It had been an age of warriors; the man’s grandparents had told him. Fierce men and women who had been unafraid to fight for a better life. The colony had not been so established back then and it had barely been a decade since their ships had arrived on the shores. They had come in numbers, a never-ending tide of worn travellers ready to claim this new land. They brought everything with them, food, weapons, materials for building, even a religion which would later be forced upon the man’s ancestors.
Supposedly, they had been kind at first. Small groups of them would be sent into each village bearing gifts and warm greetings for the village leaders of the time. Their peaceful words hadn’t lasted long. The colony had been biding their time, gaining the people’s trust whilst they infiltrated their communities. On the night of their betrayal, the colony had kicked down the leaders’ doors and silenced the very people who had welcomed them into their homes. By dawn, a new force had established itself as the rulers of the land.
Supplies were stolen, families were torn apart, and a once proud people were forced into submission. The colony had profited from their cruelty and built a home of their own using the villages’ labour. They had begun requesting regular supplies, forcing the villages to work for their people even once their new home had been built. The colony claimed that they were being merciful and what is more, that they were giving the man’s ancestors a new purpose in this life.
But whilst other villagers had knelt, the people of Avlym had refused the demands of the colony and the Avlym rebels would later meet the colony on the battlefield. Of course, everyone knew what had happened next, generations had passed, and the village was still paying for their ancestors’ actions to this day.
The might of the colony had prevailed. Names of Avlym’s champions were still passed around the campfire, disguised in children’s tales to not catch the colony’s ear. Arthur, one of the men in the village, always took the time to join Ida with the quiet storytelling to the children in the long winter nights. He made sure to keep the elder from forgetting any of the champions’ magnificence, with her stories from her time as a maiden and his as a small boy, they gifted the rest of the villagers with such impressive and rich memories that they would feel as if they had all been there themselves. The children would stare wide-eyed at the recounts of the feats of their ancestors, their might, their ferocity, their greatness, always hungry for more.
But then they would quieten, and Ida and Arthur would tell of the final battle. Ida would get carried away and would have to be hushed before she could reveal all the true horrors of the war to such young ears. There was one description which she would always include however, the image of the demon that was still very much alive today.
King Breyden had been at the battle, not as a king then, only a young prince barely trained in combat. Surrounded by their personal guard, him and his father had waited on horseback as the carnage unfolded before them. There had been no need for them to fight themselves, they had their men to do that for them. Instead, they would talk softly among themselves before giving another command to a fresh group of soldiers at their disposal.
Ida described Breyden’s cruel face with his wholly black eyes which reflected only the murder before him. The only difference between Breyden and his father had been time and the crown resting on the king’s brow. Ida talks of how the pair of them would calmly discuss tactics, the king consulting his son as if the conflict was a teaching opportunity. Despite the man’s ancestors and their strength and bravery, their defiance had become a game for the young royal, an experiment to put taught strategy into practice. Ida would describe the sadistic pleasure that would radiate from Breyden as he watched his men trap and surround clusters of Avlym’s fighters and bring about their execution.
Throughout this, Ida had been peering out of one of the windows, huddling with the children away from the bloodshed. She had been armed, and the man had no doubt that when younger she would have been ferocious.
Avlym had fought well, and they had been closer to victory than they had had any right to be, but eventually they had been overwhelmed by numbers and better strategy. Many had died, and those who had been left had been poorer and more starved than they had ever known. The man had grown up in poverty even by current standards, his parents had barely known a full meal before their passing years after the rebellion.
Sickness had torn through the village as ferociously as any beast, and, try as much as the village healers did, there could be no helping the man’s parents or any of the others that fell victim to the illness. The whole village had been in a state of emergency, forced to bury their loved ones far out into the forest from fear that the plague still lived within them.
Avlym hadn’t been allowed to prosper for the best part of the last hundred years. Despite everything that the man and Avlym were going through, the cold nights, the homes falling into disrepair, the constant threats of starvation and the colony, Avlym was still seeing the best days it had in a long time. It had been a long recovery, and there was still much to be done, but Avlym was finally beginning to improve, not to a point where life would ever be comfortable, but perhaps to a point where it might be possible to enjoy living.
The hunters were already assembled waiting for the man on the edge of the deep forest surrounding Avlym. A miracle really considering Manuel’s infamous laziness.
