15 years old... he thought. Dreothorn was old enough to choose his own life, and he had already decided it. He would join the army, despite what his mother said about the dangerous life that would be he was ready to take the risk. As for his father, he didn't really care about it. For him the closer Dreothorn was to death the better.
He left home with his most elegant clothing, spear on one hand and shield on the other he was ready to enlist in the milita. But before that he decided to take a casual stroke on the nearest meadow. He started to think about his future, a bright and strong captain of Rohan, with the banner up high and followed by nothing less than twenty-five men, all heavily armoured and with the spears prepared. People would know him through all the world, even in the misterious lands of Eriador... yes, Eriador. The land of the Men of the West and the Shirelings. He could imagine himself traveling there, being welcomed in Bree-Land like a hero...
When he noticed he had strayed too far from the training grounds, but this wasn't his main concent right now, there was something wrong going on the heart of Edoras. There was smoke raising to the skies. Dreothorn ran back to Edoras to see what was happening.
It was a long run from around half an hour, but Dreothorn didn't gave up, he kept running until reaching the Walls of Edoras. From there he could see perfectly what was happening.
It was a butchery, guardsmen against the poor and disarmed people that he had known all his life. There they were, laying on the ground, some were keenly pierced by arrows, and others were dead in awful forms: parts of their bodies missing, others seemed that they had been eviscerated multiple times, so many that you couldn't tell if it was still a corse or just a bunch of raw meat. Others, far less lucky than the two last ones were still alive, but bleeding to death with javelins all over their chests.
Dreothorn quickly acted as he thought he should, he ran past all the fighting people and headed to his home, just to see how they brutally murdered his mother...
The first blow was to the legs, Eolyn fell down to the ground and then the guard simply made a quick hack to the head, all the blood spilled on the ground. Then they came after Dreothorn, but he was fast to act. He deflected the first blow and then pierced the heart of the man that killed his mother, then twisted his spear until the man's corpse had a massive hole in the center... after that he went for the other, rage filling his heart, he bashed his face until it was a strange kind of red pulp...
He head to his father's house after that, he didn't even look at his mother's corpse before he left that house for the last time...
The door was blocked, Dreothorn kicked it down and entered the house, there was Beothern, perfectly alive hiding inside his house near a strange bulge that moved, could it be? Could his father be warding a baby?...No, he was too old for that, he was sure that the thing couldn't be a baby, nor he cared in that moment, Dreothorn should had know that he was hiding, it was so typical of his father:
"Go out and fight back you coward!" He yelled, tears of anger, pain and sorrow wanted to fall.
"Can't do it son, you were right. I'm a coward." In his face you could see the fear, and in those green eyes... there was a reflection, but it wasn't from Dreothorn but from his father himself, Beothern's soul reflected in his own eyes... and it was a weak soul, but something deep inside Dreothorn told him to do the right thing:
"Father, we will all die, there is no other choice. But the real point is how we leave this world..."
Dreothorn's father looked up, it's strange to think that a father's and a son's long-term argument would end in that moment, in the most extreme moment, when they could had arranged their diferences before. "You're right lad, I can give you some moments to flee this place, but be quick or your grave will be here, with all of us."
Dreothorn nodded, now he knew that his father wasn't a bad person at all... but there was no time for thinking now, Dreothorn handed his bloodied spear and shield to his father and ran to the main walls, he stole a horse and never looked back...
To be continued...
