The fire burns but still, the knight's ride for a slight chance of hope. It was a sickness that struck the heart of men. So they took everything from her. Her hearth, home, and reasons to live, all gone. All men die of miserable death. It was all of sudden when marauders came from the forest path. At the time it was near the last of the harvests. Traditionally life in frontier villages is about surviving and helping each other. Villagers under their own decision wanted a good life; they smelt irons for tools by themselves, they work the fields themselves, and they build the village: houses and roads by themselves. And the position of village chief is nothing more but representatives to deal with people from outside and to settle matters if needed. But Alice often imagined how outside world should be. Naively, she believes that the outside world is the same as in the songs of travelling bards. Not until she has seen it with her own eyes. Men in the fields fell by each swing of a sword or axe or struck by bolts and arrows. What can a thrown three-pronged pitchforks do against chainmail which even a needle can't pass through? One did fell from the horse, but it was the head, unprotected. In turn, her neighbours, uncle, brother, even her father slain. Women and children scream, running from them, from fate. But Alice knew that fate is willing to give everyone a chase. They run, but they can't outrun their fate. She too ran, dropped the milking pail without hesitation. She saw the villagers wan face. Any safe places are better than nothing. Her mother said once before she died of fever, home is the safest place. She needed it. A safe place can deliver her from those beasts. People have a safe place of their own, but they are fools if they choose the granary. But her family dug the ground and made a shelter there, cellar filled with grain, and wine. "No!" "Please!!" "Mercy! Mercy!!" She heard it from afar, people shouting, laughing, screaming, and the worst of all, the roaring fire. They turn stacks of hay into pyres. The barricade inside the granary didn't stop those cruel men to destroy the door with axes. They chop the boards and hinges. Then they beat the women and children. She didn't want to know what happened to them after, but she knows somehow. "Gods... please....", she cried. She could curse them all. But her sound is more like a prayer. She knows the truth immediately. There are no gods. "Gods... please...", she cried again, almost soundless but all the same. There is no one to save her now. What brought them here? Crops? They may have come to the right place, but why Domee? A stroll? A mere whim? She didn't know that the villagers meant to eat and playthings for sport in their eyes. And so this man. He waited just for her right inside the house. His breath stinks, his odour is like of manure, more of that, she was afraid of his face, grinning widely and wanting of her. She couldn't run. After all, this is the most inside of the house, and this man has the muscle. He lunged forward and punched her in the stomach. "Gah!!!!" Alice spat. She unsightly threw up everything inside her stomach, the porridge, and very little meat she had this morning. "Pretty girl." The man grabbed her hair, sniffed them. "No... don't..." Feeling that it's not enough, the man punched her again, and drag her to the floor with his strength. She had probably cursed the gods more times in the past ten seconds than he had in the rest of his life. If the gods really did exist, then they should defeat this evil being right now. She was faithful — why had the gods abandoned her? Thus the answer: the gods did not exist. In the past, she had looked down on those people who did not believe in the gods as fools. After all, if the gods did not exist, how could the priests work their magic? How could the priests bless the lands? Or how could healer divine the ailments and cure them? She witnessed magic, and it was real. And now, she realised that she was the foolish one. Most of the fools held no powers in this world. Her life in an instant reduced to a living nightmare. He remembered the sermons; all is like vapour that disappears in a blink of an eye. Now she's nothing more than a plaything for the man who beat her over and over when she tried to resist him. In between her consciousness, she could hear the sound of torn cloth. Her body feels cold, and her skin felt like pushed against the bedground. She feels that her body was forcefully raised, then being put on a hard surface. And there was this pain. Pain in her chests as something grabbed her in the front, pain on her waist and the inside as something being pushed through repeatedly, intensely. But it was somewhat bringing her pleasure of the flesh. She craved it more. And she gets what she wished. How she wished that pleasure is the last thing she knew. But it isn't. It's cold again in a sudden. But again it was all but a fleeting moment. She was cast down, back to the ground. The pleasure left her, the ecstasy too. The pain returned. And everything she saw was burning. Fire surrounded her. She could feel blood gushed out from her nostrils. Her skin now drenched by her own blood, naked but only blood and dirt. She heard the horses galloping through the village's road. But in the last of her strength, she saw him, the man who is responsible for all of this; dark face, smiling, laughing before gave the stallion a trot. Voices whispered in her ears. Garred... Garred... now!! She heard it clearly among the roaring fire. That was the man's name, Garred. She paid no heed to the falling logs behind, but the fire still brought pain to her. She heard the sounds, full of hatred. She was angered at herself for being powerless. She hates herself, and her fate, more than anything. She was a flower but already defiled. The man's name etched to the inside of her soul. ---Kill. ---Kill. ---Hate. ---Hate. ---Stab him. In the savage darkness, she’d breathed her last. It was when the young girl named Alice died. And everything, once again, turned black. The birds of yore came to feast. But again, their meals are disturbed by fearless men who came in mounts with armed hands. They see the village turned to ash and tried to put down the flame. Alice didn't know that now, her dream had come true. Knights, mounted on their white horse, came to take her. They wrapped her, gently and carefully, and ride her off with one of them. A knight, ride to his castle on a white horse to save her, through plains and hills. But nonetheless, the crows demanded their meals to be left alone. They cursed the knights whose paid no heed to their cawing. Should the birds spoke in Common Tongue, they will say: Death! Death! Death! They know of the peril ahead. They laughed as they know that the marauders and the knights will meet their end soon. ---And this time their meals will be left undisturbed.