Brelira Story Draft 1

Something was wrong.

Brelira stopped abruptly in the middle of the street and redoubled her grip on her brother’s hand, scanning her surroundings for the source of her sudden discomfort. She had been lost in thought, not paying attention to her surroundings, and at first couldn’t tell what had alarmed her. The two-story, cut-stone houses surrounding the broad paved square they stood in looked the same as ever. The sky was blue and nearly cloudless, the warmth of the midday sun a pleasant counterpoint to the gentle spring breeze that stirred her grey cotton dress and long wavy blonde hair. There were no frightening figures anywhere in sight, no stray dogs, no thuggish men, no soldiers...

In fact, there was no anyone. The square around her-- which should have had at least a few people out and about on their way to or from the markets (as she was), children at play in the pleasant spring weather, women hanging laundry out to dry-- was instead completely empty. Not an abandoned empty, with doors and shutters left open to blow around in the wind, ordinary household objects left scattered about, lonely and forlorn, but a hushed, frightened, doors locked and curtains drawn sort of empty. She shivered slightly, even though it was only barely cool, and hurried over to the small gap between two houses, pulling her brother along behind her.

“What’s going on, Lira? Why aren’t we going home?” Wes’s question was startlingly loud in the silence. He was only six, too little to realize how careful they had to be. Brelira herself was twelve, almost thirteen, and she was well versed in caution. Not that I’m doing much better than Wes is today, she thought, given how long it took me to realize something wasn’t right.

“Hush!” she told him as they ducked into the alley. She crouched down beside him, frantically trying to think of a way to get him to stay here and stay quiet while she investigated. “Okay, Wes, we’re going to play a game,” she said quietly, putting on her best fake smile. “You’re going to stay here with the food--” she put down the basket of fresh bread and produce they had just gotten from the market “--and I’m going to go get Mother, and we’ll make her look for you, alright? And you’re going to stay right here until I get back so I know where to find you.” She paused and swallowed hard as another possibility occurred to her. “And if I’m not back in ten minutes, you go to the smithy and find Father and Alex, okay?”

He grinned and nodded. Wes loved the blacksmith’s shop where their father and older brother worked. If she didn’t come back, he would be safe there. “Okay, then,” she said, “and remember to stay quiet so Mother doesn’t hear you.” She gave him one more smile that she hoped looked reassuring rather than terrified, and walked as quietly as she could out of the alley and back into the open square. She kept so near the houses that her arm almost brushed their walls, hoping that her grey dress would blend in with the stone, and drew the small, curved hunting knife she kept in her belt. It would be of little use in a fight, no matter that her father had trained her to use it when he had given it to her for her eighth birthday, but she felt better with steel in her hand.

She was about to turn the corner onto her street when she heard a horse neigh. She jumped about a foot into the air in shock, then flattened herself into a doorway, her heart hammering in her chest. After a moment, however, no horse (or anyone else) had appeared, and she cautiously continued until she could peek around the corner onto her street.

She immediately saw the reason the streets were empty. Her house was the third on the left, but she wouldn’t have recognized it if not for the location. The front windows had all been smashed, and the door lay in several splintered chunks in the road. Beside it, tied to the mangled remains of the hitching post, were eight horses in the silver lined red livery of the High General, his stylized eagle insignia branded on their haunches.

Brelira ducked back around the corner, pressing herself against the wall and trying to slow her breathing. The soldiers had found them, that much was clear. It had happened very recently, because she and Wes had only been at the market for about an hour. That meant her mother and baby Dylan might still be alive, hiding somewhere in the house. But the soldiers were still there. They wouldn’t have left the horses. That meant that going to look for Mother and Dylan would be very, very dangerous. But I have to go. They’re my family. I can’t just leave them there. And I told Wes to go find Father if I don’t come back, so he’ll be okay. She nodded once, cementing her decision, and crept around the corner and down the street.

As she approached the house, she could hear muted crashes coming from the second story. Searching the house. Are they looking for Mother, or seeing if anyone else is hiding? She fervently hoped it was the former.

