The Beginning of an Epic
Prologue: Devon was jarred awake by his mother, her quick, frantic words being lost by the tiredness he was trying to brush away with his paws at his eyes. "Do you understand?" she repeated, this time a little gentler but with an edge that Devon was too young to quite understand. "What's going on mommy?" he said, as his eyes came into focus.
The young fox quickly noticed that something wasn't quite right. This wasn't the early morning he was so used to waking up to. For one, it was still fairly dark outside, except for the bright orange glow pulsing through the windows that reminded him of the fires they would have in the colder months to help keep warm. Another thing he noticed was the noise, it was loud and seemed to be coming from everywhere outside. He couldn't place any one particular noise, except perhaps for some voices he was unfamiliar with, though every now and then he'd catch a voice he would recognize as one of the villagers, he couldn't quite catch what they were saying.
He couldn't see out the windows as his mother pulled him from his bed, but most young foxes at the age of 4 don't have the advantage of height. He noticed his father was rather intently focused on the door for some reason, using any moveable weight to keep it in its place. in such a poor village however, few items were on hand that could do the job except one's own body.
Still at a loss for what was going on Devon looked to his mother, she wore such a sad and intent expression that his young mind was forced to ask and maybe attempt to comfort her. "Why are you so sad mommy? is there a party outside we weren't invited to?" With the few words he spoke his mother's sadness seemed to deepen and he felt a little sorry for having said anything at all, but he kept starring at her hoping for some kind of explanation for all these strange events.
"Yes my darling." she managed, the tears were visibly starting to appear on her cheek. "They are having a party outside, but we mustn't let that stop us from having our own bit of fun." she said, each word giving her a little more confidence, bringing her ears up to try and keep him calm. She was drinking in every moment with her young kit that she could but it was another thing lost to Devon's lack of age and understanding on the bizarre evening.
"Listen again closely my love." she said quickly, wanting to use the strength she had gained from her last few words. "I am going to let you out one of the back windows, we are going to play a game of fox and mouse, I want you to stay away from anyone you see and hide as best you can outside somewhere."
"Oh, I love that game! I'm so good at it that my friends never want to play it anymore" he squeaked, happy that he'd get to have play time so late at night, usually his bedtime was an hour or so after the sun had set but it always seemed like that was when play time would be best.
"I know!" his mother replied, a more anxious than before. "That's why we are playing, I want you to show mommy how good you are! Remember when I let you out, don't come out until I come to find you."
"That's not how you play fox and mouse at all!" The young kit protested, thinking his mother was already trying to spoil his fun.
Whatever was happening at the door seemed to be growing more urgent, his father had started shouting things Devon couldn't quite hear except for the occasional "... and get him out of here...!"
"I need help holding the door or.....".
Devon's mother seemed to take notice of this and picked up her young son and ran him to the back of the small house, she lowered him through the window and onto the woodpile there since there was only one door in or out of the cottage.
"Alright, let's start the game." she choked, "Just remember, don't come out until I come to find you or the game will be ruined!"
She quickly turned, her bushy tail hugging her legs at the agile move. As she ran to the other end of the house it flowed behind her, holding Devon's attention for longer than it probably should have. Not for any particular reason other than he always used to play with her tail, she'd flick it about and he'd try and catch it giggling the whole time. He would miss a lot, but he liked to miss dramatically anyways, it was fun and made him feel like he was a hero matched in great combat against a dragon or some other creature from his story books. Devon was no master of body language, but as he watched his mother's tail he noticed how low it drooped despite her fast movements. Even though they were apparently playing one of his favorite games it was now more than ever that he couldn't help but feel sad and scared. he began anxiously trying to get back to his mother, but the window was just a little too high for him to climb up very easily. He looked up from his attempts to surmount the ledge when he heard a terrible scream from his father.
The door hadn't lasted very long against the soldiers, even with the efforts of Devon's parents to reinforce it. With the soldiers weapons they had hacked open the upper corner and had slowly worked their way down using axes and swords or any sharp blade that would chew through the wood. They weren't happy to be kept from whatever prize lay behind it. They seemed to be interested in taking out their frustration on whoever had slowed them down.
