Sun Child
an excerpt

He walked quickly, his mind already savoring the sweet, and he did mean sweet, for there were mounds of fruits on the first table he was eyeing, victory that he was just steps away from. The floor was a wooden thing, smooth, as if it might have been polished recently, and it was still just a slight bit slippery, from a poorly done job of it. It wasn’t a big room, but the lack of space was made up for up mounds of goods piled up high. Orderly carts were placed evenly throughout the room, with it’s goods piled high, as if the stack were bragging of it’s wares, very good tactic for sales, he thought, giving the impression of being orderly, but still well endowed with whatever it was in place to hold and sell. It’s all in the details, he thought. But then again, this could all be the makings of his far to over worked, and under nourished mind, to be raving in his thought about such stupid things that people usually wouldn’t even notice. What was he thinking about all this for, he had to hurry! The table he had selected all in front of him, and as he reached out to touch the ripe peaches, he fancied that he could feel the coolness of them, and sense the life giving energy they would give, as if radiating from the fruits into him. His hand made contact with the first, and he snatched it up, and hurried to fill his left coat pocket with it, and it’s fellows, one after another, and soon, his pockets were bulging. He moved on to the next table, and grabbed a few of what was on that table, and the next as well. When his pockets were full, he turned, making to leave in haste, but as he did so, the stand at the back of the room caught his eye. Sunflower seeds. He had always loved them, they kept well, and were small, so as to travel with them. One more thing couldn’t hurt, right? After all this was all working out. He ran to the back of the room, and tore off a bag, fumbling for a second to get it open. He then used his free hand, rather than waste time trying to locate the scoop, and shoved hand full after hand full of the stuff into the bag. All of this could surely last him a while if he was careful.

He then twisted the bag, and turned around, planning to make an exit. It was if the world moved in slow motion, and his eye registered the image in front of him at the same speed, for there, standing in the door way, blocking a large portion of the sun light that would otherwise be streaming though it right now. He froze, bag of sunflower seeds still in hand, and at a time that was in every way inappropriate for the thought, the phrase being caught “Red handed” flew through his mind.

The man glared at him, anger repressed, but still radiating off of him in wave. He took a step back into his shop. Looking around, his eyes traveling first in a once around the room, and then stopped briefly, with an accusing way about the gaze, on the loaded bag of sun flower seeds being clutched tightly in his left hand. Then finally, his eyes traveled back up, stopping to look him in the eye, and he dropped the bag.

“Heh. Did you really think I’d believe your pathetic little story? As if I didn’t see your beady little eyes peering lustfully at my goods through the window earlier on? Really, there’s barely any kids in this town at all.” He rubbed his hands together, as if in anticipation. “This towns full of old folks, we don’t have any kids like the ones you described to me before, and the few kids that are here are scrawny little things, probably couldn’t start a fight even if they wanted to, and all the more so with all those guards patrolling around here as if they owned the place as of late.”

He began a slow gate towards the boy, who began backing a way, at the same speed. He how wished from the bottom of his heart, that he wasn’t at the very back of the room, and being cornered fast. His back hit the back wall, and he looked around wildly for either an escape route, or something he might be able to use to defend himself. You’d think that in a shop so full of stuff, that some thing would quickly present itself as readily apparent. It was all mostly food, and from the look in the steadily advancing man’s eye, no amount of apples of bananas would be able to defend him. He didn’t think he could match the man’s strength either. Probably couldn’t on the best of days, but now, with his knees shaking, and his own weight already almost dragging him to the floor, he’d be lucky if he could run fast enough to get away from the man, and that was assuming he could even get past him.

