Chapter 29: Thane's Story [2]

Ryner and the three kids sat by a river near the village they sat there talking, admiring the nature around them. The shallow blue water shined, reflecting the sun which shined brightly on this day. Ryner smiled and said, "Just look at the weather; it's such a great day for hunting today!"

Thane looked at Ryner, pointing at his backpack saying, "Maybe you could teach us how to use, some of those!"

"Hmm, I would usually say that you're too young to use that type of equipment, but you're at an age where it might prove to be useful. Fine, I'll let you choose which one you want."

Ryner pulled each weapon out of his backpack and spread it out on the grass, allowing Thane to choose which one he liked the most. Without a shadow of a doubt, Thane stretched out his arm, picking up a wooden bow. Ryner said, "Are you sure you want to use that one? It's quite old. I've been thinking about getting a new one recently."

Elias grabbed the small rusted iron sword and said, "Then I'll take this one."

Ryner raised his eyebrow, saying, "Make sure you don't hurt yourself with that one."

"Do I look like a child to you?"

"Well.. yes..."

Fern grabbed a stone rod and tugged at Ryner's coat, asking, "What does this thing do, Sir."

"Oh, that thing helps control your magic and can also amplify it, giving you a boost in strength. I don't need it as much anymore, so you can keep it if you want to. Since you've all picked something, I suppose we can begin, I heard from some of the villagers, that there were boars around this area, how about we practice some more with those weapons, and try hunting for some."

Elias followed up, saying, "Only boars? I got myself excited for no reason. They won't nearly be enough to practice my moves on, but it can't be helped, you all would probably fail without me."

"Thane, Fern, is he like this all the time... I take back what I said earlier about messing with him, looks like I can't blame you."

Thane shrugged his shoulders and said, "Right? It's like he's living in his own world."

A wonderful day like that, you'd never expect anything to go wrong, right? That's how we all felt, but to let our guards down and having that mindset was our own fault, us villagers outside of the kingdom could never possess the feeling of true freedom. Not when there are predators like them throughout the lands, we were foolish to ignore them and ultimately paid the price.

After hours of hunting, Thane and the others went back towards the village. Ryner looked surprised saying, "Wow we really got a big haul today, we might even be able to share some of this with the rest of the villagers.

He smirked and said,

"Maybe I'll need to bring you three along more often."

Thane's face being filled with joy replied with,

"Wait, really!? I wouldn't mind coming back to sharpen some of my skills!"

"Of course, I'll even get you a better bow for next time."

We were all thrilled with the chance of coming back and hunting with Ryner once again, but to think about it now and realise that day would never come, I wonder how much easier things would've been if that event didn't happen, but what's the use in doing that; it did happen. There's no what if's in this world. You can't rewrite history as much as you try.

Thane pointed down at the village in the distance from a hill and saw smoke emanating into the sky. He grabbed Ryner's attention and said, "Hey Ryner, look other there isn't that where the village is? Are they having a bonfire or something without us?"

Ryner said,

"Don't be silly they wouldn't-"

Before Ryner could finish his sentence, he locked his eyes onto the village and stared intently, trying to figure out what was going on, he thought to himself, "That's not a bonfire, what could they be doing, wait... that's not one fire, there's multiple?!"

Sweat began to drip down from Ryner's face, he felt uneasy, with no time to think about the situation he dropped all of his equipment and ran desperately towards the village. Elias shouted at Ryner,

"What are you doing!"

There was no response he continued to run forward, increasing the distance between him and the kids. They felt something was wrong and decided to drop all the food they were carrying and followed from behind.

They reached the village only to see the houses on fire and bodies on the street. A man with a lanced impaled through his chest lied on the ground. They saw Ryner, he stood still with his fist tightened staring at a banner. His expression said it all, eyes filled with hatred. The flag was black with a red star placed in the middle.

"How dare they come here, and desecrate this village, I won't forgive them!"

Thane on the verge of tears, shaken from this sight, asked Ryner,

"What happened to everyone..."

He turned around seeing Thane, thinking to himself,

'I can't let them see their parents there's no way they would've survived this.'

In the middle of Ryner's thinking; Thane had already began to run to his house, it was only a matter of time before he saw it.

Thane broke the door to his house with shoulder breaking it open, falling onto the ground. He picked himself back up and looked around, searching for his sister and mother. His mother sat there in the corner pressing tightly on her fatal wound, she slowly raised her head and spoke,

"You came back, I was hoping you wouldn't see me like this, but I had to tell you something..."

She started to cough up a large amount of blood.

Thane trying to wipe away his tears said,

"Don't speak anymore Ryner's here he can save you!"

"It's too late for that... they took your sister Thane, you need to find her, and save her. Please."

Her breathing had stopped, Thane had dropped to the ground not knowing what to do, the flames from the house grew stronger, Ryner ran in grabbing Thane, rescuing him.