars revealed the past of a soldier. The man wasn't looking at the boy and seemed to be interested only in the shining of his knife. So the boy instead took in more of the surroundings.

A bow and quiver of arrows hung near the door, the rooms furniture was bare but comfortable all the same, a table and two roughly carved wooden chairs, the bed the boy was lying in was made with a comfortable blanket and poor quality pillows. Opposite the bed was a cupboard filled with food and other items essential to survival.

The man was still polishing his knife and didn't seem keen to speak so the boy sat up. The man nodded to himself satisfied the knife was polished well enough and sheathed it before he turned his eyes to the boy, who stared back at him with curiosity.

"Martin. Found you out on the road collapsed, so I brought you in." The man's voice was rough as if he wasn't used to speaking in such long sentences. The boy nodded his thanks and held out his hand.

Martin assessed him again for a second before he shook the boy's hand. With the introduction over, Martin went over to a small pot and spooned some of the contents into a wooden bowl.

The boy watched him and then shifted out from under the blankets. Outside the house he could hear the storm raging, sounding less dangerous than it had when the boy was outside. A crack of thunder made him shiver before he slipped off the bed and stood shakily.

Martin placed the wooden bowl filled with food of some sort onto the table and gestured for the boy to eat. He hesitated before he nodded his thanks again and began to eat eagerly.

"So welcome to Rultha. The one part of the Kingdom, where no one wants to be. 'Cept you apparently?" Martin asked it like a question. The boy said nothing and just shrugged.

The storm raged.