The women are bathing their children down by the well in buckets, while the men do a various assortment of tasks. Young girls are giggling while cooking and farming. The smallest of boys and girls, who were too young to work, were in front of their houses playing with rocks and sticks. I saw a farmer near the village plowing his field since it was mid spring. It was a pleasant sight, all were happy and worried about nothing.
I was told to put on some ragged clothing to go in and check out the surroundings. So, I walked a mile down the creek on the rocky shore line, jumped out of the brus, and started down the dirt path. It was green, with plants, grass, trees and a few lovely flowers. I thought it must have been hardly used because most trails could accommodate horses and wagons or carts, but this trail was two people wide. I felt safe because I knew the creek was only ten feet away at most, that meant ten feet from safety. If a few men ambushed me I would have some back up right behind me, even if I died they would be slaughtered themselves.
I reached the village in a short amount of time. It looked as if I had nine hours oflight day still. I walked around to see what kind of materials these people had I could see some pitch forks, the occasional plow, piles of fire wood, sheers, and a lot of food, not a feast-worthy amount, but with cattle and the farmed materials we can suffice our appetites for the next week maybe.
A few older ladies gave me the evil eye, but for the most part they were going about their business. They continued to sit down in chairs watching the children play. A doll was thrown in my direction by an older person; he yelled at the young girl, who it belonged to, saying that they should be helping plow the fields, chop firewood, cook, fetch water, or something useful. After the catastrophe was over the girl went about her day. The doll was still on the ground resting in the mud like a pig. I picked it up and took it over to the girl; she backed away from me when she saw that I was walking towards her. I was not too shocked, at the reaction, because I was a tall lad with bushy black eyebrows, thick face, with a huge pitch black beard that was littered with dirt and other scraps; I had a very heavy build to make matters worse.
“Ye lost yo’r dolly, Lil Miss.” I never got a great education. My mother and father taught me how to live and that’s all. The rest like speaking and cooking I picked up from others; I never knew how to write.
She politely replied with, “Thank You.” She seemed pleased to obtain her doll again. She scampered away still shocked that I came to her, especially since it was to give her the doll. It was not common for people to approach each other in such a nice manner.
After an hour of walking around looking at what was available I started to head back down the dirt path. I took up the two-man wide road; it made me laugh to think of how I am as big as two men. It just made me feel safe. I swiftly began to make up a song while walking back down the path happily; “There was a man big as a tree, who killed all that he could see. He was burly he was mean, but he took an arrow to the spleen. That’s the end for all to hear of the mighty burly bear.” I was enjoying my new little tune while losing my train of thought.
Suddenly from the bush, near where I came from, I heard a voice whispering, “You big dumbass! com in here while no one is around!”, I obeyed the command only because I knew it was my captain. I could tell because he had a raspy voice and that he said, “Big Dumbass.” No one would call a stranger a dumbass unless they wanted to fight.
“What did you see?” he asked knowing the answer, but he wanted reassurance.
I replied with what I saw and what would make him happy “I saw a few pitchforks, a good amount of food, and no soldiers.” The no soldier part was what made him happy. No soldiers mean no protection. No protection means we can take what we wanted easily.
The captain, Bjorn, gathered the thirty bandits that were camped a few miles away from the stream near the village. He yelled, “Gather your weapons and shoes. We are going for a trip!” Most of these men were hungry and tired. They got up in a bit of excitement because what the captain said meant food; I even got a little jumpy myself. I gathered two small hatchets and a sword I got from killing a band of scouts. We left half of our men at the encampment to guard what we had set up.
The men in front were Bjorn, the best fighters (the biggest men), and me. Behind us was everyone else. We followed what Bjorn did and stayed quiet as can be. He stayed close to the wall of dirt that the stream carved out through years of erosion. Unless you were two feet above us you wouldn’t be able to tell we were there; We were snakes about to pounce on a mouse.
We came to the part of the creek closest to the village and mounted the ground around it. In the brush, we waited until most the men went back to work. It was dinner time and we were starving, but we knew if the men went back we could take control long enough to handle what we wanted.
The men went back to work shortly after finishing their meal, and the women went to their work as well. The time came upon us to pillage this village. We ran from the brush into houses and barns steal what we needed.
I barged into a house where the mother was pouring water and the kids were sitting down with their grandmother. I looked at the grandmother for a second, and it reminded me of when my mother would tell me stories of great heroes and the valiant deeds they did. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the mothe, a middle-aged lady with hair starting to turn grey, pull out a knife from her gown. I took the hatchet I had in my right hand and threw it as hard as I could at her. It went into her chest and knocked her back dropping the knife. The kids screamed at the terror of their mother being killed. I ran over keeping an eye on the others when I saw a teenage boy walk down from the upper part of the house because at the noise. He saw me yanking the small axe out of the lady I assumed is his mother too. It wasn’t a pretty sight. She had a gash in her chest, and she was shaking violently with blood oozing out. The man was defenseless; he tried to run upstairs to grab something to defend himself, but I quickly moved into position and grabbed the man who tripped going while panicking and stabbed him in the throat causing blood to spit out over my rugged clothes. I dropped him there, walked over to the mother, and slit her throat as well, to put the poor hag out of her misery. I felt bad for her because I knew if she hadn’t done anything irrational she would be alive still, but that did not play out as I hoped.
After I killed her, I turned around stood up and said, “Don’t you all move or I’ll be forced to kill you too!” I saw the grandmother crying as she saw the lifeless bodies in the house; She covered her grandchildren’s eyes. I felt sorry for the kids since they would have to grow up without a mother. I opened the front door and ran outside where I saw the farmers and men came back in a group and were fighting some of my companions. I rushed to their aid stabbing, slicing, and mutilating all things in my way. One man charged at me and I stepped to the side, which made him fling his scythe and stumble forward, and kicked him in his ass throwing him into a pile of firewood. As he tried getting up, I grabbed the scythe, took it, and hacked through one of his arms. It sat dangling there until I picked it up and ripped it the rest of the way off. It was anger and confusion. If they did not fight back very little people would have to die.
A band of three men with pitch forks and clubs stabbed and beat Bjorn until he was a bloody heap of rags. When I got to him I saw I could barely Identify who the once living man was. Turning around, I took Bjorn’s spear and threw in the direction of the men who just murdered Bjorn. At the Last second a girl walked out from the corner and was hit by the wooden spear and dropped immediately. I noticed that it was the little girl, and she had her doll with her still. I rushed to her, feeling horrible. I never meant to hurt a child! It was the last thing I wanted to do! While running over a jolt of pain went through me. It was a boy about seventeen years old. He had a pitchfork in hand and blood dripping down the handle… I was stabbed. The wrinkle between the boys’ eyebrows showed he was mad that we came and slaughtered his village, but he didn’t know that I was rushing to see the girl five feet behind him. I saw him glance behind me, so I grabbed the young man with the last bit of strength I had and choked him to death. I crawled over to the girl, who laid down still as a rock, and sat looking at the horrific accident I had committed. I thought back on what I had done from killing the families and how it led to killing a young girl. I closed my eyes crying and sang myself my tune “There was a man big as a tree, who killed all that he could see. He was burly he was mean, but he took an arrow to the spleen. That’s the end for all to hear of the mighty burly bear.” It comforted me while I took my final breathes.