Chapter 1 - Prologue

Prologue
(First draft, July 2003)

The door burst open as four black-armored figures entered the house, a gust of fear blowing in with them. They quickly cornered, grabbed, and removed the four residents from the house, throwing them outside into a crowd, a crowd of their neighbors and friends. Out here, under the dark, post-rain sky, the rest of these soldiers -- sixty in all, well-armed and well-armored, had the village's entire population surrounded. Up on a small wooden platform nearby, the army's leader, a powerful general, stood facing the village's white-furred elder and family as the general watched his men go about their work. "Well...? Where is it?" The general demanded to know.

The elder gave no reply.

"Fool!" The general raised his arm to knock the elder over, but instead decided better of it. The general bent down slightly to look the elder in the eye, and then spoke more calmly. Perhaps a less forceful method would get him the information he was seeking. "Tell me, elder . . . what do you have to earn by hiding that creature?" the general asked. "You've heard the legends. You know the prophecies. Such a monster can only bring darkness to our land -- you know it must be done away with. So, why do you insist on protecting it? Where have you hidden it?"

Still, the elder remained silent, choosing only to look back at the general with a trembling, yet resolute, glare.

The general turned to the elder's family of three. "I should not have to resort to these measures . . . ," the general said, as he produced a small gem from his pack, red in color, and fastened it into a particular location on his gauntlet. The elder recognized what it was. "But if you will not cooperate . . . ," The general turned and raised his arm at the rest of the elder's family in preparation for something as the gem began to glow in the dim light.

"Wait!" the elder objected aloud. The general paused, smiling. He lowered his arm, and the red gem in his gauntlet returning to its darker color. The general turned back towards the elder. "Have you something to say after all?"

The elder shuddered. "You must understand, we can never betray one of our own . . . ."

"You are a fool, then," the general muttered in disdain.

"If we cannot trust our friends, our own kind...," the elder explained, an extra glint reflecting off of his green eyes, "then how can we expect anyone to trust us?"

The general chuckled. "You creatures are not lacking in intelligence. You do know the values of trust and honor, and you have my respect for that. But...," the general continued, friendship ebbing from his voice as it returned to anger. "You do know the prophecies, too. And your values of trust and honor are placing this land into jeopardy. If you had put that creature to death in the first place, my men would not have been sent here to exterminate it."

The elder said nothing.

"Do you think I LIKE having to kill something that is not of proper age!?"

"Can't you see it, then?" The elder asked quickly.

"A riddle, is it...." the general paused.

"Why did you come here?"

The general turned away for a moment. "There is little honor in us being here..." Then the general turned back to face the elder. "But there is even less, in failing to take action against the darkness. We cannot allow the Dark One's prophecy to come to pass."

"But," the elder objected. "What makes you believe that this little one is the enemy? Why --"

"SILENCE!" The general demanded. "I grow weary of your riddles, especially since you already know the answer. You've studied the legends, the prophecies. The Dark One said he would be reborn. And you know how powerful he was, do you want to see him rise again, to lay claim over our lands?"

The elder shook his head. "Can't you see it?"

"Not again . . . ," the general lamented. The riddle was most disturbing, the way it kept echoing through his head.

"Don't you see?"

"Silence!" The general ordered. "Now, elder, time is short and the stakes are high. If you will but help us find and destroy the monster, then I promise that not one other will be harmed or killed. But if you do not help us, then you have to understand, that if we have to, we will burn this place to the ground." The general glanced at one of his subordinates, a commander. "Get the fire stones ready. We may yet need them."

The commander nodded and began relaying the order to the rest of the troops.

"Don't be a fool, elder. Don't force us to do this . . . ."

"But can't you see it? Yes, I have studied the legends for a long life. The Dark One said he would return . . . but is that the true prophecy? Is this little one really the one we must all fear? What if he's not? What if that prophecy is --"

"Blasphemy!" The general objected, and slapped the elder with the backside of his hand, knocking him down. "You cannot seriously want to risk this country, this world -- our world -- for the sake of some ... a mere supposition!?"

The elder winced back at the general from the floor. "You... have done the same . . . ."

"Lies!" The general retorted, before picking the elder back up. "I am going to offer you one last chance. If you will but tell us where to find this creature, no more harm will come to you or this village. But you have to cooperate. No more riddles, no more excuses. If you do not, we will have to make ruin of this entire village, you, and everyone in it. So what is it going to be? Do you help us, or do we have to resort to murder?"

The elder did not reply.

"You cannot be willing to sacrifice yourself for the sake of this . . . monster?"

Still the elder, shaking his head and quivering in the knowledge of what the general would do, did not respond.

". . . very well," the general said, disappointed. "This little escapade will end one way or the other." Hesitantly, the general drew his sword. "Then have you any last words?"

"...you do not see it?" The elder riddled. "The truth?"

The general hung his head in his arm at the sound of another riddle. Just then, he noticed a peculiar reflection from the blade of his sword. He looked up, above them, up to a large tree at one edge of the village. A peculiar little green glint was coming from it.

"Wait a minute...." the general mused. "Commander, what is that?"

The general's subcommander withdrew a pocket telescope and looked up towards the tree. "General, it's..." The subcommander tossed the scope to the general and he peered through it himself. Up in the large oak, hiding behind several branches and a few leaves, was a young white-furred villager holding a brown-furred newborn in one arm and a small but shiny gem in her hand.

"THERE THEY ARE!!" The general shouted. "Up in that tree! Get up there and bring them down, now!"

The young female knew she was spotted and nearly panicked. As four of the general's men approached and one of them ignited a fire around the base of the tree. Another soldier, wearing flame-proof armor, stepped through the flames and climbed slightly up into the tree as smoke began collecting in it.

The frightened young girl looked around frantically, and tried climbing higher. The flames licked at the lowest leaves of the tree as the armored soldier began cutting down the lowest branches to make fuel for the fire. Soon, the bottom leaves and limbs were catching fire, and the flames were edging their way upwards.

After another minute, with the lower portion of the tree ablaze, the little girl now found herself at the very top of the tree, the infant still in her arm. She looked around frantically for somewhere else to go, but no luck; it's not like she could fly out of there and carry the infant at the same time -- her wings simply weren't strong enough for the job. And even if she could, there would be no place to land. She turned her hopes to the little green gem in her posession. She gripped it tightly, and in its soft glow, she focused and closed her eyes as if to offer a prayer to the higher power.

And then, suddenly, in a blink of light, she vanished from sight and was nowhere to be found.

The general seethed; after a spell like that, there would be no way to tell where the young girl was now. "...you..." began the general, turning slowly towards the elder and his family. "... let... them es-CAPE!!!!"

Ridding himself any notions of mercy or compassion, the general took his sword and angrily, brutally, slew the village elder and family.

"BURN this Place to the GROUND!! Leave NO Survivors!!"
* * * * *
Come morning, no two stones were left on top of each other. All plant life had been scorched to the roots; no trees were left standing, the ground was dark with soot, and the whole area reeked of smoldering fur and hide. Here and there in this giant, black spot on the earth were the powdery remains of the villagers, killed first by the sword before being incinerated in the fire, and even now the new day's wind and rain were busy trying to wash away the evidence of brutality.

The general's army was nowhere to be seen. Though they had killed everyone, they had failed to get the very one whom the general was sent to kill -- the young, brown-furred infant, and his older sister.

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