Chapter 192: Chapter 178 – A Maiden in Silver

"The first reported sightings of the Silver Maiden, who had never truly hidden her identity, just never told people of it on purpose either, was nearly a thousand years ago, during what was recorded in the history books as a small skirmish between three Jarldoms, two of whose name had been lost to time, and what is now part of the Jarldom of Verustria.

 

It was first spread far and wide through the songs of two bard siblings of orcish descent, Vera and Devin of clan Frostborn, who sang and popularized the songs approximately ten years after the war had ended." - Delvin Amble, Jötunbergian Historian, Circa 359 FP

Mirko of clan Frostborn had lived a simple life, as a hunter in a small village in the north-east of the Jarldom of Istria. He was a hunter like his late father was before him, the only thing that differentiated him from most of the villagers being his ancestry.

 

His father had been a wandering orc who settled down in the village when he grew older and tired of wandering. The villagers had welcomed the man into their midst, as he was a skilled hunter who more than pulled his weight, if a taciturn one.

 

He had even found a village woman who grew fond of him, and Mirko was the child of their union.

 

Mirko himself lived in the village, in the same cottage where his parents lived when they were alive, married, and had children of his own. It was a simple, idyllic life he was contended with.

 

At least, before things went to hell in a handbasket around him.

 

He was out hunting to the west of the village that day, and had just made it back to the village with the doe he shot, when he saw that the village was mostly deserted, other than his wife who had waited for him just outside the village with their two children, Vera and the newborn Devin, in her hands.

 

She had told him that not two hours ago a fellow hunter who had gone to the east, closer to the borders, had seen men and women on horses headed towards their village from the neighboring jarldom. Raiders in force, far more than what the village could handle.

 

Everybody else in the village had packed their belongings and evacuated towards the nearest town. After all, villages could be rebuilt, but lives, once lost, were gone forever. This had not been their first experience with such raids, as their village was close to the border.

 

Mirko's wife had waited for him, and thus they were late to evacuate. The other villagers were already an hour and a half away by then.

 

Not fifteen minutes after they left, they saw smoke coming from the direction of their village.

 

Ten minutes later, they heard the sound of horse hooves from behind, as five riders quickly caught up to them from behind. Had Mirko been alone, he would have stood, and fought to his death, since he knew there was no way he could outrun a horse.

 

But he was not alone. He had a wife and children to protect.

 

The riders behind seemed to have noticed it as well. He heard them talk to each other vaguely, something about "having some fun" with him. Then he saw the first arrow from the corner of his eye.

 

It was not aimed at him. It was aimed at his wife, who was carrying their children.

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Mirko had not thought or pondered the situation. He just hurled himself over to the arrow's path, as he covered his wife with his body. The arrow pierced his left shoulder from behind, but stopped when it struck his shoulder blade.

 

Another rider rode closer, and lashed with a leather bullwhip. Mirko just stoically clenched his teeth as he took the lashing on his back. It tore his tunic and scoured his skin and flesh, yet he had not uttered a word. He would deny them that satisfaction at least.

 

The riders toyed with him cruelly for he knew not how long. When his back already had over half a dozen arrows and knives protruding from his flesh, he turned around and took them to his front instead.

 

Eventually, one of the riders grew bored. Mirko noticed it since what flew towards him was an axe. The blade of the thrown axe bit deep into his chest, and immediately he found breathing difficult and painful to do. The axe must have gotten his lung.

 

Despite how his mind screamed at him to remain standing, Mirko's body failed him, and he slumped to his knees as he coughed up some pink, frothy blood. He heard his wife scream in pain from behind him, heard her fall to the ground with a huff.

 

He saw how one of the riders trotted towards him atop his mount with a cruel smile on his face. He stared defiantly at the man even as he stopped besides Mirko's kneeling form and raised his spear to deliver the deathblow.

 

Mirko had not closed his eyes, so he saw it clearly when a black halberd of strange design flew from the forest and took the utterly surprised man in the throat, with more than enough force to dismount him off his horse.

 

He watched in surprise as a cloaked figure, their white cloak coated with frost that shimmered under the sunlight, rushed over and picked up the weapon they had evidently thrown. One of the cloaked figure's hands - a woman's hand with dainty fingers - touched Mirko's shoulder for a brief moment, and somehow he felt as if he just received a second wind, his injuries no longer as painful.

 

His eyes boggled as the cloaked woman butchered the remaining four riders in mere seconds, before she walked back to where he knelt in the snow. The hood of her cloak was down at that time, revealing a face that Mirko would never forget for the rest of his life.

 

It was a young, beautiful, pale human woman, with her hair looking like it was made from threads of silver, as they shimmered under the sunlight. Her white, frosted clothes gave off a similar effect.

 

The woman knelt beside Mirko, and told him to grit his teeth. She then pulled out the projectiles that protruded from his body one by one, her other hand laid on the injury, which closed and healed as if they were never there in moments.

 

Then she went and healed Mirko's wife too, who had taken a wound to her calf, before she handed him the reins of the four horses - one of them had ran away with its dead rider on its back - and told him to take the horses for him and his family to use.

 

She even gave him a small pouch of money, as she noticed that they had dropped their belongings in their desperate run, and bid them to remain safe, before she left Mirko and his family, utterly baffled by the turn of events that had just unfolded, with the horses.

 

Mirko wondered if he had dreamed the whole thing, yet the four dead corpses in the vicinity quickly told him otherwise. He heeded the woman's words, had his wife and their newborn ride one horse, while he took their older daughter to ride another, with the other two horses trailing behind them, as they rode towards the nearest city.

 

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