He wasn't always Rovaalian Suraad. He was born by the name Willum Horggenburgh Junior, a happy little baby with brown eyes that darted back and forth, absorbing images voraciously, and who's pitch black hair, left untended, fell carelessly and straight over his pudgy newborn face. His hands reached out to grasp items near him, gripping hard on the fingers of unwary passers by. By those who saw him he was deemed 'adorable.' His parents, Willum Senior and Vanessa, loved him very much, showering him with attention and praise. He would scream uninteligible garble, and in would come running both parents, each holding a wooden or cloth doll, which he promptly rejected in favor of being fed. He was, by all means possible, destined to be a spoiled little brat. So spoiled was he that he was given a seat upon the table at the age of two months. He would sit with his mother while she ate and spoke soothing words, as he suckled the milk from her teat. It was about this time that Willum Horggenburg Junior died, to be replaced by Rovaalian. It began one summer night, at the age of two and a half moths old...
He lay wide awake in his crib, listening to the sounds of the night. The frogs croaked a symphony of deep, crude grunts, some near, and some far. The insects buzzed noisily in the pastures of wheat where the shuffles of hares and foxes could be heard running through the grain. The night guard could be heard ouside, conversing softly with eachother about bandits, their torches casting daunting shapes on the walls and cieling of young Willum Junior's room. There were always newsounds, new sights, new feelings... and this child absorbed it all, associating sound with sight with smell, so that he knew when sometning was to come. But tonight there were many new sounds, shouts, screams, and a crashing noise; the sound of broken glass. And a cracking, an ungodly cracking and snapping, so loud and constant, it was like a roar over the sound of fighting. The ring of steel on steel could be heard, and the thud of bodies laid low by a sword to sleep forever. And the light, growing slowly brighter, casting the sillouettes of men wielding spears, crossbows, swords and shields, fighting and dying for Willum knew not what. Willum did not yet know of the foolish lust of men for gold and power. And the smoke, how it stung his eyes so that he cried, and burned his throat and nose. He coughed and wheezed, filling the cracks between coughs with piercing shrieks. The room was ablaze, the table in the corner and the wall with it turning slowly to fire as the temperature rose uncomfortable. Willum Senior burst through the door, and scooped up the child. He ran through the back door and roughly handed the baby to a strange old man, who took him to a cart filled with fleeing women and children. The cart raced away, bumping and banging accross the dirt road to nowhere. In the distance, Willum Senior could be seen, his hands clutching a spear that had been rammed through his stomach. His body burned with the entire village, a smoking ruin.
The next day, all was silent but for the heavy footfals of the horse that bore the cart, which rattled and bumped slowly on the road. Nobody spoke, their eyes downcast and grim. Not even youngWillum, who understood nothing, uttered a noise, for he was asleep. Then there was an earsplitting scream that made everyone jump. Willum awoke and tried to place the scream to his short memory, but he couldn't. He cried loudly. The woman that held him for comfort got out and went to the driver. The scream wasn't human. It was from the horse.
"What is it? What's happened?" she said, failing to mask the alarm in her voice.
"Old Honey here stepped in a hole."sighedthe driver,a grim shadow under his downcast eyes.
"How could she have... Wait. Look!" she said, pointing to the road. There were holes everywhere. They were unavoidable, straight down holes that had straight edges. They were ideal for breaking the legs of horses. "What is this?"
"A trap. Sombody--" he started, but he was cut off when a bolt from a crossbow struck him in the heart. He fell to the ground, and the woman was so startled that she dropped the child on the ground. The horse struggled and squirmed, knocking the quiver of arrows that was in the drivers seat all over Willum, who lay screaming in pain on the ground, now coated in arrows. He flailed around helplessly, shoving arrows off of him. One of the arrows snapped as a person ran past, crushed underfoot. A shard of it landed on Willum Junior, and he grasped it in the hopes that it would comfort him. Blood stained the ground under the driver, and the woman lay dead with a bolt in her own neck a few feet away. Then many men, armed to the teeth with steel knives, daggers, shortswords, longswords, axes and spears, and strange curvy knives, emerged from the brush and attacked the cart. It was a massacre, no woman or child left alive, except for poor Willum, who still cried in the dust, still clutching his broken arrow.
A man with greasy black hair and piercing blue eyes, alive with a mad glint that glistened like blood, leaned low and close to the baby's face. "Why do you cry, child? You aren't dead! Not yet!" he laughed, and Willum cried louder, and flailed with his arrow, cutting the tip of the strange man's nose. "Oi!" he said, touching thecut on his nose. He roughly snatched up the arrow and said "You, young boy," and he picked up the baby and cut off it's shirt. "You will be mine. I will teach you to be a killer, so that you will have the same blood on your hands that I've got on mine. This is your fate, one worse then the death I would have so mercifully dealt you. And..." he added, "You will bear my name: You will be the new Rovaalian Suraad!" and he put the arrow to the childs back untill it drew blood, and carved out the words: Rovaalian Suraad. And he bore the scar for his whole life. Heis now 10 years old. So begins his tale...
Chapter two, coming soon!
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