[Winter Contest Entry 2013] Regret

It was the screaming of crows that woke him up that day. Unlike most days, there were no traces of the realm of dreams remaining on him; he simply opened his eyes and was awake, his body feeling refreshed and light. In a single motion, he sat up and swung his feet off the bed, a small cloud of dust rising as they hit the wooden floor.

Storage crates and barrels filled the other side of the room. He got on his feet and walked to the small oaken dresser at the foot of the bed. With the swiftness of habit, he put on his dark blue cotton breeches, shirt and leather apron. He crossed through the door-sized opening in the dividing wall into the other room of the house. On the left were the stove and the pantry, and in the middle, a small wooden table with two chairs, but he went straight for the front door.

The roofed area outside housed the tools of his trade: the forge, the anvil, the slack tub, the furnace, the grinding stones, –;(I don't know how to understand this. The semicolon alone is sufficient.) he had worked them for as long as he could remember, at least before today. He walked through his smithy onto the cobblestone road, lifting his gaze past the roofs of the houses and the towers of St. Marien and the Hammaburg into the sky.

Dark clouds were gathering and overshadowing the morning sun. Moments later the sky broke open and cold waters poured down on him. As the first drop landed on his skin, he remembered everything. His eyes wandered back to his smithy.

“Fiat voluntas tua per manus meas,” he whispered.

With a sly smile on his face, he started humming his favourite melody.

He had much work to do.



It had been raining all day and small rivers were running down the sides of the road. Telling the time on days like this was not easy, but the bell recently rung six. Not many customers came to her families’ store today and there was not a soul in sight either. Before she was about to lock the door, she saw that the fires in the blacksmith’s shop were still burning.

The blacksmith was a tall and strong man, always cheerful and kind to everyone. She thought about bringing him a bite to eat, but decided against going out in this weather. She could only make out his shadow against the light, but something was off about it.

She leaned out of the door, careful to stay under the roof, to have a better look. It looked almost as if there was a huge bird spreading its wings behind him. She could hardly believe such a bird existed, let alone be here in the city. She rubbed her eyes, but after she looked again, the blacksmith was gone and a murder of crows cawed in the distance.



“We be closin’ now, mate,” he said to the last person sitting at their tables.

The old man – probably in his forties, with bad teeth and scruffy hair, wearing tattered clothes – looked up to him, a broad smile on his face. The man put down his spoon and picked up the bowl in front of him, slurping down the remaining porridge. He waited for him to finish, tapping his foot on the floor.

“Let me help ye out, mate,” he said and grabbed the old man’s arm, escorting him through the large room, filled with a dozen tables and more than double that of chairs.

“Lord bless ye, lad,” the old man said.

“Don’t be mentionin’ it further, mate,. fFare thee well.”

He pushed the man out the door and closed it behind him, letting out a sigh of resignation. The old man had been as poor as a church mouse. He sat down at the table closest to the entrance and emptied his pockets of today’s loot: Five Pfennige, three leather straps, a claw of a dog or wolf, a handful of rocks – completely worthless, but he thought they might have been ores from the mines – and a book. He couldn’t read, but he would have his fence take a look at it.

“A lousy haul if I ever seen one. Losing your edge, thief?”

He could only agree, but this was not the market after all and snatching valuables was not his main goal.

“Two fine lasses in this shite weather may hardly be a loss,” he said.

The man standing in front of the table grinned – he was a merchant and the owner of the building. Running this business was his idea.

“Those gals had the sweetest expression as I pulled the cutlery out their pockets,” the merchant laughed, sitting down opposite of the pickpocket, “Aand their squealing when I locked them up was music to the ears.”

“We ain’t be doin’ this for yer amusement,” the pickpocket leaned forward, “Yyer overactin’s gonna make folk suspicious.”

“What folk? Nobody misses these ne’er-do-wells, neither the guard nor their fellows. Yer wouldn’t be missed either, ye better watch yer tongue. I don’t pay ye to run yer mouth,” the merchant said with supportive gestures.

“Ain’t payin’ me to shut me mouth either,” the pickpocket leaned back in his chair, raising his hands in defense, “Bbut yer the boss, won’t hear me complainin’ again less there be no more coin.”

“Better not forget that,” the merchant said while standing up, “I’ll be preparing our wares, watch the door, will ye? The slaver should be over soon.”



The old man left the merchant’s house with a content smile on his face. They were always kind to him in there. He had worked the mines since his tenth birthday and now his legs and back were giving out on him. The merchant was preparing food for the weak and the poor, such as himself. God bless him.