Her hopes were dashed seconds later when she heard a sob. She half-ran the last few steps to crouch down and peer through the nearest of the smashed windows. If anything, the inside of the house was worse than the outside. There were broken bits of chairs strewn about the floor, food torn apart, stepped on, and generally scattered all through the kitchen, and fragments of ceramic dishes scattered like autumn leaves over the whole house. The soldiers had flipped over furniture, slashed curtains and rugs, and even ripped out parts of the wood paneled floors and walls in their search for hiding places.

The worst part, though, was not the destruction of the house. The worst part was the small, red-spattered bundle of pale blue cloth pinned to the kitchen table with a sword. The worst was the sight of the two soldiers still downstairs, the silver thread of their uniforms stained red with her brother’s blood. The worst part was her mother, pinned to the wall of the kitchen by daggers through her hands, tears streaming from her closed eyes as one of the soldiers hit her in the stomach.

“Where is your husband? If you tell me now, I’ll let you live,” the soldier said. Brelira stared in horror, unable to tear her gaze from the awful sight of her mother, who almost never said an unkind word, who never complained when asked by her children to play silly little games, who still told all of them bedtime stories whenever they asked, who encouraged her daughter to take more of an interest in horseback riding than embroidery, pained and bloodied and utterly helpless.

Her mother opened her eyes. She didn’t look at the soldier, but past him, at the little bundle on the kitchen table, and then past it, too, to meet Brelira’s eyes. “I won’t... tell you... anything,” she said, her voice rasping. “I’d rather die.”

Brelira swallowed hard, forcing down tears, and nodded to show that she understood. Her mother would keep the soldiers occupied so the rest of them could get away.

Mother turned her gaze back to the soldier in front of her and spat at him. I guess she’s not so helpless after all.

“Little bitch,” he growled, wiping at his face, “I’ll show you what happens to traitors like you.” He pulled out a knife. Brelira closed her eyes and ducked back down below the windowsill, curling up with her hands over her mouth, trying not to throw up. In an attempt to get the images of her tortured mother and murdered baby brother out of her mind, she focused on the sounds around her. She could hear the thumps and crashes of the soldiers still searching upstairs, her mother whimpering in pain as the one soldier cut her-- not helpful-- and the increasingly loud footsteps of the other soldier as he walked around downstairs.

By the time she realized that the footsteps were growing louder because he was coming towards her and opened her eyes to search for a hiding place, the approaching soldier was already out the door. She scrambled to her feet and backed away, raising the knife, suddenly keenly aware that she could very shortly be joining her mother.

The man gave her a smile that might have been reassuring if she hadn’t been able to see her baby brother’s blood drying on his surcoat. “Don’t worry, little girl,” he said quietly, “we won’t hurt you. We just want to ask you a few questions.”

She didn’t respond, keeping the knife up. He took another step towards her, and she scrambled backwards again until her back hit a wall. She had gone all the way across the narrow street, and couldn’t flee any further. The soldier’s smile took on a triumphant, almost predatory look. “It’s okay,” he said, “I just want to know if you know--” He made a grab for her. She ducked to the side, but he lunged, tackling her to the ground and pinning her legs. She twisted, rolling partly over. He tried to grab her arm again, but she slashed with the knife, cutting his hand. He jerked back, looking shocked, his cut hand dripping blood onto her face and neck. She lunged upwards, slashing at his face. He rolled off her and she followed him, now more furious at than terrified of this man, this monster, who had murdered her brother and tortured her mother and was trying to kill her, too. He landed on his back with her on top of him, stabbing down with both hands on her knife. It landed on his chest, clinking as it slid off his mail. He opened his mouth, probably to shout for help, but before he could, she brought her knife down on his throat with all her weight behind it. He made a horrible choking sound, and blood spurted everywhere when she pulled the knife out, but he was still moving, one hand going to his neck to try to stem the flow of blood, the other frantically swiping at her. She stabbed him again, and again, and again, until he stopped moving. By then, he had half a dozen stab wounds over his face and neck and arms, and her formerly pristine grey dress was stained dark red with his blood.

