Exile

This is the beginning of a short, but it may be a long short story about the beginning of a wandering warrior band, not unlike the Fianna. Anyway, this is just the very start, I wanted to get this online so that Nathan can see I haven’t forgotten about our story, yes, it does take place in a very early age of Tir Na Thonn. I am trying to get a feel for the land and it’s people, and so I thought I would do a story that had a lot of character development and setting description. I will add more later this week (well in this seven-day)

 

Heavy clouds hung over the high iron-colored peaks, lancets of lightning probed and flashed. Thunder rumbled like a distant avalanche through the mountain valley. A lone warrior stood on a rocky ridge.

A wound sliced open his face from cheek to temple exposing white bone, he gingerly touched around the laceration, it was swollen and tender. He shook his head, disgusted with himself.  For the first time in his twenty seven years he had been defeated. The whole warrior band had been defeated, and he knew from the start the raid was foolish, but greed had gotten the better of his clan.

That wasn't to say he lost in a one on one battle, he estimated fifteen warriors were punching, kicking and clubbing him. He fended them off as well as he could, but it wasn't enough. And so he stood, a broken sword, a broken body, a broken spirit.

The clouds cracked open sprinkling rain. The warrior went back to the narrow trail in search of shelter. The rain worsened and the temperature dropped, still in early spring the temperature would easily drop below freezing by night fall.

After a short while he found a shallow cave. It was dry and full of last autumns leaves. He smiled at himself, a cave, isn't that a fitting place to die, by himself, wounded, without sword and exhausted. He wasn't going to die cold; he could see his breath form vapors out his mouth. He sat and using some of the leaves and sticks within his reach he started a small fire.

Flames licked at the leaves, finding it liked the nourishment blossomed into a fire attaching itself to the sticks.

The Warrior put his hands out and warmed them. The fire’s glow spread throughout the cave warming his body enough to relax for the first time in days.

It was then, when he could finally relax that his body finally felt the pain. His ribcage burst into a pain that seared through his back.  The cut on his face felt like it was a blacksmiths forge.

He took the leather cup that hung on his belt and filled it with rain water. After several pulls for himself, he filled it again and warmed it near the fire. He bathed his open wound, cleansing out any possible poison. He washed the blood out of his hair, then he tenderly blotted his broken ribs. The warrior's muscles eased while the pain dulled.

He knew he'd need more fuel for the fire, larger sticks, he hoped for logs. After a half an hour he found enough fuel to sustain a good sized fire through the night. The fire grew as he added the logs and sticks. The flame played shadow games on the walls of the cave.

The Warrior laid by the fire in an attempt to sleep off some of the pain.