It had been half a year since they had started training each day and every day, Kain threw himself into bed in exhaustion. That night, his father returned with a deer and began slicing it apart on the table. Kain stirred from the comfort of his hay mattress and joined his father in the kitchen. The deer was hung from a rack, a trickle of red ran from the gash in its throat and into a tray beneath it.
"Father" Kain clutched his ribs; Othrick had cracked a few the night prior, and they still ached each time he moved.
"I thought you would be sleeping" His father looked nothing like him.
He had short brown hair, a scar across his cheek and eyes the colour of chestnuts. Each time those eyes looked at Kain, sadness seemed to fill them.
Before Kain could open his mouth to speak, the shrill scream of a woman rang out from the village like the wailing of some dying animal. Kain's father grabbed his spear from the wall and burst through the front door into the street. Before Kain could react, he watched as a stranger approached his father with a sword in his hand and leather armour.
"Father!" Kain shouted out from the doorway.
His father whirled around to meet the man and shoved the point of his spear through the raiders' leather armour, puncturing out his back. Kain stared, frozen in place as he watched the light fade from the man's eyes as he slid off the spear's shaft and dropped onto the floor in one last limp flail.
"Stay inside" the old hunter rushes towards a group of women by the well.
Kain's heart beats so violently you could see it jumping from under his clothes. The sword at the bandit's feet glistens in Kain's icy eyes. He slowly walks to the man blood pooling about his head.
"You little cunt!" Another bandit turns the corner and spots the boy standing over his friend's corpse.
He crouched down and picked the sword out of the dirt, its half dulled blade chipped at its point and leather hanging off the end of the hilt.
The man's face was a scarred thing with blue lines in odd patterns; his left eyebrow had been sliced in half, his head was half bald and shaved poorly, leaving tufts here and there.
The bandit's sword reached out to Kain, but only sliced through air. His sunken sky blue eyes widened in shock as the cracked point found his leather tunic and crudely punctured through it and further into his soft belly.
Kain groaned with effort as he pushed the blade upwards. It stopped at his sternum, and out flowed a thick pink and red rope. He had butchered countless animals with his father, but this was different. A pit formed in his stomach, and a lump formed in his throat; it throbbed and throbbed as he staggered back watching the man drop onto his knees.
Gloved hands scoop up the innards, leaving the pink skin of his arms red as he shoved them back inside. He had done it three more times before finally collapsing face-first into the dirt with a weak, frail gasp.
Silence consumed the village, or at least that's what it seemed to Kain; he wasn't sure how long he spent staring at the man, but he was only snapped out of it by Ser Othrick placing a mailed hand on his shoulder.
The old knight was clad in half his armour, only chainmail, a breast plate and helm. His sword was cleaned to a polish as it always had been, but the rest of his armour was drenched in blood and other pink bits.
"You alright, lad?" He leaned over to take a look at the two bodies.
"I only killed that one", Kain pointed the half destroyed sword at the balding man.
"Well, better than none", he gave a swift pat on the boy's back.
What little Kain had to eat that night came back up, filling his mouth, but he forced it back down.
Hours passed, and the men's bodies had been stacked into a pile on the outskirts of town. Ser Othrick and the other men walked laps around the village in shifts until night. Kain had been brought to the main building, where the women and children had all congregated. Half were crying into their mother's arms, and the others were crowded around Thalen, shaking and scared.
"The priest is meant to come in a week or so, he will wash you of your sins", one of the women put her hand on Kain's shoulder.
"What sin?" Kain swatted her hand away
"Murder is the gravest sin, but you-" she clapped her hands in prayer.
"Shut up", he cut her off.
Three idols sat at the end of the hall; they were crude things carved from wood long before Kain was born. Every couple of months a travelling priest would pass through the village and hear the sins you had committed, but the old priest had always left him feeling worse than before.
Thalen was smiling as always, the children around him had weak smiles to his attempts to cheer them up, but he kept on. Siena sat beside him, hugging his arm. Kain scowled at the sight.
Hooves thundered through the quiet village, and men shouted. Kain rushed through the doors, dodging the grasp of two of the women. He pulled the sword from his belt, slicing a part of his side as he ran.
Seven horsed knights were conversing with the village men, a boy not much older than Kain sat to the right of the lead knight. He had a half-eaten apple in one hand and the reins of his horse in the other.
The lead knight lifted an eyebrow at the sight of him but said nothing of it.
"-dispose of the bodies", he manages to hear as he gets closer.
The lead knight waved a hand, and one of his men only nodded and turned his horse around, galloping down the bog road.
"We will stay here until needed. Do you have any spare houses?" he slid from the saddle.
"Aye, Ser I'll show you to it" Ser Othrick turns to see Kain.
"Ah, Kain, you ought to come with us" The old man smiled through his visor.
"Your squire, I take it?" The lead knight removed his helmet.
A mane of barely coloured hair flowed out of his helmet and down to his shoulders; his face was unscarred apart from a small cut just below the right eye.
'Rather plain for a knight,' Kain looked up at him in thought.
"My name is Ser Finnian" he stretched out a gauntlet, and Kain took it, shaking with a firm grip.
"Kain, I'm Ser Othricks squire", he nods and walks just behind the old knight with his chipped sword hanging loosely from his leather belt.
They made small talk the whole way across the little village until they reached an abandoned house. It had still been kept by the women and cleaned every month, but it was clear no one had lived there for years, yet the knight made no complaints.
"I'll have my men patrol, but I can't promise safety to the south if you leave the village," he places his sword and helm on the table.
"Aye, that's alright, we use the woods to the north for wood and game" The old man rotates his neck.
The group of knights funnelled into the house and made themselves at home. The boy an age as Kain, took his helm off and looked about the place with disgust. He had long golden hair tied up with silver fabric. His nose was large and lips small.
"Small for the lot of us", the blonde knight pulled out a chair and slumped into it.
"Your squire?" Ser Othrick smiled.
"I am a knight… Ser" contempt dropped from his voice.
"my apologies, lad", he smirks at the young knight and turns to the door.
"Come on, Kain", the old man leans his head upwards.
The rising sun shines light down onto the little village. Kain's head turned to see the lonely little island and its white flowers glowing with sunlight like a lantern in the night.