A Carefree Hero: The Tale of Shard Prime
Chapter I
Pirates!
It was a cold, still night. The town of Aerik, bordering the castle of one of the greatest lords in the land, was sleeping peacefully, and it night watchmen were all either dozing or casually chatting amongst themselves. In reality, they would say, what was there to watch for? There were many visitors to the town during the day, but almost never any night.
And what if the town was besieged in the middle of the night? Not a single resident worried about that. What kind of fool would show malicious intent near the castle of one of the heroic lords of the land of Saiba? The enforcement of the law there was taken into the hands of its citizens, mostly, and they were not a weak people.
One such fool, however, was indeed in existence, and planned to raid the sleepy town that night. The fool's name was Bara; he was a particularly large and nasty fox, and a born leader. He was the head of a small navy of pirates, and with six hundred of said pirates backing him, he was determined to strike back at the town that rejected him.
In a matter of seconds, tens of perfectly-synchronized arrows struck home, into the necks and heads of the sleepy sentries bordering the town of Aerik, silencing them forever. Almost immediately after, the army of pirates silently filtered in through the two entrances of the town, with archers in front, quickly silencing any guards or civilians they saw.
When they were sure that the townsfolk were all either sleeping or dead, the higher-ranked pirates lit torches and gave hand-signals to their comrades behind them, telling them to spread throughout the town and line up in front of each and every door, three per house. At a signal, they would go in and kill everything inside as quickly as possible, and with as little noise as possible.
Bara stood in a shadow, grinning evilly to himself. He knew he couldn't fail this, and that he would gain both wealth and a personal victory. He stepped out of the shadow and into the dim torchlight, and held up his paw with his first, second, and fourth fingers pointed up. Each team of three recognized it and began removing the doors' locks, if they had them.
In a few minutes, everyone that lives in this town will be dead. Bara let the satisfying thought go a few minutes later as he began to raise his paw again.
---
About a year prior to that night, under a new moon, a life was born into the world, and within the tiny squirrel's body was hope: the hope of his parents that he would someday continue their bloodline, which had been isolated and stretched thin over the generations. The child was named "Shard," after his great grandfather, a great hero of his time. If only such a hero had existed in the town on that day...
---
Shard lay in his bed, sound asleep. The only light in the house was in his father's private study, in which his father, Lenk, was, quietly scanning his collection of tomes, searching for something. He himself didn't know what he was looking for, in fact. Lenk just couldn't sleep that night for some reason, so he decided to read until his eyes grew tired.
Lenk was no great scholar, but he did enjoy reading and learning. But more than that, he enjoyed training his body to and past its limits. As a result of that, Lenk was one of the top martial artist in his town, and was stronger and swifter than even the elite soldiers who protected the lord of the castle that the town encircled.
Lenk paused momentarily, thinking he heard something from outside. In a few seconds, he decided it was just paranoia and shook it off, going back to his books. Not entirely, though, as the small bit of paranoia had him listening for every sound he could possibly detect, no matter how minor. He paused again, then swiftly and silently put out the candle on the desk and stood up, in one fluid motion.
He crept to the window beside the door and peeked through a tiny hole in the curtain. He knew then that his paranoia was more than just that; the sound he heard was that of a shabbily-dressed rat gripping the handle of the front door of his house.
Pirates! Damn it! Lenk's thoughts were racing. What could he do? Time practically stopped for him as he weighed his options. He could not rush out and attack them; he saw that they were lined up at every door. There were far too many to fight alone. He could not alert the town, because they could not get up from their beds and ready themselves for combat in a matter of seconds.
Lenk decided that his only option was to hide his family and try to kill the commanding officer of the pirates. Lenk quickly identified said commander as a big fox, holding up a torch and giving paw signals. Immediately following the first signal, Lenk heard a soft grunt from just outside the door, and the soft clicking of metal on metal as its lock was picked.
Lenk swiftly ran away, to his bedroom, grabbing a candle and lighting it on the way, and softly shook his wife's arm. The finger to his lips and gravely serious look on his face told her everything. Just for confirmation, she mouthed,
Shard? He nodded and set the candle beside her as she quickly slipped out of bed, almost running, straight for her son's room.
Lenk fled to his study, grabbing a single book and leaving just as quickly, back to window by the front door. In reality, the "book" was just a mass of hollowed-out blank paper that contained within its cavity a blowpipe and nine poisonous darts. Lenk hated that it had to come to assassination, but he would not let the lives of his family be endangered.
The squirrel hurriedly stuck the pipe through a perfectly-sized hole in the window's corner, and took aim. His timing could not have been more perfect.
---
Bara's grin turned momentarily to a scowl as his neck was stung by what he thought to be a bug of some sort. As his arm was halfway raised, he slapped it back at his neck, brushing the "bug" off. In the moments that followed, he would have raised his paw into the air, giving the signal to his army to wipe out the town and its inhabitants.
However, he found that he had not the strength to do so. His vision became blurred, and his arms were soon limp at his sides. The world began to spin, then slowly fade away. All he wanted to do was sleep. The dart had pierced its mark, and spread its deadly poison into an artery in Bara's neck. He had dropped his torch, and was laying, limp on the ground. He didn't even realize that he had fallen on the torch, or that it was burning the fur and skin of his torso. Not that it made a difference, for Bara the fox, the tyrant who took hundreds of innocent lives and enslaved those that he did not kill, was dead.
(deceased)