In the last meter or so of space left between the man and boy, he faked going left, and then jumped and rolled to the right, the impact with the ground during the roll knocking the wind out of him. Still, somehow he managed to get up quickly, and face the man. With the way to the exit blocked, the only way to get around the man would be to trick him somehow, but he was never good at that, and he doubted the he would fall for the same thing twice. He kept edging away, a very small part of him thinking it might be easier he the man would just charge him, and get whatever he was going to do with him over with already, if only to put an end the to intensity of the fear he was feeling. Just as he thought this really might be the end for him after all, he backed into a stall, and as he dared to turn his head to glance back over his shoulder at what it might be, his suspicions of the sunflower seeds was confirmed. His foot hit something else, and he saw that it was a small flask of some sort of fruit juice. He tore his eyes from it, and acted quickly. He stepped forward, and, pretending to stumble over something completely unseen, probably his own feet, as that wasn’t too unlikely in his current condition, fell to the ground. He made sure to land in such a position as to have his back to the juice, with his left hand behind him, and his right leg underneath him in such a way that he could probably get up quickly, and with as little extra motion as possible, behind him, his hand found the handle on the juice container, and he grasped it in a tight fist, hoping he would be able to hoist it up with one hand. All in one smooth motion, he rose onto his feet with the juice, and flung it at the man’s head, and into his eyes, whiles his right hand left behind him, and scooped up a hand full of sunflower seeds. His aim rung true, and the man screamed out in pain and horror as the juice stung his still open eyes furiously.

The man’s withered, and callused hands, probably due, the boy guessed, from having to do hard labor in his earlier days, and the work he still did now, wiped uselessly at his eyes, trying to stop the burning, and reclaim his vision.

The boy, grasping this lucky chance, tossed the sunflower seeds around the man’s feet he as he darted past, hoping that they, as well as the slippery floor, would help in hindering the man, and aid in his escape. The street was starting to fill up by this time, and people were gathering around the shop, after hearing the mans screams. He pushed through them, and ran in the direction of the forest.

For a brief few seconds, he thought he really was going to get away with this, and felt his spirts lift a little, even as he was still making his escape. This was short lived, however, for just behind him, also pushing ruthlessly through the crowd gathered around his shop, making the by-standers yell out in outrage at such rudeness, was the the old shop keeper, his face dripping wet, and the boy thought he must have ran over to a tap and run water over his head to flush the juice out of his eyes, or just plunged his head in a bucket of water. He had gaining on the boy. Then, the worst that could happen, happened. The man finally caught up will him, and the boy felt the shop keepers large hands close in on his shoulders, putting him off balance, and making him fall in a heap backward, while the shopkeeper’s momentum kept him going forward, and the both of them, collapsed in a rough heap a few feet away from the initial contact.

The boy scrambled to his feet, pushing his nearly useless muscles even further over their limit, for the umpteenth time in the same day, and made to run again. It was too late, the man was already on his feet, and there next to him even before he took his next step, taking a knife out of his pocket and unsheathing it smoothly, and in the same liquid motion, sliding up to the poor boys throat.

The boy froze, and his skin prickled and rose in little goose bumps at the feeling of the cold steel pressing closely, and harshly into his skin. That knife was sharp, and he knew that even the smallest bit of extra movement could send that blade straight through his skin like a hot knife through butter. His stood as still as he could, forcing his muscles to lock in place. He couldn’t let then give out now, doing so could, most likely, in fact, result in death. He could hear the man breathing in his ear, and smell the rankness of it. Almost as loud as he could hear his own heart beat pounding through his head. This was it, he knew. This was the end of his journey, this man would kill him, or they would lock him up, a sitting duck, just waiting for those men to ask around at their leisure, for the village people to tell the men about him, and to come find him. To drag him away for reasons and crimes that he knew not, and do whatever they felt like with him. And all the while his would be helpless to stop to any it, to change one damn thing. A pawn, nothing more, such would be his legacy. The thought of it left a bitter taste in his mouth, a small tribute to the bitterness coursing through the rest of his weak body. This was it, it was over. He allowed himself to close his eyes, and wait for the verdict, whatever it may be.

He was resigned as he could be to this fate he had perceived, and so it took his a few minutes before his brain got a jump start again and booted up, before he could make out the rising volume of the crowd he had left behind as he pushed pasted them. First a murmur, than urgency entered the voices of the people, before it finally escalated into a full fledged scream. Rolling of wheels on the cobble stone, at a distance, and steadily increasing in proximity. He wished his could turn to look, but the instrument of death pressed against him made that impossible, or at least very unwise. What of the man holding it? He was distracted, to be sure, his head turn in the direction of the commotion, and focused on trying to see what was coming at them, past the crowd, down the road. The knife at the boy’s throat has lessened the pressure with which it was pushing against him, a brief flicker of hope rekindled itself in his heart, maybe this was his chance to get away! Man, how many chances had he been made to take already, in such a short amount of time. Ah well, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, if he could just get away from this guy, and avoid getting run over by that cart, he might make it after all! The wagon drew closer still, and if he listened closely, he could just make out the voice of a few of the members of the crowd at his back separating him from the oncoming vehicle.

