Untitled
By Neri Dragon (Chris)

CHAPTER I
The Beginning

  It was a new day, the air brisk, a light fog over the village, the sun
just coming up.  This village was a small village, only under some hundred
people, and everyone knew everyone.  The adults had their children at about
the same time, their tradition, thus, all children were around the same
age, and played together a lot.  Through and through, the children grew up
together, dated one another, quarreled one another, and forever thusly.
But, in heart, they all got along.
  Two good friends, Gregor and Leviton, were practicing dueling.  They both
wore only clothing and wielded worn staffs.  Two young girls, Rosa and
Sarah, sit on the grass, watching Gregor and Leviton, whispering to
each other how cute the two boys were.  Four other kids sit on the grass
opposite the girls, watching and cheering the two young warriors on. All
eight kids were only about 13 years of age.  The parents and other kids are
about the village, gossiping and shopping and strolling.
  Unknown are four horsemen, galloping down the road to the village, clad
in plate mail without their helmets, wielding spears.  As they near, a
middle-aged housewife sees them over the horizon coming nearer, "Oh my God,
here they come!"  She cried out to the villagers.
  The villagers all scramble into their houses.  The eight kids break up
and run wildly in random directions, Leviton hides in a ditch and covers
himself with leaves and branches, whilst Gregor hides in a shed.  The four
horsemen finally come in the village, lighting fire to the buildings,
cutting down any and all villagers they cross.  Young Leviton peered from
his ditch, his eyes level to the ground, watching heads roll and blood
splatter, watching his closest friends and relatives die; watching as the
shed Gregor hid in catch fire and fall upon him; watching as his beloved
Sarah be raped and decapitated; watching the elders get struck through
with spears.  Seemingly out of nowhere, an arrow comes out of the
surrounding forest and strikes one in the back of the neck, killing him
instantly, he drops his spear.
  "Commander Logi," cries out one of the horsemen, "General Mako is dead!"
  "A good ratio," booms Logi in a deep voice, "wouldn't you say, General
Davis?"  Logi looks about the town in ruins, then booms to the last
horseman, "General Lindsay, we're off!"
  The last horseman, General Lindsay, pulls out her spear of an elder, and
rides back to Logi, her long black hair flowing in the wind.  "Then," she
starts, almost next to Logi, in a quiet, hushed, yet beautiful voice,
"let's go."
  The three horsemen ride off, back in the direction from which they came.
Once out of sight, young Leviton crawls out of the ditch in tears.  He
crawls over to his beloved Sarah's body, eyeing her torn clothing and
bruised body, her necklace laying near her decapitated head.  He grasps the
necklace, pockets it, and finally stands.  He walks over to the fallen
Horseman's spear and picks it up.