The entire hut shook as the pounding grew louder, the frame rattling violently while someone outside barked impatiently.
"OPEN IT! IF I HAVE TO KICK THIS DOWN, I SWEAR I’LL MAKE YOUR DEATHS THAT MUCH MORE PAINFUL!"
Someone shouted from beyond the door, as Daren tightened his grip around the knife.
For a brief moment he hesitated, glancing back toward his mother and siblings while gathering whatever courage a boy his age could muster.
Then he pulled the door open, as cold air rushed inside.
Two warriors stood waiting, beyond the gate...
The first was enormous.
A grotesquely large man with layers of fat hanging over crude armor while a thick beard covered most of his face.
His name was Brakk.
And before Daren could react, the man’s massive hand shot forward and slammed him violently against the wooden frame.
*CRASH*
The knife slipped from Daren’s grasp, his tiny form struggling helplessly beneath the warrior’s crushing strength, as the second man stepped forward calmly.
Unlike Brakk, he was tall, lean and sharp eyed, and Riven remembered his name to be ’Kell’.
*SLASH*
Suddenly, steel flashed once, as Daren’s resistance ended before it had truly begun, his body collapsing into the snow outside the doorway, as the two warriors stepped into the hut unopposed.
*Step* *Step*
Brakk entered first.
And in each of his thick hands he carried something dripping with blood.
Two severed heads.
Torren Veyr and Daren Veyr, as for a moment after the family saw it, they froze.
*Thud* *Thud*
Brakk casually tossed them across the wooden floor, the severed heads striking the planks with wet, hollow thuds before rolling slowly to a stop in front of the two women huddled on the ground.
Torren’s lifeless face turned toward them first, while Daren’s head came to rest beside it, his eyes still half open as blood continued dripping from the ragged cut across his neck.
For a moment the hut was completely silent, as Alira stared at the bodies in shock, her eyes moving from one face to the other as if her mind refused to accept what she was seeing, her lips parting slowly as the last fragile pieces of her world collapsed all at once.
Then the scream came.
It tore out of her throat like something had broken inside her chest, a raw, animal-like sound that filled the hut and refused to stop.
It wasn’t a single cry.
It kept rising.
Breaking.
As her body jerked forward on instinct.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHH—"
Her hand shot out toward Torren’s severed head lying only a few feet away.
But Riven was still in her arms.
She had him pressed tightly against her chest, her grip locked around him without even realizing it, which meant that she could not bend forward all the way... and as a result, she stopped just short of reaching him.
*Tremble*
Her fingers stretched out anyway.
Desperate.
Shaking.
But the distance didn’t close.
She couldn’t let go of the child, and because of that, she couldn’t reach her husband.
So her hand remained there, hanging in the air, while Torren’s lifeless face stared back at her from just beyond her grasp.
*Sob* *Sob*
Beside her, Lyra cried.
"Mother... m—mother... f–father... darrr—"
Her voice broke with every word, but Alira barely heard her.
Her breath came in uneven gasps, her shoulders trembling violently as her entire world collapsed into the sight before her.
Brakk watched it all with open amusement.
He leaned lazily against the hut walls, his small eyes moving across the room as he took in every detail of the chaos he had created, until his gaze settled on Alira, and stayed there.
In her panic, she had pulled Riven tightly against her while trying to reach forward, and in doing so, the front of her dress had loosened, the fabric slipping lower than it should have, exposing a part of her chest.
The cloth no longer sat properly, leaving a clear view of her cleavage as her hair fell loosely around her shoulders.