Athea was returning from the outhouse, when she heard the men patrolling the fence surrounding the village begin screaming and shouting. She ran back into the hut. Ramos and Thoras grabbed their long fisherman's knifes and a pair of wooden clubs and rushed past her. Thessaya jumped around like a beheaded chicken and prayed to all known deities to save her family from harm. Denyssa just stood around, looking scared. An attack was coming, that much was obvious.
Thessaya calmed down a bit after the men had left and nothing could be heard for a while. She ordered Denyssa and Athea to hide in a small storage room next to the kitchen. It was dark in there and pretty cold. The only light source, a few cracks between the wooden planks of the door. They were waiting, but for what?
"What do you think they will do to us?" Denyssa whispered after a while.
"You mean the attackers, if they win? I don't know. Don't even know who they are," Athea answered.
"Sure you do, they are foreigners! They will kill us all, and rape us or sell us into slavery!" Denyssa whined.
"That doesn't sound foreign to me," Athea murmured.
"What did you say? Of course they are foreigners! Why would people from Vernya attack us?
I hope that dad and Thoras will kill them all!" Denyssa said, but didn't sound confident.
A little while later they finally could hear something. Shouting on the street, and it was coming closer. Suddenly the door to the house crashed open, and from the sounds of it, some men stormed inside. The men were screaming and Thessaya was shrieking. A remarkably familiar succession of sound then occurred. They heard furniture being pushed around, then the sound of flesh slapping on flesh and more screaming.
Denyssa silently started to cry and trembled in fear. Panic spread out in the small dark room. No! Athea wouldn't get caught in this dark little prison. She would run, bite and scratch anyone trying to catch her! She did run ... but didn't get very far.
She jumped up and opened the door, ran through the smashed entrance and on to the street. From the right more men were coming and as soon as they saw her, they gave chase. Athea ran to the left and around a corner. That's when she crashed into a wall, or a pillar or ... a giant?
She bounced back and fell on her ass. Stunned by the collision, she could hear the chasing men quickly coming closer. The giant had bent down on one knee, and stared at her. She looked up into his pale blue eyes.
"Hello little sister," the giant said.