The Broken

[Fallen4Futral]

I have always aspired to be a writer. After reading Brandon Sanderson's perfection on paper I was able see more of how to write. How to put detail down. here is a short blip of an idea I've had for a very long time. 

 

All was quiet other than the crack of the leaves under Kethen’s weight and the occasional hoot of a passing by owl. From Kethen’s position, just inside the cover of the trees, he could see two opposing armies encamped for the night. Fires let off flashing shadows and smoke that wisped into nothing in the night sky. The light breeze lazily moved the clouds overhead occasionally letting the moon shine through only to be covered again by the next mass of clouds. Kethen could feel the moisture in the air. He could feel a thin layer of moisture on his skin and after some time his clothes began to feel damp. Anyone else wouldn’t feel this. To them their skin would not be sensitive enough to feel the moisture build which, to Kethen, was a sign it was going to rain soon. Of course everyone else wasn’t like Kethen, he was “Special”. Special Kethen thought with a deep gravelly chuckle. Is that what I am? Special… I’m something different for sure. Special seems like a good thing. This is NOT a good thing. Thinking about his difference brought back memories. Terrible memories.  Horrific memories so Horrendous that when reminiscing on them, his body ached all over. Why shouldn’t it? After going through what he had, he should have been dead. Kethen never understood why he survived… It. He only knew he woke up a different person.

            His thoughts were cut off when the guards from the camp to his right, left their posts and headed into the encampment to get their replacements, thinking they were going to get a little rest before the chaos that will ensue the following day. It’s time Kethen thought as he stood pulling on his belt that had a short sword on his left side and dagger on his right. Another belt was slung over his shoulder and strapped to the one on his waist. On this one there were 10 knives in slots all down the front end toward the clasp that held it on the belt at his waist. Last, he checked the two others hidden in his leather boots. With his inventory complete, he sprinted at an inhuman speed off toward the encampment on the left. As he ran, he felt his muscles cry out with strain, almost screaming for oxygen. So he gave it to them, taking even deeper breaths even faster, and, in return, was given instant relief. The faster he wanted to go, the more oxygen he needed to take in to fuel his muscles. He could feel them tearing at each breath like a pack of starving wolves and the oxygen was the feast. He did have a limit but only because he could only bring in so much from a breath. To any other person he would look almost as a blur at his fastest. Nothing Kethen did was human. The closer he got, the easier he could make out the flags flown all throughout the camp. On them was the Clan Warkin insignia: two swords crossed laying on an elegant long bow with a blue background. Slowing 10 feet from the closest tent, Kethen drew in a huge breath and leaped. Flipping in the air, he soared over the tent and landed in the shadow of the next tent. Turning his head, and seeing the height and distance he’d covered, he smirked to himself. It had become almost habit for him. The things he could do it still boggled his mind, but they had become habit.

            Bringing his focus back to the task at hand, Kethen wound his way through the camp to the center where his target would be. His task was simple: get in, take out the command, and leave. With the command tent in sight, Kethen realized the job wasn’t going to be as easy as he had hoped. The big red lavish tent was surrounded by lamps leaving no shade for Kethen to slip through. Posted at all of the four corners of the tent were two men, each man wearing a glistening full plate of armor. These were probably the few in the whole army that were this heavy suited. Seth Warkin, his target, was wasting them on his protection. This was a slight deviation from the plan but improv was one of Kethen’s favorite things.

“Let’s have a show shall we?” he whispered to himself, then Bellowed “Ladies and Gentlemen! I give you Kethen the Shadow Companion versus eight hulking idiots!” At the sound of his shouting voice, the guards closest to him started in complete confusion, and one even dropped his spear. Kethen took that moment to catch the bumbling buffoons in surprise and in quick secession, sent his throwing knives in to the weak leather supports in the armor of the necks of 3 guards. The three fell to the ground, blood spurting from their necks. Kethen turned around, took two steps up a tent support behind him, and did a massive back flip, soaring through the air and slamming feet first in to the one guard that had not been hit by his knives. He slit the man’s throat with the dagger he’d pulled out during his flip, and then turned while sheathing his weapon, to the thudding of the armor that rounded the tent corners on either side of him. Kethen smirked as he saw the fear and shock in each of the four men that had just entered the slaughter that ensued. Two of them froze as they saw the men slumped on the ground with their blood pooling out of their slit throats. The other two looked down at the men, looked up, and charged with their spears shoved in front of them. Kethen took two throwing knives out, tossed them up in the air, then stuck his hands out, grabbed both spears headed towards him, and yanked on them. The pulling motion caught the charging men off guard and they stumbled forward. As they staggered closer, Kethen reached up, grabbed the knives he had previously thrown, and shoved each one in the two falling men’s eyes sockets. As they fell to the floor Kethen spun, drawing his sword, and took a step to the two frozen guards a few feet in front of him. Realizing they were all that was left between Kethen and the great Seth Warkin they both did their best to make themselves look frightening by jabbing their spears at him.  With his sword Kethen knocked them away and broke one in half. He stooped down, grabbed the broken end, and leaped on the man closest to him. Kethen soared directly on to him and shoved the spear tip in to the same leather supports on the neck and landed on top of the man, crouched. The last man seemed to realize he had no chance of surviving this fight and turned and ran in to the massive red tent.

Kethen then heard two loud clinks and then a louder slamming sound. Out of the tent flopped a shiny gauntlet, the same that was on the men he had just killed. Kethen smiled as he realized what had happened. Seth Warkin had awakened to the noise of the fight and was sitting in his tent huddled with a bow, ready to shoot whatever walked in. Thinking his guard was the intruder, he’d released two arrows before he realized the man was his.

Kethen chuckled as he jumped straight in to the opening and landed on the top of a table in the middle of the tent. Straight in front of him was a tall man with black hair, speckled with grey, and a neatly trimmed beard. The man was only in the bottom half of his undergarments and his chest was bare. Kethen saw the fear in the man’s eyes and then the shock once he was recognized. “How dare you come here and threaten me!” Seth Warkin glared at him but the fear was ever so present in his eyes.

“Oh I beg for your forgiveness, my lord!” Kethen whimpered sarcastically getting down on one knee and shaking his clasped hands at the near naked man. “There has been a misunderstanding!”

“You mock me!” Seth bellowed, walking up to where Kethen knelt and slamming a fist on the table. “I’ll have your head hung on a stick and your man hood fed to a squirrel!”

“I tire of this banter,” Kethen stated and, with a swinging motion of his arm, lopped Seth’s head from his shoulders. As the decapitated body fell to the ground, it began to glow. It grew brighter until Kethen needed to shield his eyes from the light. It was gone as quickly as it had come and with it so was the body of Seth Warkin. “That is new. That is very, very new.”

With his job done Kethen worked his way out of the encampment. Every step had him more and more confused. “How is it that ol’Seth turned in to the noon day sun? No one would consider him to be a bright guy.” He whispered to himself with a smile and then thought. That’s the kind of joke that Mel would find humorous.

Sprinting his way back to his hiding spot, he found the bundled cloak he had left before. He put it on he then walked farther back in to the cluster of trees to find his horse. He scratched its nose and side. Kethen pondered the strange events of the night. He then decided that the best way to figure this out was to talk it over with Mel. 

The Broken.docx