She staggered to her feet and backed away, then collapsed to her knees and vomited. I killed a man, she thought, shaking. The whole process, from when he had first spotted her to him lying in a pool of blood in front of her, hadn’t taken more than two minutes. He was alive and now he’s dead and I killed him. The thought threatened to make her sick again, so she shoved it from her mind, trying to think instead of what to do next.

I need to go, she realized. They’ll be done searching the house soon, and they might come looking for him. I need to go get Wes and get to Father. Her father would know what to do. They had known the army might find them some day. He had prepared. He would know what to do.

She nodded firmly and pushed herself to her feet. She didn’t creep back to Wes, she ran, needing to get away from the horrors of what had been her home. When he saw her, her brother’s eyes went wide. “Lira! Why are you all wet and red? Is it paint? or Juice? What happened? Where’s Mother? I thought she was gonna come play hide and seek! Are you crying?”

She hadn’t realized it until he said it, but silent tears were streaming down her face, cutting clean streaks through soldier’s the drying blood. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, forcing back the sobs that were welling up in her throat. Get to Father, she reminded herself, he’ll know what to do. “Change of plans, Wes. We’re both going to go to the blacksmith’s to see Father and Alex.” She looked down at her bloodstained clothes, realizing that she would never get all the way to the smithy without being stopped, not dressed like this. “But first I have to change. Come on.” She was surprised at how little her voice shook as she spoke. Taking her brother’s hand, she pulled him out of the alley and back out onto the main street. She looked around half-frantically, aware that she was leaving a literal trail of bloody footprints, that the soldiers could find their murdered friend at any moment and come looking for his killer.

After a few moments that felt like an eternity, she found what she had been looking for: a clothes line stretched across an alleyway. She put her hands on Wes’s shoulders and pushed him into a doorway where he would be relatively hidden from view but still able to see out into the square. “Stay here, stay quiet, and come tell me if you see anyone,” she ordered him.

“Why? Lira, what’s going on? Where is everyone? Why are we hiding if we’re not playing hide and seek anymore?” Wes’s little brown eyebrows were scrunched up in confusion.

“We are playing hide and seek. Well, not really playing, more like practicing for it. I want to see if you can be quiet and careful like a big boy. If you can, you can come hide with me and Alex in our special spot next time we play,” she lied, plastering her fake smile back onto her face and hoping she had distracted him from the question of where everyone had gone. She didn’t think she could come up with a convincing lie for that one, even if she was only convincing a six year old.

Thankfully, it worked. His brown eyes grew as wide and round as saucers. “You and Alex have a special hiding spot? I want to see!”
“Later. And only if you can be really quiet and keep watch and do everything else I tell you until we get to the smithy. Okay?”

He nodded vigorously and turned to watch the street with a concentration only serious bribery could induce in him.

She kissed his tousled brown hair before turning back down the alley, heading for the clothes lines. Sorry, Mrs. Carter, she thought as she hurriedly started pulling down a dress. Wait, no, we’ll probably be riding. And even just walking a long way would be hard in skirts if we have to leave the road. She grabbed a shirt and pair of breeches instead. She ripped her dress in her haste to get it off and only gave her face, hands, and knife a cursory wipe to get the worst of the blood off before throwing on the slightly damp stolen clothes. Now I’m a murderer and a thief, she thought almost hysterically as she strode back over to Wes again.

“Did anyone come by?” she asked.

“No. Those are boy’s clothes.” He frowned again, and added as an after thought, “And they’re not yours.”

“I’m borrowing them. Father might take us riding,” she said, taking his hand again and leading the way back out into the square. “Now, stay close to me and stay quiet.”

