Fragments Gallery
Sentry Duty
"Bloody rain."
Adam grunted keeping his eyes on the road up ahead.
"Why do we always pull the worst shifts?" Complained Finn.
Adam rolled his eyes. Why do I always pull a shift with a complainer like you? He asked silently.
"Every other evening of the week there are only clouds, but we weren't out in even that. Now we pull the night shift and it rains, it'll probably rain on us tomorrow too."
Adam bit back the harsh words he wanted to voice, they would not help. Still he wished to give this man a piece of his mind.
Their lantern burned merrily as it dangled from Finn's gauntlet despite the atmosphere as the pair walked steadily through the growing puddles in their village. Their village was small enough to not need a full time town watch so all the villagers took a turn as sentries. Not that they ever had anything to watch for. It had been decades since the village had seen any trouble and even longer still since there had been bandits in even the nearby hills. They were lucky.
Still they kept a town watch. Just in case.
They reached the end of the main road and turned off it to patrol down one of the smaller side roads weaving between the houses. Their heavy boot squelched through the thick mud of the less used road and Adam grimaced, once more reminding himself to request wooden walkways at the next council meeting.
Finn continued to talk as they walked but Adam began to filter out the words as he drifted in his own thoughts.
When they reached the wooden palisade which formed the village boundary Finn turned left to walk along the road by the wall, behind him Adam turned to follow.
Finn yawned as he walked, finally falling silent as he surveyed their surroundings. A flicker of light from down the road caught his eye and he looked forwards his gaze trying to pierce the murk.
"Adam, you see something up ahead?"
Adam blinked and looked down the road and then mutely shook his head.
"I think I saw something up there," Finn stated.
"Let’s go see then," responded Adam.
Together they strode forward, each of them searching the night for anything that was amiss.
Ahead of them a shadow separated from a section of the wall and began to walk down the street.
"Identify yourself!" called out Finn as he noticed the shadow.
The figure ignored him and continued moving down the street. Adam and Finn exchanged a glance and then ran down the street to catch up. As they passed the section of the wall the shadow had separated from another shadow slipped away from the same wall and moved down the road in the direction from which the sentries had come.
The pair of sentries did not notice as the shadow slipped by them. Instead they ran, lantern swinging, to stop the figure ahead of them.
"Stand and hold," growled Adam as they reached the cloaked figure.
The figure froze and then slowly turned and lowered the hood of the cloak. Black hair streamed forth from beneath the red cloth. Hazel skin surrounded large dark eyes. Her lips curled into a grin a she raised her hands and a faint light began to gather between her upraised palms.
Down the street the other shadow turned to watched.
After a glance at his partner Finn drew his sword and began to edge around her heading to the left, Adam followed suite and began to circle around to her right.
She smiled at him, a cruel twist of her lips, and then separated her hands. A bright flash illuminated the night and when the watchmen's vision had cleared she was gone.
Adam and Finn exchanged a glance and then began to search the surrounding area for any trace of her. After a few minutes of their search they decided it was futile. She was gone. Together they walked off to report the incident to the elders, many unanswered questions on both of their minds.
Who was she? What had she wanted? Where had she gone?
The second shadow turned and walked away. Deception always had been her strong point.