Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Huh? What the…?” I said aloud as the noise of crying and someone stumbling around in the dark woke me in the early hours of the morning.
I calmly went downstairs to see what was making such a racket in the kitchen. I discovered a young boy lying under the dirty, wooden table crying his eyes out.
I quickly covered the space to the table and crouched down to get a closer look at the young boy. “Hey,” I said in a soothing voice.
The boy raised his bloodstained and tearful face to look at me. “Dad.” He burst into tears again and buried his head in his hands.
I swept the boy into my arms and sat down with him in a huddle on my lap. “What’s the matter?”
“My….. Dad….”
“What about your dad?”
“He’s…… My Uncle….. Dead”
“He killed your uncle?” I asked in confusion. The boy shook his head and continued to cry even harder. “You can tell me what’s wrong.”
“My Uncle killed….. Killed…….” His voice trailed.
“Your dad?” The boy nodded and clung to me so hard, as if clinging to me would solve all his problems. I remained silent for a while taking in the appearance of the boy to try and work out where he had come from; there was a large town near the forest, but he could have just as easily come from a passing convoy. His clothes were made from silk and looked very expensive so he must be quite important, though they were travel stained and ripped in many places. I also noticed for the first time that they were covered in blood, and then I remembered that the boy’s face had been covered in blood too. Without disturbing him I tried to find where the bleeding was coming from.
“Can you help me?” The boy suddenly asked looking at me with tearful eyes.
“Of course I can,” giving a wide, reassuring smile; I was satisfied that the blood was not his. The boy smiled weakly back and leaned back onto me and eventually fell asleep when the crying had subsided.
I sat there for so long that the sun had passed over my house before I realised what the time was. The young boy stirred from his sleep.
“Hey, are you hungry?” I asked him.
He nodded dumbly, still tear-stained from last night, and still looking shaken and traumatic.
As I bustled around the kitchen gathering fruits and meat to give to the boy, I wondered what I was going to do about him. There’s no way I can keep him forever, but neither can I send him away. He’s too young and it seems like he’s too scared to go back to wherever he came from. I had agreed to help him, but how? Surely, he doesn’t expect me to find his uncle and take revenge or anything…