War of the Wildlands (Excerpt)
As he did every morning, Yori woke before dawn to begin his work at the smithy. He rose from his small cot and pulled back the curtain that separated his tiny living space from the rest of the shop. He splashed water over his face and around his neck and ran his fingers through his sandy blond hair. Carefully, he positioned a worn red headband at the precise level to cover the pointed tips of his ears. Life was easier in the village of Enald if its citizens could forget for a moment that his father had been an elf.
The shop was open-air with a low wall surrounding it, forcing customers to enter through the area farthest from the furnace. This design helped to avoid accidents from careless citizens, children, and animals. For the last few years, the shop had doubled as Yori’s home. His aunt and uncle’s cottage was too small to fit everyone comfortably, and the shop was safer having someone present all night. The cool fall weather made for pleasant nights, despite being out of doors. In the winter, he would move his cot closer to the furnace to stay warm.
Grabbing a leather apron from a hook near the anvil, he quickly tied it around himself to cover his tattered gray shirt. He began adding charcoal to the furnace and squeezed the bellows to fan the flames. His Uncle Ren always treated him well, but if the furnace was not hot enough to begin work at dawn, Yori could expect to receive an open-handed smack to the side of his head. To avoid the embarrassment, he always tended the fire first and made its maintenance his top priority throughout the day.
As dawn broke, Yori was still laying out tools for his uncle’s use in the day’s work. Out of nowhere, he heard a young girl screaming. Startled by the sound, he dropped the pliers in his hand, which fell to the ground with a thud. Realizing the cry had come from his young cousin, he immediately rushed toward the sound. As he stepped out of the shop, he saw arrows whizzing in every direction, and panicked villagers were running away. One lone little girl stood frozen in fear near the well.
Without a thought for his own safety, Yori rushed to the child and grabbed her in his arms. Just as he lifted her to run back to the smithy, his left calf was struck by an arrow. He dropped to his knees, barely setting the girl back on her feet. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her tear-stained face in his shoulder. Again he lifted her, ignoring the searing pain in his leg. Turning his back to the oncoming arrows in an effort to protect the girl, he limped as quickly as possible back to the safety of the shop.
Placing the girl behind the anvil, he grabbed the axe near the wood pile and readied himself for a fight. He had never been trained in fighting, but he had learned to defend himself as a child. As an outcast, his world had been full of bullies, and he had realized that fighting back felt much better than just accepting a beating. They may have beaten him worse for his efforts, but at least he had earned his lumps. He did not know exactly what he was facing or why his village was being attacked, but he was ready to defend his young cousin against whoever was approaching.
As quickly as the attack had begun, it ended. Villagers once again came out of their homes and began filling the streets. Yori set down the axe and knelt before the sobbing girl.
“Are you hurt, Meladee?” he asked.
The little girl shook her head. She raised an arm and pointed to the arrow sticking out of Yori’s leg.
“It looks worse than it feels,” he said, attempting to ease the girl’s fear. In truth, his leg was throbbing and still bleeding a considerable amount.
Ren rushed out of his small cottage and ran to the smithy. “Yori!” he called. “Have you seen Meladee?”
“She’s here,” Yori replied.
The girl remained seated until her mother, who had run out of the cottage in her nightdress, rushed to her side. Meladee threw her arms around her mother and continued to weep.
“Yori’s hurt,” she managed to say through her sobs.
Ren knelt down to have a closer look at the arrow sticking out of Yori’s leg. “This is going to hurt,” he said, his dark eyes sympathetic. “You might want to bite down on the corner of your apron.”
Yori, confused by the comment, looked down at his uncle just in time to see him grab hold of the arrow. In an instant, he yanked the shaft and pulled the arrow free. Yori screamed in pain and fell to his knees, grabbing at his injured calf.
“I told you to bite down on the leather, didn’t I?” Ren said with a smile. “You’ll be alright. Let’s clean it and get a bandage on it.”
As he watched his uncle retrieve an iron rod and place it in the fire, Yori realized what his uncle had meant by “clean it”. He was going to cauterize it to stop the bleeding and seal the wound from infection. Yori’s head swam as his Aunt Trella brought over a bowl of water and some cloth.
“It will only hurt for a second, and then you will feel much better,” she said. Gently, she began wiping the wound with a wet cloth.
Ren approached, a red-hot iron rod in his hand. “Don’t scream too much or you’ll scare Meladee,” he said. “Oh, and don’t move around too much or I’ll have to sit on you.” He offered Yori a small stick of wood to bite down on, which the young man graciously accepted.
As the hot metal touched the wound, Yori moaned and grunted in agony. After a few seconds, the procedure was over. The pain had dulled but persisted. All the bleeding had stopped, and Ren offered Yori a hand getting back to his feet. Placing weight on the leg was agony, but he had very little choice. There was work to be done, and he could not spend the day sitting.
“They were Wild Elves,” Meladee said quietly, her brown eyes still full of tears.
“You shouldn’t be leaving the house alone,” her mother chided. “You could have been killed.”
“Did you see them, Meladee?” Yori asked, bending to her level.
The little girl nodded.
From the design of the arrow, Yori was forced to accept that the little girl must be correct. The speckled feathers and runed tip of the arrows left no doubt in his mind that Wild Elves had just attacked their village. This could only bring trouble for him and his family. The villagers already disliked him for being a half-breed, but now they might think he was a traitor.
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