Ethan slammed his head back into his pillow. “No one ever believes me.”
“Goodnight,” Elspeth said.
Ethan yawned. “I’ll show you tomorrow, Elspeth, when we go to sell at the market.”
“Good night, Ethan.”
The boy exhaled deeply, studying the bruise in the half-light. Soon he drifted off to sleep.
SUFFER THE CHILDREN
A low steady rumble, like a stampede, woke Elspeth from sleep. The waving firelight of distant torches and the screams of women and children stirred her parents from their chairs in the main room below.
Elspeth heard voices shouting and the sound of her father’s sword loosed from its scabbard, which normally held it secure upon their living room wall. Her mother scrambled up the ladder into the loft, trying to reach her children. “Elspeth, we must run!”
What’s happening? Why is mother so afraid? Elspeth wondered.
Her mother grabbed Ethan from his bed and thrust him into Elspeth’s arms. The child gazed about through eyes half cocked in slumber. He clung to Elspeth until their mother climbed back down the ladder. Then she reached for Ethan as Elspeth handed him down to her and followed.
Elspeth heard the sounds of horses galloping toward the front of the house. The glow of several torchlights flashed back and forth through the windowpanes on either side of the front door. Her father left the house with his sword in hand, shutting the door behind him.
Voices exchanged threats outside. The horses stamped and whinnied beyond the wooden walls of their home. Elspeth heard the piercing song of swords meeting in combat and the cries of war.
Her mother went to the window and peered into the darkness beyond. She ran back to the children, her face contorted in anguish and horror. She forced Ethan into Elspeth’s arms once again. Her mother grabbed the pail of water sitting next to their sink basin, then threw it onto the burning embers within the hearth, sending a cloud of steam hissing into the room. With her skirt wrapped around her hand, she reached to the back of the hearth to the small iron door built into the chimney for removing the ashes.
“Elspeth, take Ethan through!” she screamed as she grabbed the iron handle with a wad of her long skirt and forced it open. Steam billowed from the coals, filling the room with hot vapor.
“But Mama, what about Papa? We must-”
“Papa is gone,” she choked, grabbing Elspeth by the shoulders to shake the truth into her. “Now go before it’s too late! Keep your brother safe!”
She ushered the girl and her brother into the cloud of vapor and through the small door beyond as the wooden door to their home exploded inward. The door closed on a spring as Elspeth pushed her way through, emerging with Ethan into the damp night air.
Inside the house, several lightly armored soldiers appeared under the lintel, pushing the splintered door out of their way. Elspeth’s mother emerged from the white cloud of steam with an iron poker in her hand. The men brandished swords. She saw her husband’s blood upon their blades. “Henry.” Her hand tightened around the poker. “What do you want with us?”
The men walked over the splintered wood, holding their swords in front of them. They kicked over the table and chairs, clearing a path to their next victim. Tears escaped her eyes as she whispered, “Help us, Lord Shaddai.” She raised the poker high. Her hand trembled. She tried her best to avenge her beloved.
Ethan’s terror kept him silent. He clung to his sister for dear life. Elspeth treaded the cold, wet grass in her bare feet as she emerged in her nightgown from behind their family’s modest log home.
The trees bordering Salem lay before them amid a thick layer of thorns and brambles. Ethan looked past his sister’s shoulder and saw creatures, like he had seen earlier, emerging from the trees all around them. Demons sailed through the air into their village. Some appeared like wolves, others as humans, and still others as indescribable monstrosities born from man’s worst nightmares.
As Ethan looked over Elspeth’s shoulder, he saw the village burning behind them. Silhouettes of frantic villagers raged against the fires, then fell like hewn wheat before the riders. Ethan turned to see where they were going and found a demon coming toward them from the trees ahead. The creature frothed at the mouth, its long claws extended like the talons of an eagle, reaching for his prey. Ethan gasped and closed his eyes.
The beast passed right through them and kept going, completely unaware of the girl and boy escaping from the net of destruction cast over the village. Elspeth ran from the carnage behind them. Thick underbrush tore at her flimsy nightgown, but nothing slowed her pace. Ethan heard screams of pure anguish as their neighbors and friends fell in the night like cattle to the slaughter. A voice cried out from the house behind them.
“Momma?” Ethan whispered.
Elspeth stopped, turned, then choked down the lump in her throat. With hot tears streaming down her face, she ran into the night.
The village of Salem burned. The inhabitants lay massacred in the streets. Wraith Riders, clad in black and crimson leather-plated armor, filed through the ruins of the burning village, searching for stragglers they might have missed. Demons glided through the air, searching as well.
A demon in semi-human form appeared before the warlord, Mordred, as he sat upon his black stallion. His intricately designed, armored breastplate was embossed with the gold of leadership. His broadsword lay across his lap baptized in the blood of Salem’s citizens. Upon his head sat a molded black helmet covering all but his eyes. A constant fury burned in his eyes-a lust for power never satisfied. “My lord, Mordred, we have found no other children present in the village,” a wolf-headed demon reported.
Mordred listened. The screams had grown quiet now. “Have you killed Shaddai’s Deliverer then?”
“If he was here among the children then he is surely dead, my lord,” the demon said.
“If he lives, then my invasion will be for naught.”
“I understand, my lord. He is dead. The invasion will not be hindered.”
“And the others?” he asked.
“We have left none alive, my lord. Even the wounded have been dispatched.”
“Be sure of it,” Mordred said. “I want none left who might oppose me. By tomorrow, the House of Nod will have fallen. I will cast their king into chains. Gather your demon army and tell Jericho to prepare for battle.”
The demon bowed and flew from Mordred in haste.
The warlord surveyed the grim scene again and smiled. “This night will forever mark the hammer stroke, ending the reign of Shaddai upon the earth.”
BENEFACTOR
Another sunrise. Elspeth and Ethan had seen so many. She did not even know how many days they had been walking. Her feet had blistered long ago. Now they were forming calluses. Ethan strolled beside her, keeping up, then falling a few steps behind as different things caught his attention. “It’s hot already,” he said. “Do we have any water left?”
Elspeth brushed the tangled hair from her face. Bits of leaves and twigs fell away. “I gave it to you last night.”
Ethan lagged behind again. “But I’m thirsty. Can’t we find another town so someone will give us money again?”
“The soldiers are in the towns now.”
“Not the last one,” he complained.
Elspeth shook her head. “No, but they soon will be.”
“What do they want, Elspeth? Why are they killing people?”
She looked back at her brother as he hurried to catch up again. She remembered the mark on his arm. They want you, she thought, but she dared not say it. Ethan wouldn’t understand. Her mother and father had once told her what the mark meant. Still, she only half understood its meaning. “It doesn’t matter what they want, Ethan. We just can’t be found by them.”
A signpost appeared on the road ahead. “A town!” Ethan reported.