They took a winding, indirect route to the smithy, Brelira looking over her shoulder the whole way, searching for the soldiers she was sure must be following them. She never let go of her brother’s hand, nor did she sheathe her knife. She wasn’t sure what she looked like, with her strange combination of long, unbound hair, boy’s clothing, and probably streaks of half-dried blood on her face, but once they got back to streets with people out on them, she got several strange looks. She wouldn’t have cared, except that she was afraid the soldiers might ask people about them, so she kept to less-crowded side streets as much as possible.

Despite the fact that she went as quickly as Wes could keep up with, her winding route meant that it took nearly an hour to get to the smithy. She practically sagged with relief when she saw the familiar shopfront, with its painted wooden sign of a sword, horseshoe, and anvil, black on an orange background, her older brother Alex in his usual spot by the door, his short brown hair a familiar mess, his face and clothing lightly dusted with soot as usual. His bored gaze passed over her at first, only recognizing her when she separated herself from the crowd and approached the door. “Lira? What are you doing here? And what are you wearing?” He paused, frowning. “Is that blood in your hair?”

“Get Father,” she told him, glancing over her shoulder yet again, scanning for red-and-silver pursuit, “and let us in off the street.” He looked surprised both at her tone and her request, but did as she asked, letting her and Wes into the store before disappearing through the door into the forge out back to find their father. Brelira finally released her death-grip on Wes’s hand and paced around the shop, flicking her eyes from weapon to weapon and wondering which she should grab if a soldier came in after them. Wes, delighted as always to be in the shop, grinned as he tried on a helmet shaped like a dragon’s head.

When the back door opened, she whirled, raising her knife and moving to put herself between Wes and whatever threat was coming now. Her father, a tall man with the same brown hair and eyes as her brothers, though he wore a short-cropped beard to match, raised his eyebrows. “Lira? What are you so scared of, little princess?”

She lowered the knife and came out of her half-crouched fighting stance. His question brought things she had pushed to the back of her mind rushing back to the forefront, and she had to swallow a sob before replying, “There were soldiers at our house.”

All three of the others froze. “Your mother and Dylan?” her father asked, sounding half-choked.

This time she couldn’t keep back the tears. She couldn’t say it, either, couldn’t describe the horror of it, couldn’t force the finality of the word “dead” past her lips, so she just shook her head, the tears she had held back for so long finally overflowing. The only sound in the room was her sobs.

After a long moment, she looked up, wiping the tears from her eyes. Alex looked shocked, Wes confused, and her father was sitting on the floor, staring at nothing. She noted, absently, that Wes was still wearing the oversized helmet. “W-what do we d-do?” she managed. Father can’t fall apart. I need him to tell me what to do. He was supposed to fix everything, make us safe. He has to.

He looked up, finally meeting her eyes. “What?” he asked, as though he hadn’t understood her question.

“What do w-we do?” she repeated. “W-we have to l-leave, right? H-how? D-do we need h-horses, or...” she trailed off, uncertain, fighting down her tears again. I can’t cry yet, I have to be brave, Mother was so brave, I have to be like her. Everyone always said that Brelira looked like her mother, with the same blonde hair and green eyes. Hopefully she could act like her, too.

“Yes... yes, we need to leave. Come on.” He stood up and walked to the back door again. She finally put her knife away and pulled Wes after him, into the heat and clangor of the forge. Both of her brothers still looked dumbfounded, as though they hadn’t, or perhaps couldn’t, process what she had told them.

“What’s going on?” Wes asked. “Where are we going? Why did we leave Mother and Dylan at home if there were soldiers there? I thought soldiers were mean and we had to stay away from them.” His whole face was wrinkled up in childlike confusion.

“They’re dead.” Alex’s voice was completely emotionless. He met Brelira’s eyes when she turned to look at him. “Aren’t they? Isn’t that what you meant?” His question sounded almost accusatory.

“Yes,” she said, and squeezed her eyes shut against the tears. I can’t cry yet, Wes will be frightened and Father had to be reminded to help us and I have to be strong like Mother.

“And why are you here, then? How did you get away? Would it have been too much to ask for all of you to escape?” He was definitely angry now.

