The Grim Wanderer Read Free

the children sat round the fire in the hut – now covered with blankets and cherishing the warmth of their mugs of hot tea – Hirandar and Logan soon found out they were all siblings. With some gentle encouragement, the eldest boy told them what had happened to the village.
    The boy told them how, the previous morning, his father had taken the three brothers and sister into the woods to hunt for rabbits. To catch something for the family to eat, but also to keep them out of mischief. It had been a successful day out in the wild; they had caught three rabbits and their father had brought down a deer with his bow.
    As the deep-winter dusk had set in they returned to the village. But as they got closer to home they began to hear terrifying clashes and horrified screaming in the distance. The children were not sure what was happening, but their father whispered that the hill demons were attacking. The father told the scared children to go deep into the woods and hide – not to come out until he came back for them. He told them that whatever happened he loved them, and that they must always look after each other.
    By the time night had fallen, the children were hungry and very cold. More than all else, they were scared out of their wits, frightened beyond anything they had ever known. They waited for hours for their father, until they could stay no longer out in the cold harsh night.
    The three brothers and their sister struggled through the wintry dark woods, back to the village, and found it burnt to the ground with all of the inhabitants, including their mother and father, murdered. Since returning to the remains of their village, they had stayed hidden in the small hut. They had not slept at all through the night for fear, as they became ever more worried about their youngest brother. As he finished recounting his woeful tale, tears began to roll down the eldest boy’s cheeks. The middle boy began to sob, and buried his face in his sister’s shoulder.
    Logan laid a comforting hand on the eldest boy’s shoulder, ‘You’re out of danger now. We’ll not let any harm come to you.’
    The eldest boy looked up at the Sodan warrior, with sorrow in his eyes. But the boy’s tense shoulders relaxed, as he realised Logan was someone who could be trusted.
    ‘I am sorry that you have lost your family,’ Hirandar said mournfully and paused, lost in her own thoughts for a moment, before she continued, ‘We will take you away from here, to a place where you will be safe – if you want to come with us?’
    The eldest boy considered his two brothers and sister sitting round the fire, looked back to the Wizard, and nodded.
    ‘We should get going,’ Logan urged Hirandar. ‘Just in case whoever did this decides to come back’.
    The children’s eyes shot wide with terror, and Hirandar shook her head at Logan. The Sodan had spent his life at war, hunting dark creatures, living in the wilderness, camped with other warriors – he knew nothing of how to comfort terrified children.
    ‘Do not worry, young ones,’ Logan tried to reassure the children, ‘they’ll not find us easy prey’.
    ‘True,’ Hirandar said, ‘but we’ll not take that chance.’ Hirandar dropped to one knee to speak to the children at their level. She tucked Logan’s cloak tighter around them as she spoke, ‘By nightfall, we’ll be sitting by the fire, drinking cocoa, and roasting toast and chestnuts, I promise.’ The Wizard forced a smile, and the children’s fraught faces softened.
    The Wizard left the hut and raised her staff above her head, speaking some powerful words in the ancient tongue, aiding the dead in their passage to the other side. The children watched in amazement as a mystic wind whipped through the desolated village, catching the Wizard’s red robes and billowing her great cloak. It looked to be a trick of the light, but the air around Hirandar’s staff shimmered and jostled as waves radiated from the Wizard, sweeping out over the