“We’re all going to get trampled, move it!” Screamed one.

“The wouldn’t just keep going, seeing this many people in front of him, they’ll have to stop!” Yelled another.

“No wait!” A man with the best view of the road ahead cried out. “Everybody look at their foreheads! It’s the raiders!”

At that proclamation, chaos broke out amongst the people there. All scrambling to get away in different directions, bumping into one another, some being knocked over completely, and scrambling to get up again, and out of the way, before they got run over by either the crowd or the carriage, which ever came upon them first.

They would be run over any second. It seemed the man holding him finally realized this, and forfeit the knife at the boy’s throat, in favor of dragging bodily to one side of the road, as he refused to give up his hard earned prize, pushing over many of the smaller people in the process. Unfortunately, the boy’s legs couldn’t keep up with the rapid changing of movement, causing the shop keeper to have to all but carry him along. He saw the carriage as it passed, only a few small steps from where his legs had been mere seconds ago.

He could see the face of the person in the front of the wagon as they passed, and the boy took in his figure, Tall and slender, an oval face, and short blond hair. His fore-head, like the fore-heads of the rest of the band, were fully covered by a wide, bright red bandanna, embroidered with a straight black line running vertically down the length of it, ending at each end just centimeters before the edge of the piece of cloth. The blond man’s head turned from the road in front of him, as he passed of the reins to one of his companions in the process, and their eyes met. Why were this man’s eyes so intense in his vision, searing into him with such intense emotion?

This all lasted but a second, but as quick as it was, it left a deep impression on him. The wagon was passed now, and riding down the road into the forest, wailing in excitement, and holding up looted spoils from the village in a mocking fashion. He turned his head in the direction that they had just come from, and saw another, smaller cart, packed almost entirely with goods, with only the driver to take up room from the stolen items. He heard gasps coming from the direction the first cart had gone, and jerked forward, breaking the shop keeper’s grip on him, and pushing to get a better look. The Blond man was running back his way, swiftly, and the boy couldn’t help but be reminded of a phrase about a lightning stallion he had heard when he was younger.

The ends of the man’s red band hung back, streaming around his head in the wind, and left a very striking impression. His eyes locked onto the boy, and the boy froze in his tracks. He watched, as the man, looking alarmed, drew a dagger from who knows where, brandishing it in a way that said that he knew what he was doing, his eyes widening and looking alarmed. For a brief, fleeting moment, his mind registered that he really shouldn’t just be standing there, with an angry, large shop keeper at his back, and an unknown rouge running at him with a knife. Heck, for all he knew, the thief could he coming back to kill him off, and his sensible side screaming furiously at him to move, to keep running, but he simply couldn’t take another step. His thought process was cut of entirely as he caught an enraged growl behind him, and turned his head just in time to see the shop keeper, red in the face with anger, and holding up a large, heavy piece of wood, towering over him, and hoisting the block up over his head, about to smash his face in.

A blur passed him, he felt the wind of it as it flew by him. The next thing he knew, the block of wood had clattered loudly to the ground, he felt the vibration of it’s weight hitting the ground next to him, and only missing him by inches, and something hit the shop keeper in the head hard, whatever it was shining brightly, and gleaming gold in the sun light. Blood spurted from the man’s head at the impact, and he fell heavily to the ground. Before he could even comprehend most of this, he was being half dragged, half carried into the middle of the road, where the next cart was just passing by. The man grabbed the reigns, and hoisted himself up onto the lead horse’s back, dragging the boy along with him, and slinging him bodily over, and across the horse’s back.

“What in God’s name are you doing, Cyain!” Came the cry from the driver.

“Later, just move over!” The blonde named Cyain replied.

The driver scooted over to the far left, and the boy felt himself being placed in the remaining space. Cyain took the reigns on the horse at looked back at him briefly. “Sorry ‘bout this!” he called to the boy.

“Cyain, huh?” The boy thought. “What’s he sorry about?” He wondered, before another flash of gold, and his world went black.