She stopped in her tracks and spun around to face him. Her brother was fourteen and tall for his age, most of a foot taller than her, but she glared up at him. “What is that supposed to mean? Do you think I just left them there without even trying to help? I was out, Mother sent me and Wes out to the market--” I forgot the food we bought, didn’t I, “--and the soldiers were there when I got back, and there wasn’t anything I could do except take Wes and run and hope they didn’t kill us, too!” She was practically screaming at him, and people were turning to stare at them, but she didn’t care.

“Oh, you were out,” Alex said scathingly, “What were you doing? It doesn’t take that long to get to the market, not long enough for the army to get there and kill them while you were gone. What were you doing? You should have been there--”

“Stop yelling at each other,” Wes begged, tears in his eyes.

Neither of them paid their little brother any heed. “I should have been there?” Brelira asked, furious, “What, so I could have died, too? And what about you? Maybe you should have been there, t--” She was cut off mid-sentence when he punched her. Her head snapped to the side and she staggered, barely keeping her balance. She raised one hand to her cheek and was surprised to find blood on her fingers. My blood, this time, she thought, half dazed.

“Alex!” her father roared, “What is the meaning of this?”

He at least had the grace to look guilty. “She said--”

“I don’t care what she said, you do not hit your sister!” She didn’t think she had ever seen her father so angry.

“It’s okay,” she said, “it’s fine, I’m fine, but we need to go.” Everything was happening too quickly and too slowly all at once, too quickly for her to make sense of it all but too slowly for them to avoid capture. And Alex hit me. He never hits me, not even when we were younger and we used to play war...

Her father looked at her, glared once more at her brother, and strode off again. She trailed after him.

Wes tugged on her sleeve. “Lira? Are you okay?”

She tried to smile for him again, but winced at the movement in her injured cheek. “Yes, I’m fine. We’re all going to be okay. Father is going to take care of everything.” I hope. Wes didn’t look totally convinced, but he didn’t ask anything else, so she supposed she had said the right thing.

The owner of the smithy, Carl, was a big bear of a man who kept order in the forge by virtue of being the loudest person there. He was bellowing at a pair of apprentices who were making what looked like horseshoes as they approached, but stopped when he saw her father.

“George! And Wes and the little princess, too! When are you going to come work for me, eh?” he asked, ruffling Wes’s hair.

“We have to leave,” her father said before Wes could respond, “Lira found soldiers at our house. Are there any horses in for shoeing?”

Carl’s smile vanished. “Ellen and the baby?”

Brelira’s father shook his head, apparently no more able to say it aloud that she had been.

Carl looked more somber still. “I’m so sorry,” he said, laying a hand on her father’s shoulder. “There are a half-dozen horses out in the stables. You can take your pick, I’ll tell the owners they were stolen. And if there’s anything else I can do...”

“No, thank you,” her father replied, “You’ve done more than--”

“Can I have a sword?” Brelira interrupted.

Carl frowned at her. “What do you want with a sword, little princess? Do you even know how to use one?”

“No,” she admitted, “but I’m going to learn.” She swallowed hard against yet another wave of tears. “It’s hard to fight soldiers with a knife.” She folded her arms firmly. Next time, I won’t be helpless. Next time, I’ll be able to fight back. She had killed the one soldier, true, but that had been more due to his unpreparedness than her skill. Next time, she would be ready. She wouldn’t let them take anyone else away from her.

He looked from the knife at her belt to the wound on her face, probably making the reasonable assumption that it was from a soldier rather than her brother. “Aye,” he said after a moment, “that it is. I’ll go see what we have in your size.” Turning to her father, he added, “You remember where we keep your packs?”
He nodded.

“Alright, then. I’ll meet you in the stables.” He walked back towards the shop and the rest of them ducked around a massive furnace and into the relative cool and quiet of the stables, where the horses awaiting shoeing were kept.

“Check to see which ones are shod,” her father said before disappearing into a side room. Brelira took the left side, Alex the right. They checked quickly, coaxing each horse to lift each hoof in turn to ensure they had all four shoes.

