Shadows of Sacrifice (Prologue)

If this capital guard caught him, a torturous death would be the punishment for his crime. A death more brutal than any other guard would even contemplate. He ran. He couldn’t do anything else. There would be no mercy. His beliefs would be his end. Beliefs he thought he’d defend to his death, he would now surrender for life. He kept running, looking over his shoulder through the trees with every other stride. The Scorpion was there, somewhere, he knew it. The quiet woodland was merely a false pretence. He needed to escape. Escape the Scorpion, escape the Diamond Isle. His crime made him a sea sinner, and it could cost him his life.

He ran over logs and under boughs, knowing one slip would allow death to catch him. The forest awoke as his steps echoed by some from behind. The Scorpion was close. His insides churned. He had to lose him. Every crunch of grass he trod, the stamp behind grew louder. Every branch that whipped him lashed off steel armour only moments later. His eyes darted to the trees, then to the rocks, checking for a tremble of movement. A tremble he didn’t want to see. It remained still. But he knew the guard was there, gaining on him every second. Running was the only hope he had.

He collided with two tangled tree limbs. He looked left, then right. Thick branches intertwined as far as he could see, blocking the daylight as if it was a castle wall. The sun found a small opening, streaming through like a golden beacon. The gap was no bigger than his head. He raked at the surrounding bark with his bare fingers, trying to widen it. Was the Isle itself against him? Punishing him for his beliefs, ensuring his capture, guaranteeing his death? It knew he wanted to leave, but it wouldn’t let him. Scratching the trunks was too slow. The Scorpion was close. He punched at the opening until his fists bled, his brown linen rags splattered crimson. A section of the branch cracked. He yanked off a chunk. He kicked at the opening, groaning in despair, the fear within pouring from his mouth. Another glance over his shoulder. Alarmed birds speckled the sky above where the Scorpion barrelled through the forest. A shadow flickered onto the grass. He turned back to the opening and thrashed his arms and legs at it. The bark crumbled some more. He clambered through on hands and knees, sharp edges slicing his flesh. Before he stood, he looked back through the opening and saw the heavy black boots charging. The Scorpion almost had him.

He sprinted, tears welling in his eyes and the air stinging the raw wounds on his hands. A crash sounded as the guard reached the tree wall, the Scorpion’s stampeding mass enough of a tool to get through. The villager didn’t dare turn again; the pounding shudders on the earth reminded him how close the guard was. He panted, sure that his heart would burst through his chest. He did commit the crime; a crime that the people would hate him for. But he wouldn’t make it to the capital for a trial. This capital guard wouldn’t grant him that.

His linen rags snagged on twigs and thorns as he hurdled rocks and protruding roots. He had to look back. The monstrous guard was there, bashing through the bramble like a provoked rhino. The Scorpion’s teeth gnarled, and saliva spewed from his mouth. His golden breastplate flashed in the sun like a ball of fire hurtling through the forest.

The villager’s strained lungs gasped as if on the brink of collapse. He burst through some more bushes, then froze. A cold sickness rose from his gut. A vertical wall of rocks stood before him, as high as the eye could see. He approached it and grasped at every possible nook with shredded fingers. None were deep enough. He tried to pull himself up but couldn’t make it more than a couple of feet before sliding down. Climbing was impossible. Then, the pursuer appeared, having finally cornered his prey.

The quivering villager held up his hands and forced his spine into the rock face. He begged for it to swallow him. The hefty hunter took a moment. Every part of the Scorpion’s face was huge and pulsing. His eyes were black, more sin within them than any crime the villager had committed. His breaths were short, and his teeth grated, hungry to deliver sentence. The faintest of smiles creased his cheeks. The sadistic satisfaction was too much to deny. He pulled a gold-trimmed pistol from its holster. Its bullets wouldn’t be packed with gunpowder alone. This guard wasn’t known as the Scorpion by merely shooting his victims; he was much more callous than that. He raised the weapon.

The villager’s legs trembled, pattering against the rocks. “Please! Please no.” Sweat merged with tears and streamed from his shaky chin. His head snapped from side to side, hoping to find one final chance of an escape. There was none. Paralysis gripped his limbs. The inevitability turned him cold from the inside. “I… I can change.” Seeing his wife and daughter again was the only thing still dear to him. Leaving the Isle meant nothing any more.

The guard was unmoved. Tales of the Scorpion’s methods had infected the towns and villages of the Isle like a plague. Thieves punished by executions, adulterers by public beatings, gamblers by torture. The capital guards were employed as keepers of peace, but this man was a harbinger of fear. Where he walked, death and suffering followed.

The villager knew all these tales. He shuddered as they flickered before his mind’s eye. His throat constricted as if being strangled. No such story existed of a man fleeing the clutches of the Scorpion when caught in his pincers.

The Scorpion spoke. “In the name of the Capital King, and The Maker, you are found guilty of shipbuilding and conspiracy to desert the Diamond Isle. You are a sea sinner. The sentence… is death.”

The man could only shake his head, petrified. His vision blurred, a surreal terror pulsing within his body. The sea be salvation, he recited to himself, and salvation be ours. The Scorpion squeezed the trigger. The gunpowder ignited. A bullet tore through the villager’s abdomen. He clutched the wound and fell to the ground. The piercing agony was like none he’d ever experienced. Amidst the blood pouring between his fingers was a tinge of green. The gash then darkened completely to the colour of the surrounding grass. He gasped, but couldn’t find the air. His lungs shuddered and rattled. Foam bubbled from his mouth and gushed down his body, smearing his neck and chest with a warm wetness. His legs convulsed. A pain filled them, like scolding liquid metal ran through his veins, burning him from the inside out. It went into his arms, and they spasmed with fire too. His skin turned green. Still, he couldn’t breathe.

The villager gave a final, pleading glance to the shooter. The world darkened around the Scorpion, and he walked away. One less sea sinner on the Isle, the guard would think. Yet the Realists were more than the one villager. There were others ready to fight their war to the end. Those more powerful than the Scorpion could ever imagine, and ones that even he could not kill. Salvation be ours.

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