Chapter 6

"I didn't draw my sword, but I had my hand grasping the hilt tightly as I made my way down towards and into the village. I made no effort to hide my approach, and I doubt if my eyes could hide my intent. There were candles burning in most of the buildings, but I was as of yet to see a person walking about the little trail of a street that split the buildings.

"With every step I took I could feel the rage and hatred swell. From out of my new boots, or perhaps from even the deeper depths of Hell, the darkness enveloped me in its loving embrace. I hadn't realized it, but my sword now rested menacingly in my right hand."

How ironic is it that the first person Christopher runs into is a little girl that looks just like Sarah. He looks down at her for eons that must have lasted seconds. She is shaking her head no. Christopher looks away and shakes his head, and when he looks back down she is gone. When he looks back up there are three male villagers staring suspiciously at him. Christopher takes a step towards them and they take three steps backwards.

"I stopped and stared for a moment, hesitating in my last throes of sanity and morality."

A big burly man steps forward and tries to give Christopher a greeting of friendship, "Young sir, ye be getting an early start to the, uh..." but Christopher runs him through before he can finish his sentence.

As Christopher is hacking up the body in the middle of the street, he hears a woman scream from inside one of the cottages to his left. Even though it is far too late, the other two men rush him with their axes and hammers. Not a sword amongst them. Fools. After all the men in the village are dead, Christopher goes and finds the women and children cowering in one of the cottages.

He kicks open the door and all of them scream in unison.

"I walked in not seeing any human beings, only the enemy, and those that stood by and let Sarah die."

Christopher is taking far too much pleasure in his slow pace as he maneuvers towards them. That little girl that looks just like Sarah stands in his path and is shaking her head no again, with tears streaming down her cheeks. Christopher is preparing to swing at her when he looks up at the rest of them and smiles as he is about to begin, but the looks on their faces make him stop in mid-swing. He can swear they are looking at the little girl with more fear than they are afraid of him. Christopher looks back down and the little girl is gone again.

"She was beginning to annoy me."

Christopher looks back up at the cowering villagers and his eyes fall on the prettiest woman there. In the moments of hesitation that follow, it dawns on him that he has never known a woman's body.

"I don't know why, but the thought of that action against her will scared me more than slaughtering all life on this planet. My eyes filled with tears and my heart constricted as I lost my breath. I stumbled backwards out of the cottage. I thought I heard that little girl sigh a big sigh of relief."

Christopher walks over to the only corral and saddles up the stoutest looking horse, and rides off without any further actions.

He rides on the trail for a while, but when he comes back to the here and now, he thinks better of it and starts heading cross-country in the general direction he believes his region to be.

"Damn, how weird is it that I would see a little girl that looks just like Sarah. I'll say one thing for that little girl, she sure did have courage. A lot like Sarah." Christopher thinks, but that knowledge does not make him proud, it enrages him.

"My fate was sealed. My time now had a limit to it. I continued on and on and on."

It takes another day and a half on horseback before Christopher gets to the rolling foothills that usually lie before mountains. He still doesn't know where he is, but he advances with purpose.

Into the second day he comes across a well-worn path that could have only been made by hundreds of horses, cavalry, no doubt. The hated enemy, no doubt. Christopher picks the direction that goes the most towards his old home. He follows it. With every stretch and league his eagerness and anticipation grow exponentially.

Christopher's body aches from every conceivable muscle and joint. He follows the road for hours until it disappears inside a forest he had been seeing on the horizon for a while now.

"I may not know exactly where I am, but I know this has to be the Gojin Forest. I'm further east than I thought I was."

It at least gives him the sector of his country that he is in. As Christopher rides up to the beginning of the forest he sees a little wooden rickety shack just off to the left side of the road. As he gets closer he notices there are two guards standing there. They haven't noticed him yet.

"But I wouldn't have done anything different for I'd be damned to the abyss if I'd run and hide from my fate."

Christopher calmly rides straight to them.

"Halt!" says a weed thin but very tall man wearing Christopher's sworn enemy's uniform. They are once again dark gray and black, but neither of these wretches can afford chain mail.

Christopher does as he is told. "Yes?"

"You must pay a travel tax to our king before you can pass." says the other guard, about Christopher's size of two marks under two paces, that has sidled up to his right leg.

"Really, and just how much would that be?" Christopher asks as he rests both hands on the pommel of his saddle, leaning forward and slightly to the right towards the last guard that had spoken to him.

"Two coppers, boy. Where have you been?" says the first guard, that is now standing by the left side of his horse's head holding the bridle harness with his left hand, as his right hand rests on the hilt of his sword.

"Of course, sir, at once, sir. My money is in my saddlebag. I will have to dismount to get it, sir."

"I smiled my most sincere smile."

He didn't buy it. "Where do you hail from and just where do you think you are going, boy? You have the looks of a young man except in your eyes. They seem," he searches for the correct words, "Vacant and dead."

"Oh," Christopher says, as he starts to dismount anyway, "I'm from horror, and headed to the abyss."

"I dismounted to the right, forcing the guard at my right leg to have to step back a bit, and in one fluid motion I drew my sword which hung on my left, and with my back to the second guard I swung around with such force that I cleaved him clear in half, and I used that power and momentum to bring the point of my sword under the neck of my black as night horse and drove it deep into the first guard."

Christopher stands there for a moment admiring his handy work. He searches the bodies and the little shack and takes what he can use. He makes no attempt at hiding the bodies. He wants them to know he is coming. He wants them to know that the abyss has been unleashed and it is not happy.

Christopher is strutting his stuff like an amateur warrior upon a field of victory. He goes to mount his steed with such vigor that he falls over the other side and hits the ground with a thud.

"I think my horse laughed at me. I promptly followed suit."

It doesn't do any good for Christopher's aches and pains, but it lightens the darkness for a microsecond. Now, not only will he have to take a bath again, but this time he will have to give his horse one as well. Christopher follows the road for as long as he dares, then he disappears deep into the Gojin Forest.

Christopher rides at a brisk pace for a while, but the thought comes to him that his new horse has handled itself well and he probably should give it a break. Every now and again he will ride to his right until the road comes into sight so he won't get lost, but far enough that he'll be safe if he has to make a tactical retreat before attacking again.