I gasped.

     Through the ear canal is the softest entry point to the skull. If one were a child looking to stab someone in the head, then the logical thing for him to do would be to stab his victim in the ear, for it requires the least amount of physical strength. That being said, ear stabbing would be considered a cheap shot in any fair knife battle from here to the Grascïk Sea.

    The sound coming off the group of soldiers was like a pickaxe straight to my ears. I pushed Aldyth to the side and fell to the ground outside of the ravine, clutching the sides of my head in agony. The entirety of my skull vibrated as if there were violent earthquakes going off in my head. I could barely make out the sounds of my own screams under the high pitched screech that tore away at the very fabric of reality. I forced my eyes open, but all I could see was red. Red and pain. Red and light. Red and death. Red.

    Subconsciously I shoved my face down into the dirt and attempted to smother out the sounds -- even if only by a little bit. Suddenly I was alone in my prison of red and screeching; the forest was gone, Aldyth was gone, everything was gone. And I was alone. My heart banged wildly against my ribs, pumping shots of hot liquid out from my ears. The blood welled in my palms and poured down my sleeves in steamy rivers.

    Red. Red. Red.

    A rough hand fisted the back of my tunic and hauled me to my feet. Some part of me knew I should have been fighting back, but my mind was already too far gone to care. My hands fell down to my sides, allowing hot baths blood to pump down my face and neck, and into the collar of my shirt. And still the screeching persisted. "Make it stop," I begged. You have us now, just make it stop.

    It fully alluded me to why they would keep up with the riddling scream. We had been captured, wasn't that enough? Then as suddenly as the note started, it faded and I found myself clothed in a world of silence.

    My eyes blinked open slowly, and I found that the red tinge was also fading from my vision. One man had Aldyth slung over his shoulder like she was made from nothing but straw. He had on the same conspicuous green uniform that we had seen at the wagon train, but he was more burly than the rest I had laid eyes on. His arm wrapped around her waist in a wandering manner that any person of Gris would have shamed him for. Noah would have taken off his head, just for going near her in such a way.

    I squeezed my eyes shut. Noah would have taken off his head if the guards hadn't gotten to him first. I tried to twist out of the hold of mine own captor, but even the slight movement sent sharp bursts of pain exploding through my skull. The man who was carrying Aldyth started trembling, his shoulders bunching and his ugly face contorting more than should have been legal for one face to contort. It confused me at first, until I realized that he was laughing. I tried to speak; deny the truth that slowly developed into understanding. My vocal cords strummed in my throat, resonance of acknowledgement to the sound was an irritable inching sensation inside my ears that intensified every time my heart forced a shot of blood out of my skull.

   The guard's mouth moved as he spoke his response, then curled into an ugly sneer that held a mouthful of rotting teeth.

     Suddenly he stepped off and started walking back in the direction we had came from. The others followed suite, my own captor shaking in a way that implied he was laughing as well. I was carried, if not dragged against the ground, bumping against rocks and tree trunks every few seconds. Aldyth was facing me, still hanging limp in her own personal oblivion. Her dark hair hung in locks over her face, but I could tell from the smears of brown on the back of burly man's uniform, that her ears were bleeding as well, just as desperately if not more profusely than my own. Dark drops of liquid fell from the tips of her hair and spattered against the ground with every step.

    It became hard to hold onto my vision. With each heartbeat, more blood came gushing from my ears, trying feebly to replace the loss from each beat before it. But it wouldn't stop and after no less than a dozen steps, black spots started appearing in my vision. I fought with every will in my body to remain awake, but the pull to darkness was intoxicating. My heart wanted rest; my brain wanted sleep.

    I shifted my eyes in another direction and caught sight of a couple more soldiers with some sort of black instrument strapped to their belts. The instruments were about the length of a reed flute, but black with delicate metal keys that must have been expensive to forge. The carriers of the flutes were masked with dark cloaks over the same green uniform, making it impossible to glimpse their faces.

    My captor yanked me violently by the arm, just in time to avoid a head on collision with a local tree. My vision took a wild spin, as did my stomach, making a bile like liquid rise up in my throat. I forced the soldier to a stop and fell to my knees as my chest heaved violently. The collar of my shirt was soaked with red and I could feel the last of my sanity streaming down my back in hot rivers of blood. Suddenly my vision grew black.

    Suddenly my captor, who, up until then, had been investing all his time in dragging me back up, stopped in his tracks. I gathered what remained of my wits and weakly lifted my head. My mouth cracked open in shock, and I may have gasped, though unsure be I was.

    The man carrying Aldyth was frozen as well and for a moment it was almost impossible for me to comprehend why.  My eyes traveled down his shoulders, past my friend's face with the blood running over her temple, and down his back where I finally made out the cause of all the stillness. The guard had an arrow lodged halfway into his spine, and as I watched, four more rained down and sent him crashing to the ground. Aldyth landed on her head several steps away.

    The soldiers were on instant alert. I was also dropped to the ground, where I laid, in a self aware, but completely useless pile. The two cloaked soldiers shared a look, then pulled their black flutes from their belts the way one might unsheathe a dagger. But before they could bring the instruments to their lips, a small volley of arrows rained down from the trees and pierced them through the ears in a hail of karmatic irony.

    I was barely able to make out the silhouette of tall armed man leaping down from a tree, before the darkness came to greet my silence.

    I breathed out.

A/N

Below the cover is the weapon of the cloaked soldiers xD I mean there's two of them, so we all know what happens when we try to tune two piccolos hehe. Jk. Maybe.

So what do you think? Leave me feedback, or better! Spam! Me likes comment spam --who needs constructive feedback psht.

"Two letters are the difference between music and magic."

So what do you guys think of the soldiers in green? What do you think they want? And the silhouette guy? Who's he?

Edited 6.29.16
Edited 7.15.16