The Eastern breeze carried with it the sound of drums through the early morning’s mist. A deep steady beat which echoed across the water, breaking the stillness of the early gray air. A solemn dread which built with each beat of distant drums as shadows found shape in the fog. Then came the clear ring of a bell, with each strike of the hammer it pierced the air calling those yet to wake. The peaceful dawn now awoken into frantic activity, as those able took up arms. Little more than a dozen men and women who had taken up spear and shield to safeguard their homes. Those young and old sheltered behind worn walls of timber and stone while those bold stood ready for what would come along the rocky shore. The bell fell silent, and in muted dread those along the shore waited, the silence only broken by their heavy breathing and the ever growing beat of drums.
As the beat grew louder it carried with it the deep bellowing chant of foreign tongue. The forms of shadow in the mist grew ever nearer before three great dragon’s heads broke through the fog. Each hewn from a single timber, and atop the prow a great ship of shallow draw. As these ships moored upon the shallow shores a few feet from the waters edge. Those who stood across from these ships looked to their leader. A woman well into her twenties who carried the scars of many battles. It was in her resolution which they found their strength.
The drums stopped, the ships had come to rest, but the silence only lasted a moment before being shattered again by a roaring yell as the men of the ships threw themselves to shore, their boots kicking up a splash as they landed and with a great roar as they surged forward. A few dozen men clad in mail, armed with sword and axe, from behind broad shields they charged. The woman at the guards front tightened her stance and lowered her spear to the ready. Yet to these great beasts of men such preparation was nearly meaningless as they cast these militia aside. Forcing them from the beach and back into town. In scattered desperation those few guard left fought for their lives, among the burning houses and blood strewn streets. Smoke and ash drifted through the air as the fighting raged on, shouts and the clash of steel ringing out on the morning’s breeze.
Then as suddenly as they had come the raiders returned to their ships and were gone. They returned back to the sea with all they could carry on their backs. The smell of smoke choking the now still morning air, as the people left their ravaged homes. In tearful relief the people combed through the dead, seeking the bodies of their fallen, for their were fewer now than there were before. Of those that remained there was but one fighter left among them, the young woman that had stood at the forefront. Wounded and bleeding her hands shaking with the silent tears in her eyes, she looked over her burning village. She had known this pain many times, they all had faced this pain many times. For all too often had their homes burned, their people killed, and their livelihoods taken.