Alex finished his half of the barn while she was still checking the last horse on hers and came over. “I’m sorry hit you,” he said quietly, “and yelled at you. I know I shouldn’t have, I just--”

“It’s fine,” she said, standing and brushing her hands off on her stolen pants. “We were both upset.” She smiled at him, somewhat lopsidedly to avoid hurting her injured cheek again. “Besides, we’ve both had worse just from roughhousing.” She wasn’t actually sure how bad her current injury was compared to those she had had before, and none of those had ever been at each other’s hands, but still.

“Which of the horses can we ride?” her father asked as he reentered the room with two sheathed swords and a saddle slung over one shoulder and several full packs in his other hand.

“These two on this side,” Brelira answered, pointing to the dappled grey mare beside her and the black gelding on the far end.

“And all three on the other,” Alex added.

Her father set down the packs and glanced the horses over.

“Those three,” he said after a moment, pointing at Brelira’s grey and a pair of chestnut geldings on the other side. He handed Alex the saddle and went back into the other room.

Brelira followed him. “Only three?” she asked as he pulled saddles and bridles off of shelves. “There are four of us, and don’t we want extra--”

“Wes is too young to ride on his own for any length of time.” He dumped one set of tack into her arms and ushered her out the door, grabbing another as he followed her out. “And having extra horses would draw attention.” She frowned, but went back to the dappled grey mare to tack her up. She got the saddle on without issue, but the brass buckles jingled as she tightened the girth strap because her hands started shaking again and she couldn’t get them to stop.

She jumped when someone laid a hand on her shoulder. “Easy there, little princess,” Carl said. It was amazing how quiet he could make his voice when he didn’t have to shout over the noise of the forge to be heard. “Let me help you with that.” He pulled her hands from the straps and handed her something before finishing readying the horse himself. The sword, she realized after staring at it for a moment, I asked him for a sword. And then tears blurred in her eyes because she couldn’t even remember what had happened five minutes before, and her father and Alex were counting on her to be able to help and all she could do was stand there and shake and cry like a frightened child. Even Wes was more helpful than she was; at least he was staying quiet and out of the way and not pretending to be useful. We’re going to die, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut in what felt like the thousandth vain attempt to stop her tears that day. We’re going to die and it will be my fault because I’m too slow and stupid and weak for us to get away in time.

“Lira? What’s wrong?” her father asked.

She shook her head. “N-nothing.” Everything. “I’m f-fine.” I’m not fine. None of us are. Nothing ever will be again...

She forced her eyes open. Everyone was looking at her worriedly, even Wes, and it was bad enough that she knew she was helpless without them all knowing it, too, so she looked away from them and at her horse. It was the smallest of the three they were taking, but still tall enough that mounting it was an ordeal. By the time she had managed it, her new short sword slung over her shoulder, her brothers were already mounted, her father swinging into the saddle behind Wes.

“Thank you again for everything you’ve done for us,” he told Carl solemnly.

Carl bowed. “It has been an honor, Your Majesty.”

“T-take care,” Brelira said, sniffling, “and th-thank you for the s-sword.”

He smiled. “Of course, princess. Stay safe.”

She nodded, and followed her father out of the stable.

The ride from the smithy to the gate was much like the walk from her house to the smithy: utterly terrifying and completely uneventful. Once again, she glanced over her shoulder every few seconds, looking for sign of pursuit, and once again, she found none. No one seemed to spare them so much as a second glance until they reached the North Gate. At the sight of the red-and-silver uniformed soldiers guarding it, Brelira began to panic, her heart beating frantically in her chest as her certainty that they would be stopped and killed increased. The guardsmen took little notice of them, however, waving them through with the hundreds of other travelers heading north on the newly reopened roads. It was only then, once they had left the paved streets and stone buildings of the city behind for the dirt road and rolling hills of the outside that she allowed herself to believe that they had escaped the city with their lives. Or at least, most of us did.