A Case of Time-Travelling Shorts

Eyes of Iustium

This is for my English teacher, Mr. Goodier. It's piece I wrote when I was asked  to write about what I did over my summer holidays last year. Having primarily played Skyrim for my holiday, I thought it only honest to write about it. With my own twist.  I hope you enjoy it. 

Anya caught a glimpse of something feral in the water. It was a thing, clad in roughly stitched furs, with dull matted hair and wild blue eyes that glared up at her from the lake. Anya pulled her lips back into a snarl and drew her knife, only to have the  thing copy her. Frustrated, she kicked at the ground, distorting her reflection with blue-white stones.

 Sheathing her knife, Anya adjusted the bow on her back, hoping to stop the strapping from rubbing through her furs. She had been scouring the lakeside for hours now, led only by a hand-written note whose words burnt into her mind. Bandits. Mirror Lake. And a roughly drawn face. A face that preyed on her dreams. A face split in two by a haggard scar, with lustful eyes that had a habit of following young women. It was that face that had brought her here tonight, bringing with it a rage that burnt so strong inside her gut that it kept even the cold at bay. She would scoop his eyes out with a molten spoon, Anya decided.

The lakeside was a barren, desperately cold place with rocky cliffs guarding the water's western edge. The surrounding land was desolate, yet her efforts to find the bandit hideout had been unsuccessful. Already she had watched on as those towering cliffs swallowed the sun in her search for an entrance. Restless, she paced by the lakeside with only the eyes of Iustium for company. The twin moons, one silver, one blue, were full and whole in the sky. They warded off true darkness with a pall of ghostly light.

 Anya glared into the lake. Behind her reflection lay a universe of constellations, and the eyes of Iustium which watched over her. She was so close to her vengeance that it clawed at her innards. Anya kicked at the lakeside again, creating a tide of angry ripples. So close: yet she could have searched for the entrance until her hair greyed and never discovered its secrets. A scream of frustration threatened to escape into the night air.

 But the Gods were with her tonight, and they sent a wind to carry the words of drunken watchmen on its voice. Anya stared the wind down, screwing her eyes up at the frigid air. She followed the wind to the sound's source. The cliffs. Vengeance urged her on, like a parched throat begging to be quenched with blood. Ironic, Anya thought, that the bravading guards of the scar-faced man should be the ones to damn him. She skirted around the base of the cliff, led by whispers blown across the water. The wind struck ripples across the surface of the lake, shattering stars and moons alike.

 Legend told of Iustium. God of Justice, whose eyes were worn and tired by the treachery of men. But when both eyes were full, just as they shone tonight, Iustium would gather his strength, and strike down the monsters among men. Anya clung against the cliff face, her unearthly blue shadow lurking after her.

Tonight she would strike down a monster.

Taking care to avoid the water's lapping tongues, she followed the lake's edge. Her leathered boots crushed stone underfoot, each step bringing her closer to justice. The fire in her gut pushed her forward, quelling the trembling of her arms, numbing the protestations of her muscles as she edged further still around the cliff.

She followed the faint voices to the entrance of the bandit’s hideout. It was a thin crevice barely wide enough to squeeze through- as if a giant had cleaved the towering rock open with a knife. She would have missed it entirely if it were not for the revelries, which resounded through the crevice on the wind's ice laden voice. One barking laugh stood out from the others. Cruel and cutting, it froze her to the ground. Fear remembered that voice, pulsing  faster in her ears, as if her heart was trying to out-beat itself.

Anya tried to calm herself, but fear dragged her back into her past.

She heard the screams of the dead echo in her ears. The sky burning black. The crackling of rafters and burning flesh. Metallic screeches: transforming life into death with red brush strokes. The sobs of a girl crying over corpses that she had once called Mama and Papa. Her baby brother who had yet to celebrate his second birth year, lost. And that laugh. It rung in her ears. Barking. Inverately gleeful of his work. It was stronger even, than the buzzing of flies that had fought over blackened flesh when the sun rose.

She was shaking, Anya realized. Shuddering like leaf in turning seasons. She leant against the cliff, her breath escaping into the air like smoke from a blacksmith's smelter. Hastily, she adjusted her hood, pulling it over her mouth to smother a sob. The soft fur masked her uneven breath, but it did nothing to soothe her heart.

 To reassure herself, Anya unsheathed her knife. Beneath her gloves, she could feel her knuckles burning white. It was a cruel blade; dull and black, yet fatal to those who met its curved edge. She imagined slipping it between the ribs of the scar-faced man, or sliding it across his throat, to watch his life-blood feed the snow. The thoughts fed the burning rage in her gut, masking fear with malice. She'd carried this knife for eight years. How rich it would be to kill the monster with his own weapon.

 Tonight she would kill the monster of the mirrored lake.

Anya sucked in a lungful of frigid air and wedged herself into the crevice, taking care not to scratch her bow against the thin walls. Rock towered above her, impossibly high, as she crept into the tunnel's mouth. So close. Yet Anya went slowly. Eyes searching for movement in the shadows, ears straining for the shuffling of feet over the pounding of her heart.

The crevice was dark- even with Iustium’s eyes lighting her path. She used her hand to guide herself around corners as the passage wove deeper into the cliff. Algae clung to the damp walls, and dripping water added to the chorus of noises drumming through her head. From high above the stars watched on.

The tunnel forked, but Anya saw the faint flickering of shadows along the left rock face. She dropped into a crouch. Notching an arrow in her bow, she crept slowly around the corner. There she saw the first watchman; a thick silhouette hovering like a moth in the warm torchlight. Anya drew the bowstring past her cheek.  She exhaled slowly.

The guard looked well fed; gluttoned on stolen grains and livestock, and garbed in furs and leathers that could never have been earned honestly. He was unattentive- lulled into a sense of false security by drink.  The rage in Anya's gut drove her on. She would have justice: sttarting with this man. Her parched throat called for blood.

The arrow’s fletching caressed her cold cheek as she let it fly. It did not miss. The eyes of Iustium stared down. In that moment, they seemed to wink.

~~~~~~~

Fear was the only thing Dayl felt. It bound him in its petrifying embrace. Papa had arranged a celebration, when the quiet tunnels Dayl had grown up in suddenly filled with the vicious sounds of battle. When the alarm had been raised, Papa had told him to hide in the cellar. “I’ll come for you,” he’d promised.

Consealed between the shelves, Dayl wrapped his father’s jacket tighter around him. It smelt reassuring, like smoke and stolen blackcurrents, as if  to remind him that Papa always kept his promises: as sure as the scar that marked his face from dark hairline to jaw. Dayl dared not move. He’d caught a glimpse of the attacker: a terrifying girl with hateful blue eyes, and a knife that felled his people like they were made of clay. A monster.

The sounds of attack had faded with the gently rising sun, but still Papa had not come. Where was he? It was his ninth birthday, Dayl thought dumbly. He chewed on a strand of his blond hair anxiously. An unsettling silence had fallen over the surrounding tunnels, and it turned his stomach. Deliberate footsteps shattered the silence.

His heart rose and then fell, as Dayl realized that the gait was not Papa’s. He heard a terrible scraping that could only be knife grating against stone wall. A haunting, feminine laugh rang out through the morning air, as the footsteps grew closer.

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