Editor's Note: this chapter is non-erotic and contains no sexual content. Chapter does contain violence.
*
"Bring water! Quick!"
"Water!"
"Water!"
Shouts for water permeated through the dry summer night. Panicked villagers rushed out of their huts as their screams grew fiercer by the second.
The village was on fire. In the dark night, with only the light from yellow moon, the blazing huts appeared as a work of artistic brilliance. The thin layer of snow was rapidly melting under the assault of vicious flames. The reddish hue of the fire was reflected on the high peaks surrounding the village which were covered by snow, and it looked alluring, incredibly so. But not for the villagers, it didn't. Their cries for help grew louder by the second.
A mother crying for her son left inside the hut; A father rushing into the orange flame to rescue his daughter. Siblings, barely of age 5, shivering in each other's arms. It was a pandemonium, nobody was able to make sense of, or rather, make conscious decisions to remedy the situation. They lacked the voice of reason, a leader to lead them out of this hell.
The cackling noise of the burning huts drowned out the screams for help. No amount of water proved to be enough to douse the fire. It was as if, the gods had abandoned them, nothing they did calmed the hellish inferno.
A person or two, or maybe even more, had realized by this time that it was not natural, that it wasn't possible for the whole village to catch fire at the same time. No, it was something else, or more accurately, it was someone who had done this, poured the oil and lit the flames, the flames of abomination.
"Here, quick!"
"That place seems safe, come on!"
In the infernal night, with their homes trampled beneath the angry blaze, the few of the young men realized that a single hut, the largest in their little village of over 100 residents, was left untouched by this hellish scene.
"Chief, where is he? Chief!"
A man jumped out of a falling, blazing hut, with his daughter in his arm and called for the village Chief, the leader and the hero of their village. Alas, there was no one to answer him. In their panicked state all the villagers, from elderly to infants, were hurriedly making their way towards the Village Chief's place of rest.
"Everybody please remain calm!"
A woman was calling for the frightened people to gather before her hut. She didn't seem panicked, or maybe was doing an excellent job of hiding her fear, however at the time she did seem like the leader everyone was crying out for.
"Get them inside, whoever is injured let them come inside." The woman was standing infront of the Village Chief's hut and guiding the rest of them as a shepherd would do so his cattle. The people listened to her and followed her commands. Finally they had someone taking charge.
Theirs was a Village which ran on severe hierarchical system. The people weren't equipped for this sudden attack, they need their leader to get them through this, and they had that in her. She never talked much, still, her words carried weight, and not just because she was an otherworldly beauty or a model wife and mom, no, it was because they saw the shadow of their true leader in her. Right now, she had the same aura as her husband, the Village Chief.
"Rub ice over the wounds! Rub ice over the wound!" She instructed even as she did so herself over a severely burned man and at the same time cursing that non of the guards on duty came forward.
Where are they?!
Her little boy was clinging to her back, his eyes filled with tears and his fists clenched tight.The boy couldn't be more than four years old and behaved just like any child of his age would under the circumstances as he refused to let go of his mother's hemp clothes. He had the same black hair as his mother's glossy black hair and had the same black eyes as her. Any stranger could tell from a single glance that they were mother and son.
He kept sticking to her even as she went from one injured to another to rub the now melting snow on their burns. The temperature had risen and the snow was melting. Most of the huts had burned down and all the villagers had huddled close to the one safe place.
It happened then, an arrow sailed towards the villagers and struck one of them.
"Aaah!!!" An inhuman scream echoed out as a man thudded down with an arrow sticking out of one of his eyes.
***
"Father, how much longer?"