Story: "Never Going to Happen"
Story: "Anything is Possible. Always."
12 JUN 2014
“YEAAAARGH!”
Bran cried out as his fist let slip the golden shaft of Aedric light. It sailed over grass and grain before slamming squarely into the forehead of a stone dog. The goblin scout was flung to his back, his eyes now empty and hollow.
Two more left.
He burst laterally to pin one foe against the other, arcing as his opponents moved to counter. It wasn’t the number of foes you faced when it came down to it, only how many could face you.
He felt the mana flow again, his will shaping it into a blinding bolt of pure energy. It buzzed angrily beneath his hands. He gripped it tightly, rushing his enemy with a feint. The flint axe angled down to parry, but he dipped and planted a riposte as he charged. Warm ichor sprayed his robes as he ran him down and then thrust the bright javelin into the meat of his final foe.
It was over before it began, really.
He stood there, panting, his hands tingling and his heart racing.
He hated this.
The constant killing,
the burning villages,
the blackened fields,
the bodies that lined the roads.
He hated the fear in the voices of the townspeople he met, but worse still the ones who were simply quiet,
resigned to their fate
surrendering to the overwhelming enormity of it all.
Perhaps it reminded him too much of the hollow cavity his soul had left behind.
It would be so very easy to
just
give up.
Rees was soon upon him and began rummaging through the goblin corpses, salvaging what useful bits and bobs that he could before they went to waste. As he worked, he whistled a hopeful tune.
Bran wiped his wet hands on the grass by his feet, still in shock, but now awed by the hope he could hear in the boy’s warbling refrain. He felt the weight of the responsibility he bore, feeding that hope as he had in recent days.
Yes.
It would be easier to just give up.
But that was never going to happen.