War came to my town on the first day of Harvest, and within the week, I’d fled.
The bells tolled at noon that damnable day. Stately chimes ringing thick and melodic in the brisk air, and by half a hundred past, the Troop were stuffed into the wagon convoy headed north. The whole of Dreadfall flooded the streets and draped over the tavern balconies to cheer them off, our glistening parade of heroes. Some had brought rice to throw. Some brought crows to release. Some even beat on those awful marching drums. Everyone was there to laud our vanguards, our bravest, our boldest: the faces we knew and the faces we sorely wished we knew. But I, I was only there to see Omen.
I did see him. I had to clamber up the stack of crates that never left the door of Scorn’s smithy, the ones that always overflowed with replacement scabbards and flints and whetstones at very reasonable prices, but I did see him. Omen, standing proud on the leading wagon like the chiselled figurehead on a ship as it rocked and rolled steadily up the street. A confetti of orange leaves flitted from the near-barren trees. Breeze whistling under a blanket of mackerel clouds. Those horns I’d always envied framed his head like a golden crown and when he punched the air in his visionary triumph, the crowds roared back. Grinning madly. Insatiably confident. Because… Omen. Because Omen. And as his face melted back into the cart, and and as the procession trundled out of town and away through the Sunken Forest, I stole myself from the bustle and tried to force down the dreadful knot twisting within me. Only the dark spirits could say if I’d ever see my favourite face again.
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We knew how it would go. As a child of Dreadfall, you’d always known. The Troop led the way, followed by conscription of all recruits of fighting age who weren’t otherwise engaged in essential town duties – surprisingly, propping up our taverns apparently didn’t meet this criteria. We’d hold the midday wagon parade for seven days: the March to Glory. Been our way of it since the Clearing. And while I was far too young to be considered the last time war was declared, keeping myself tight to the shadows as the years ticked down till an unfortunate and regrettable peacetime broke out, my name was certainly on their list now. While the rest of the town spent that first afternoon preparing, readying, anticipating, and getting themselves decadently merry to the advantage of the veritable society of tavern-owners here, I took a brush and began sweeping up the rice. Some of the poor little crows were already gorging themselves ill.
They deserved better. We all did.
Does anything grab you?
