Whispers Of The Night

Chapter 4     Chaos seemed like too weak of a word to describe her surroundings. The smoke and heat gave telltale
signs of what was happening. Lilly jumped out of her bed, opened her bedroom door and ran out of her room.
She looked down the hallway to her father’s room in order to alarm him of what was happening, but
unfortunately a large wall of fire blocked her passage.
    "Father! Father... please wake up! We must get out! Father please!" Lilly screamed at the top of her lungs, though she knew that it was a hopeless attempt. The cracks and snaps of the wood on the house were so
loud that she was almost unable to hear herself. She screamed as a large wooden plank suddenly crashed down
in front of her. Lilly turned and ran, then eventually slowed, then was forced to crawl on her hands and knees,
which wasn’t easy with her long nightgown, as the hellish smoke poisoned her lungs. She tried to make it out
the front door, but seeing that was blocked by the fire, she tried the only other exit, the kitchen door. Her eyes
itched and watered and breathing kept getting harder as smoke and ash clouded around her. She finally made
it to the kitchen that had yet to catch fire, so the doorknob was safe to touch. She opened the door and almost
rolled down the three kitchen steps in her desperate attempt to get away from the danger. She quickly picked
herself up and stumbled out into her yard, then turned and looked back to look at her burning home. She didn’t
have time to cry before she began calling for her father in-between coughing to get the burning smoke out of
her body. Her fear turned to panic as she didn’t hear an answer. Now screaming her father’s name, she
crumpled to the ground, crying and shaking. She looked around to see if any of her neighbors had gathered
to help her, but was shocked to see that all the houses that she could see were engulfed in flames. Then she
heard the first scream. It came from a woman somewhere in front of her house. Lilly picked herself up from
the ground and stumbled to the front of her house, and immediately regretted it.
    She had never witnessed an attack on her town, but knew one when she saw one. Women and children
were running in the street, screaming and crying, as men tried to fight giant men astride huge war horses ran
around them waving whips, clubs and swords toward the panicked crowd. Lilly turned and ran from the
main street to her orchard set back behind her house, thinking that her father might of hid himself there or
she could possibly hide herself in the thick branches of the trees until she could figure out what to do. She
came to a halt when she saw that the some of the huge men that had attacked the crowd in the street were
now invading her yard and orchard, setting anything they could find on fire. Holding her fear in check, she
turned toward the only building that provided any type of safety. Her barn. Mabey she could saddle one
of her horses and ride away from here. She quickly ran to the barn, but failed to notice that she had been
spotted. The horses were terribly frightened by the combined sounds of people screaming and the fire that
raged everywhere. Lilly first went to the stall of her fathers prized horse, a large dark brown horse that her
father used to plow the fields, but found that it was missing. She turned to the next horse and tried to enter
its stall, but the poor horse was too frightened to recognize her. Lilly then tried to enter the next stall, but
was stopped as a large dirty hand slammed over her mouth.
    She immediately screamed and made a grab for the hand, but her arms were yanked behind her and a
thick rope was wrapped tightly around them. Lilly felt ill at the whole ordeal, and would of passed out if she
had not of been suddenly drug out of the barn and into the night by her loose brown hair. She was greeted by
another man holding a torch that he immediately threw into the barn after the two of them left. She was led to a
giant horse and an oily red rag was tied around her head then stuffed into her mouth. She felt herself being
lifted and thrown across the horse’s back, belly down. Her position plus her hands tied behind her back was
clearly uncomfortable and she squirmed in discomfort, but the man mounted the horse and harshly pressed a
large hand on her back. She noticed that the horse had no saddle as the man directed his horse to the main
road where his friends were, his hand pressed her closer to him, as if telling everyone that she was his war
prize.
    Lilly closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see the blood that ran down the dirt street and the injured people
that cried out for help everywhere, but she couldn’t block the horrible sounds. People screaming and crying
while the horrible men laughed. Horses neighed with excitement and somewhere a dog barked loudly. A firm
hand on her backside brought her to realize her own problem. She had no idea who this man was and what his
plans were for her, but as his hand roamed boldly across her rump she had a good guess of what he wanted and
she shuddered at the thought. Everything she heard and the few things she saw were all mixed together,
causing her to become even more terrified. She heard someone shout something in a loud strong voice, and
suddenly the horse under her jumped forward in unison with all the others. The ill feeling came to her in a huge wave, telling her that the whole experience was too much for her and the sounds faded away as she
fainted. *******

Her abductor was proud of his tiny war prize. Although other men had also taken women of their own, he had
already had offers for her. He had turned them all down with a flat ‘No’. He had no plan to give her up, but as
the army stopped to water their horses after hours of riding, his leader had pulled him into the shadows of some
trees and demanded the girl. He had wanted her for himself and told his leader that he considered her his
property. He had expected his leader to storm over to his horse and rip her off it’s back, but to his surprise, his
leader had pushed a small leather bag full of shining gold coins into his hand and again demanded the girl.
Excited to receive so much money he didn’t even wonder why his leader wanted her and quickly agreed to sell
his captive before his leader changed his mind.
He walked over to the horse and pulled the girl off its back and let her fall to the ground. He tied her
hands in front of her and wrapped strips of cloth over her eyes and mouth. He kept the rag that had been
previously stuffed into her mouth there. He then hauled her over his shoulder and carried her to the horse that
he had taken care of for three long years. He set her on its back before mounting up behind her. He wrapped
an arm around the girl that slumped over in a painful looking position and pulled her up against him. He gave
the order for his men to mount their horses and the large band of men was off once again. They had a long way
to go before they could safely rest for the night.

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