Nameless

A woman screamed, and blackness swept over the compound. Steel clashed on steel and shouts rang out over them. A hand pushed the boy down, and out, into the night. A word was muttered with a dying breath, ‘Run’. He did, running faster than he had ever run before, farther than his body should have been asked to. By the time the sun dawned on him, he was unconscious, blood splattered on his clothes and skin. Little of it was his, though his arms and feet did bear signs of his passage. A woman stared down at his thin form, her young face lined with fresh grief. She hefted his surprisingly muscled little body. The child, for he couldn’t be more than ten, didn’t stir.