WeatherMaker Hearts Desire Prologue
Chapter 15: Murder

A few days later, once Ramana’s wound had healed enough for her not to need bandages, she was walking again with her daughter in the woods. It was now becoming a habit for Ramana to avoid her own home, in order to avoid her husband. It was something Amaia had wanted too.

And so they left together, mother and daughter. Avoiding the town altogether, they hid themselves in the trees. On this day, they walked along the road leading out of the town, which was surrounded on either side by woodlands. This was the main road out of the town, it was nothing but a dirt track, and today, like most other days, was deserted.

Ramana released her daughter’s hand and Amaia immediately ran forwards and began to play, trying to jump up and catch the falling leaves from the trees all around.

It was autumn, and the air around them was cool. Their footsteps on the forest floor made crunching sounds as they walked the carpet of dead leaves.

Ramana walked with her daughter a short while, before sitting slumped upon the fallen trunk of a tree, watching her daughter absent mindedly as she ran around.

She sighed wearily, resting with her chin on her hands. For some time Amaia played, completely distracted with her own games.

‘Hey look! Mother look!’

Ramana lifted her head, straightening up to see her daughter lying on the ground on her belly with her arms and legs sprawled out awkwardly.

‘Look!’ she gleamed, crawling forwards clumsily. ‘I’m a beetle!’

Ramana chuckled to herself, cheering up a little. She rose from the trunk and glided over to her daughter, kneeling behind her and picking her up. She nuzzled into her neck, tickling her. Amaia squealed in delight, wriggling in her mother’s arms.

‘I love you so much’ Ramana said to her. ‘You mean everything to me.’ She kissed her one last time. ‘My precious treasure.’

‘You mean more to me’ Amaia giggled. ‘I love you like a swallow loves honey.’

‘What?’ Ramana chuckled. ‘Swallows don’t eat honey.’

‘How do you know?’ Amaia asked her. ‘Have you ever followed one around?’

‘No’ Ramana smiled to her daughter. ‘Of course I haven’t. I can’t fly.’

Ramana let go of her daughter, drifting away and leaving Amaia to her games of being a beetle, her mind beginning to drift again.

‘Mother?’ Amaia spoke up a moment later.

Ramana turned to her daughter who lay on the ground with her head turned to the side, her ear pressed against the earth.

‘Do you hear that noise?’ Amaia asked. Her voice was uncertain.

‘What is it?’ Ramana said.

‘Rumbling.’

Ramana lifted her head, stiffening at the sound of falling hooves. The thundering of the horses steps signalled the swift arrival of many.

‘Amaia’ her mother hastened, ‘come quickly.’

Amaia picked herself off the ground, running to her mother’s side. Ramana marched quickly back down the road and towards the town, walking with her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and head down. Behind them the horses approached. Ramana pulled her daughter tightly to her as the horses descended upon them, hoping that they would simply pass them by. But the great beasts walled them in, trapping them from either side, turning around and blocking their path at the front, as more horses closed the net behind them.

Walking alone in the woods, the band of about ten men was seen travelling at high speed down the dirt road heading away from the town. Arlen raised his head curiously as the horses tore through the countryside. He was some distance away, so wasn’t able to see them clearly. The sun was in the sky before him, he blinked several times as the branches of the trees waved up and down in the breeze, flashing the sunlight in his eyes. Arlen squinted, seeing the figures only as blurred silhouettes. When they were out of view, he jogged forwards, out of the trees and coming to stand on the road they had ridden over, listening to the sounds of the falling hooves growing ever fainter.

A strange feeling of trepidation seeped into him, chilling his skin. Something felt very wrong to him, and Arlen wondered who the men were and what they were doing near his town home. A small and unremarkable place on the corner of the map; a place of little consequence where little ever happened. But more than anything else, the thing that concerned him the most, was why the men were in such a hurry. What had happened for there to be need of such haste?

He turned the other way, glancing to the direction the men had come from, and began to walk.

He walked and walked, every step caused there to be an ever growing feeling of dread within his heart. He didn’t know why, but some unknown sense, some instinct within him, told him that something was very very wrong.

When he lifted his head a short time later, his heart jolted and he froze in mid-step.

He saw something before him, further along the road. Though he couldn’t see it clearly from where he stood, a feeling of terror struck him like a bolt of lightning.

Arlen broke into a run, heading towards this thing he could not make clear of what it was. As he drew closer, he slowed to a stop, standing over the figure on the ground.

His whole world crashed around him. Tears ran from his eyes and he became so weak and sick, he could no longer hold himself to stand. Knees feeling as if they had suddenly turned to water, he collapsed, a darkness descending over his eyes. He struggled to remain consciousness, struggled not to black out.