He was slowly making his way to his home on the south side of the city, supporting himself with his right hand on the walls of the buildings lining the street. The rain had not let up since morning and he was already drenched.

He only passed by a few houses when a roaring thunder crashed down behind him. His ears were ringing. A heartbeat later, an invisible force pushed past him and something heavy hit his left leg, forcing him down on his knees. A dumb pain spread in his leg.

He turned around, unsure what to expect – maybe a piece of the sky itself or a lightning bolt sticking out of the ground – but all he saw was a cloud rising from a crater in front of the merchant’s house where the cobblestone road was supposed to be. Stones were lying all around, some stuck in the surrounding walls.

After a few moments, the dust started to settle and he could make out the shadow of a man – a man with huge feathered wings. The shadow turned and he felt a pair of eyes on him; it was a gaze that pierced through him and into his very being. He felt the warmth fading from his body. His vision went blurry. The shadow turned away, abandoning him. Then he was surrounded by darkness.



“What a bloody mess,” his boss, the slaver, said.

The mercenary had seen his share of bloody battles, but they did not compare to this: the wooden door was lying on the floor and the iron hinges were ripped apart, tables and chairs were shattered to pieces, a slashed up body lying in the middle of it, the limbs cut off and lying elsewhere in the room. He and his three fellows had their swords drawn.

He was itching to use his. Protecting the slaver was largely uneventful as most conflicts were resolved simply through their presence. Since the war ended some winters ago they had not been in a real battle, but someone who could rip a door out of its hinges had to put up a good fight.

“Can’t say I’ll miss that thief,” his boss laughed.

The distant painful scream of a man cut his laughter short.



She wanted to get out. She just wanted to run., Ttake her sister and run. What did they do to deserve this? They only wanted to get some food, but the merchant said they were thieves and he grabbed them and brought them down and locked them up, and he is slashing him again and again. wWhy is he doing this? sShe wanted to avert her eyes, but her body did not respond to her will. sShe had wished the merchant dead, but she did not mean for this to happen. hHe was screaming. wWhy would this wish come true off all the things she had wished? wWater splashed on the floor, and their faces it wereas red. tThis iwas not water. hHer breathing was heavy. sShe was shivering. – (Sheesh, this paragraph was a mess. I know it was intentional and I know you’re attempting to convey the maddened thoughts within the woman, but it slows down the reader, forcing them to hop over literary hurdles when they should be gliding through your piece. I liked the artistic touch behind it, and even felt it gave her character, however I still had to point this out to you so you keep it in mind. Perhaps it may have worked better if it were in first-person narrative. Corrections are only in place for grammatical purposes to make it easier to understand, however they will not be held against you, as it was intentional and tastefully artistic.)

She closed her eyes, trying to slow her breathing. She wanted to believe it was just a dream;, just a nightmare. She would just keep her eyes closed and wait for the horrible noises to stop. She knew it had to stop at some point, like every dream does. Then she would wake up and find her sister lying next to her and the sun would be shining and the birds singing. She would gently pat her sister, and smile at her, and she would smile back and nothing bad would have happened.

She wanted to wake up.



It was a demon.

It was clad in iron plate and had the shape of a man, but he had not seen a man fight like this before. Although it was wearing a sallet and despite the light of the lanterns in the basement, its face was not visible – there was only blackness. (If it was wearing a sallet, its face would not be visible regardless of light. Perhaps its eyes and chin, depending on the sallet, but not much else. Therefore, you should just knock off “Although,” in my opinion.) It towered over the lifeless bodies of three of his mercenaries, the longsword it was wielding sticking out of the back of the fourth one. It grabbed the mercenary by the shoulder, pushing him down as it pulled its sword out of the collapsing body.

It moved towards him.

The slaver wanted to run, but his legs did not move. He felt the gaze of the demon upon him and rooting him in place. The lights seemed to be swallowed by darkness as the demon came closer.

Then it stood before him.

The black faded and he could see its face.

It was the face of a man; it was a face he could only describe as kind. The man was smiling and humming a melody the slaver had not heard before.

“Deus non miserere animae tuae,” the man spoke.

The voice reverberated through the slaver. More than hearing the words, he also felt them. He knew their meaning although the language was unbeknownst to him. There was an unexplainable truth to this man’s words. A moment ago he wanted to run away, but now his fear was fleeting. He wanted to hate this man for what he had done, but the longer he looked at him, the more he felt at ease.

Even as the cold iron pierced his heart, he did not feel anger, only regret.