SONG OF POWER

Chapter I: Cyen

“Biotan, Risen God of Life, please watch over Etre’s soul.  Ananke, Timemaiden, let my memory of this man never fade.  Phrenon, Solar King and Lord of all Lords, may your sunshine guide Etre to the everlasting goodness of Eden.  Let it be,” the youth quickly prayed over Etre’s corpse, then turned and ran towards the village.  He was sorry to note that he had memorized those simple last rites, for of late he had heard them far too often.

Cyen was in chaos.  The small village was overrun with goblins, its militia hard-pressed in the streets.  Fires claimed a few buildings, filling the sky with choking smoke and the streets with leaping shadows.  The youth had hoped to find a few men to help him hold the small path he was on, but he suddenly realized how foolish that was.  He stood in the dirt road, surveying the carnage.

A goblin slunk out from behind a building, intent on the cries of those within.  Its back was to Cipher; it did not know he was there.  The goblin chuckled menacingly as the old woman in the house screeched; the sounds of furniture being shoved to barricade the door could be heard just as clearly.  Soft as his boots would allow, Cipher stole upon the goblin.  The small humanoid wore an ill-fitting coat of ring-mail, and no helm covered its wide head with its overlarge ears.  The goblin’s attention was fixed on a window with a broken shutter; it did not hear as Cipher drew ever nearer.

Cipher drew Etre’s dragonen knife and plunged it with a cuss into the goblin’s lower back, below the armored shirt.  It howled in rage, and Cipher grabbed it by the ears and smashed its face into the windowsill once, twice, three times before the wretched thing grew sluggish.  It lashed out lazily with its poorly-crafted tomahawk, but Cipher nimbly side-stepped the attack.  The old woman appeared in the window and smashed a frypan full of roasted chestnuts over the beast’s head so hard that one of its yellow teeth fell out, lost with the scattered treats.  Seizing the opportunity, Cipher thrust Etre’s knife into the goblin’s throat and watched as the life left its body.  It gripped Cipher’s wrist, its eyes were almost pleading, but it could not beg, it could only gurgle to the last. 

“Cipher, you fool! The town hall!” the old woman yelled at the transfixed youth, snapping him out of his daze.  The town hall! Cipher thought, breaking out into a run.  It was the only stone building in Cyen, thus the most defensible.  Holed up within its walls were the town’s women and children, and posted around it were but a few of the village’s militia, as the rest were posted at the roads in the vain hope the goblin invasion could be prevented.

As Cipher neared the town hall, he could see the dire straits it was in; most of the militia lay dead around it, and those that weren’t were busy fighting for their lives.  A group of ten goblins were ramming the massive doors of the hall with a scorched tree trunk; each time that it made contact, the doors splintered more.

Cipher carefully picked his way over to one of the fallen militiamen, looking with sadness upon the twisted corpse of the smith’s apprentice.  He scooped up the apprentice’s warhammer, a weapon much to large and bulky for an untrained combatant like Cipher to wield effectively, but the youth was quickly forming a desperate plan.

“Vûr Brondre! Vûr Tark! Matrijs jed Hume!” chanted the goblins with the battering ram as they struck the town hall’s doors again and again.  So caught up were they in their chanting and ramming that they didn’t notice Cipher scale the rough side-wall of the hall, nor did they see him carefully move along the rooftop to glare down at them.  Cipher raised the warhammer clumsily over his head and hurled it with all of his might at the group of goblins; the heavy weapon spun end over end until it struck the ground in front of one of the lead goblins, causing it to stumble.  The goblin kicked the heavy weapon aside and the sappers renewed their attack on the weakened door.