He screwed his eyes tight shut, opening them again and daring to look at the dead body of Ramana. The dead body, of the woman he loved.

His body began to shake as he leant forward to embrace her, wracked with sobs he lifted her and held her in his arms, crying and rocking back and forth in despair. Her body was utterly lifeless, her head lolled, and her arms dropped to her side. Arlen drew back, staring into her face. She was beautiful, so so beautiful, and young. Far too young to die.

The blood still ran fresh from the wound in her chest, a wound that looked like it had reached her heart.

A thought touched his mind then, a thought that frightened him even more than what he saw before him.

Arlen glanced about him feverishly, desperately crying out to the silent forest around.

‘AMAIAAAA!’

Nothing.

He rested Ramana’s body back on the earth, rising to his feet and turning on the spot, eyes darting all around him.

‘AMAIA WHERE ARE YOU????!!!’

He hesitated, thinking of the men that had ridden past him, and thinking it was they who must have done this. He spared one last horrified glance back at Ramana, her body so still, before turning and fleeing back towards the town.

Arlen burst through the door to his brother’s manor.

‘FARRELL!’ he cried to the empty hall. ‘FARRELL!’

Seconds later the grim figure of his brother appeared on the balcony above him, roused by the call and hastened by the panic in Arlen’s voice.

‘What is it Arlen?’ he demanded.

‘Ramana is dead!’ Arlen blurted.

Farrell went still, as the words slowly sunk in.

‘Amaia is missing’ Arlen went on. ‘She’s been taken!’

Arlen watched his brother stumble, grabbing onto the railings to support himself. Farrell held his head as if his mind hurt, as if he were struggling to think clearly.

‘We have to go now!’ Arlen urged. ‘We have to look for her. I saw soldiers riding off at high speed; they must have something to do with this!’

Arlen watched as Farrell forced himself to straighten, moving towards the stairs and heading down, marching with a single purpose, across the hall and through the open door.

Outside he broke into a run, swiftly followed by Arlen. They headed to the field before the manor where Farrell’s remaining horse Alastor grazed. Farrell leapt upon the beast with no saddle or bridle, Arlen unprompted quickly followed suit, sitting behind Farrell and holding onto him. The horse jerked its head back startled as heels were dug into its flank. Alastor leapt over the fence and cantered back through the town where Arlen had come, and towards the bell in the centre where the soldiers assembled, the bell when rung would rouse the soldiers.

Within minutes soldiers appeared; confused and uncertain, among them were two figures that stood out from the rest. The brothers Eidan and Markus.

‘What has happened?’ the eldest Eidan demanded, coming to stand beside Farrell’s horse.

‘It’s Ramana’ Arlen choked, but he could say no more.

‘Lead the way’ Markus hastened with urgency in his voice. ‘And hurry!’

Guided by Arlen’s direction, Farrell led the men out of the town, and to the section of woodland where Ramana’s body rested.

He pulled his horse back when he found her, jerking on the mane, he stared in utter disbelieve at the dead body of his wife, lying on the leaf-strewn earth. Already the forest was trying to bury her; the autumn leaves from the trees falling from above had covered parts of her body.

Cries of defiance and grief were heard from behind as Eidan and Markus leapt from their horses, rushing over to her and throwing themselves on the ground around her.

‘I saw men riding ahead’ Arlen told Farrell in a distant voice, unable to tear his eyes away from the scene of the brother’s grief. ‘They travelled quickly…’

Arlen was able to slide off the horse, just before Farrell sent Alastor racing onwards, followed by the other mounted soldiers in search of the culprit.

Arlen watched as the brothers grieved over the body of their beloved sister, whom for them had been the treasure of their lives. It was heartbreaking to watch.

They wept, holding her and pawing at her body, throwing their heads back and wailing in pain and despair that their loss.

Arlen felt a clench in his heart. A black fog fell around him and he covered his face, moving away from the brothers, unable to take anymore.

He stumbled then, glancing down to see what had tripped him. Arlen knelt, brushed back the leaves that covered the forest floor, and had continued to fall all around.

In the road, running all the way across, was great crack, inches thick. Arlen narrowed his eyes, blinking several times to clear the tears. He stared down at the fracture in the road.

‘What is this?’ he whispered.

Further down the road, Farrell and his men had ridden. They had passed a single dead man, who appeared to have no injury on him at all. It was a mystery how he died. But further along the road, was a mystery far deeper.

Farrell pulled his horse back, surveying the scene around him.

‘What in god’s name….’

The bodies of twelve soldiers lay scattered in their path, soldiers who were armed and armoured. They all bore the crest of the king, a wolf swallowing a half-moon.

It looked as if they had been ambushed.

Farrell ordered the soldiers that followed him, to check the men to see if any were alive.

But they were all dead. And Amaia could not be found.