Gentle pattering of rain on the mud slowly turned to a downpour, yet the lid, as loose as it was, let no water through. The noise of bandits scrambling about their makeshift camp and shouts for weapons screamed out above him.
"Scary", the fool above wailed.
It was a short, shrill noise; the agony of it seemed to linger in the very air. A swift crack rang out, followed by the anguished scream of a dying man.
Like a rolling thunderstorm, something rushed into the camp. Blood seeped down the walls of Kain's cell and mixed with the muddy water below.
-Thud- some creature pounded once against the trapdoor with a loud blow. Light fled from the boy's muddy prison, leaving him blind and shaking with fear.
And then it was quiet. Only struggling breaths and a distant sound of metal on metal could be heard from inside the crevice.
"Check the hole" A voice as smooth as butter broke the silence.
Kain stared up at the figures surrounding him as they slid the lid across the slick mud and peered down at him. Looming down into the pit that held him, four colossal silhouettes stared back at him, all clad in armour and armed with blades dripping blood. A single drop landed on the boy's nose.
A man far taller than any he had seen before, with a bear's pelt draped over him like a cloak. A woman with hair the colour of blood and a bow bigger than Kain strapped to her back. Another man dressed head to toe in armour adorned with animal bones and fur reached down, offering a hand.
"They're taking children now" A gangly man sat atop a giant red horse.
"So it would seem" A voice as tender and smooth as a river in the summer seeped through the owl-like visor.
Bones clattered lightly against the armour as the man pulled Kain from his muddy prison. The boy clambered up into the damp open air; his sodden black hair gleamed as the sun shone down on him.
"What's your name, lad?" A bear stared down at Kain, from within its mouth a visored helmet.
"K…kain" The boy's eyes flickered from the giant before him and the woman to his side.
All about them were the corpses of fallen bandits; an arrow had struck through the eye slit of Kain's helmet. The man dressed in bone-covered armour plucked the arrow from the thief's eye and inspected the helm.
"I scant remember them with swords, let alone armour like this." Two daggers hung either side of his hip and a longsword on his right.
"It's mine" The second those words left Kain's lips, he had wished to cram them back into his mouth.
"Awful good work for a lad your age", the bear man spoke.
Kain shrank into himself; fear bubbled within him, and his gaze seemed fixed on the floor. Blood sat on top of the thick mud around each bandit's corpse.
"It was my master's old armour" A lump formed in the boy's throat.
"We can take you back to Mewmarsh if you'd like", the bone-covered knight spoke up.
"I… I don't know what that is" Tears formed in his eyes.
An awkward silence fell on the camp as one of the bandits lay gurgling in a mix of his own blood and a puddle of rainwater dyed brown with mud.
"I'm from a small village. It doesn't even have an official name." A single tear fell down the boy's cheek.
"Do you know where?" The bear knight placed a gauntlet on Kain's shoulder.
A small shake of the head was the only response he could muster.
"I can't go back; my father forbade me to go to the tournament at Braemoor, but I did anyway. He will be angry with me and even more so if I come back empty-handed." With each word, the boy sped up as if he were running out of time.
"Calm yourself, lad. Is your village near Castle Braemoor?" The bear man knelt down to Kain.
"It's about a day's ride, less if you ride fast" Kain's callused hands wiped the tears from his eyes.
"You can come with us; in a few months we will leave Mewmarsh and go up that way" The bear squeezed Kain's shoulder as he stood.
Kain sat in the back of the wagon, bundled up in the wolf pelt cloak. Othrick's armour lay at his feet, the helmet's empty eyes staring up at the boy.
'I'm going to be a knight and marry Siena,' his face hardened as he stared back into the vacant sockets.
Time seemed to slow from the instant they had dragged that old wooden wagon onto the poorly maintained roads. It had gotten stuck in the mud four times before then.
The bone knight had fallen asleep, sitting up just opposite Kain. His face was as pretty as any woman and more handsome than any man, void of any blemish or scar apart from red lines that ran from one side of his face to the other.
"What are your names?" Kain turned to the bear knight who sat at the head of the wagon.
"Julien Thane" The bear knight turned.
Without the bear engulfing his head and no helmet, he was rather handsome as well, though not as much as Sleeping Beauty. The girl was comely too, yet Kain only thought of Siena at the sight of her.
"Davin", the slender horse rider trotted alongside the wagon.
'He is the only one who isn't good-looking,' Kain thought to himself.
"I'm Lyra, and that's Robert", she pointed to the sleeping knight.
"Are you a lord, Ser?" Kain turned to Julien.
"I suppose, but I haven't gone home in some years." He didn't take his eyes off the road.
Soon enough, night fell on them like a blanket of darkness consuming everything around the wagon. Robert had woken up and sat cross-legged sharpening his weapons.
"You're lucky we caught you when we did, lad" his sword sung with each stroke of the whetstone.
"They said they would ransom me to my lord father, but I'm just a commoner", Kain half-whispered as he hugged both knees.
"Never mind that lad; you're safe now, so get some sleep" Roberts' smile was warm, soothing even.
The instant Kain laid his head on the thick plumage of the cloak, sleep took him.
White flowers bloomed from the half-rotten corpse of a girl. She sat half submerged in the bog's water and soon began to grow and grow, stretching and contorting into a mass of flesh and flower.