The sword in the boars hand sparkled everywhere it caught the light from the fires , except toward the point of the weapon that was covered in a thick crimson liquid. What separated the sparkling orange from the poignant scarlet was the body of Devon's father, he was still moving but the life was quickly draining out of him. He was desperately trying to give his family every advantage, he pulled himself to the section of the door they had slashed open keeping as much of himself in the way as possible, making it difficult for the intruders to get in.
"No!" His mother screamed as she spun around and saw that Devon was still at the window watching. "Devon, I TOLD YOU TO GO! RUN!" with a mix of fear and anger blended into her voice. That was all that was needed to get the little kit moving. As Devon disengaged the window sill the last thing he saw was his mother spin and hit the first soldier with a chair she had found.
After dropping down Devon looked around, all of the houses in the village could usually be described as 'the idyllic farmhouse', far enough away from their neighbors to enjoy some sense of peaceful farm life but close enough together to for them to loosely be described as neighbors, that way they had the support of the community in the often unforgiving rural sections of the kingdom. It seemed to have been an effort in vain. Bodies of villages and the occasional soldier filled the streets, groups of men with weapons could be seen either breaking into homes, or walking out with whatever valuables they could carry. Even the streets themselves seemed to be warped and destroyed by the attack, which it was but only thanks to some rain a day or so before and the fact that it was not accustomed to so many paws at once.
Devon could see the devastation to his poor village. In his young mind most of it didn't process very well. He wasn't sure what he saw with his parents but it seemed similar to what he was seeing outside. The chaos was deafening and Devon froze in his tracks, not sure whether to run or burst into tears on the spot until his parents came to the rescue as they always had in the past. He stood alone next to his family's farmhouse, wanting to run back to his parents but he knew they would be furious if he did so he stood there, holding his ears down with his paws on the verge of crying.
The sounds of a fight around the corner from his house quickly brought Devon back to his senses and he remembered that his mother had told him to hide, now his motivation was more out of fear than the fun of his game. In the back of his mind though he hoped through everything his mother would remember to find him quickly. He made a dash for his family's barn through the mostly empty field knowing that he could hide in the bushes between the hay cart his family owned and the colorless building he loved to play in. Hiding there hadn't always worked on his friends but he was afraid of getting too far from his parents and it was the only place he could remember without thinking too hard about it.
When he was almost to safety, he slipped and fell muzzle first into the mud, covering a good portion of his chest and face in the thick substance. It was cold and made him wrinkle his nose but he was too panicked to stand back up so he crawled the rest of the way, matting his previously well-kept fur, his mother would be angry but he was more interested in his hiding spot than what she'd say. When he'd finally made it, he sat there with his knees bent and curled his tail up around him for comfort, he put his forehead on his knees and started to cry, the tears flowing down his muzzle and onto his lap. Devon didn't know what to do or what was even going on but he knew he should be upset. It was just a short time before sleep overtook him, fighting past the noise and his own excitement he found some peace in a dreamless sleep.
He awoke the next morning with his nose twitching, there was an interesting mix of scents in the air, most of them were foreign to him. One thing he could make out was the acrid smell of smoke all around keeping him on edge. The noise had died down considerably, his ears swiveled about in every direction but didn't catch any sounds at all, not even the farm animals were making sounds, they were such a part of his everyday life that he only noticed when they were gone. This concerned Devon but not as much as not knowing where is parents were, he immediately jumped up and began shouting for them, the hardened mud pulling painfully at his fur but he ignored it in his rush to find his family.
He made his way back to his house, surprisingly most of it had escaped any sort of damage from the fires. He was afraid of the door because of what he'd seen the night before so he entered through the window his mother had let him out from. He had found his parents laying perfectly still. His father was by the door and his mother was closer to the kitchen. Everywhere around them the house was a mess, overturned furniture and broken dishware. There was some food but it seems like most of it had been taken by whoever it was that had come in last night. None of this particularly interested Devon though, he moved over to where his mother lay with ears falling flat, his tail curling around him for warmth and security, wondering why she was asleep in such a strange place and sat down next to her, waiting like a good cub for his mother to wake up and be happy to see him.
The next few hours passed with quite a bit of confusion for Devon, his parents wouldn't seem to wake up no matter what he tried, he had found some food that was left over but only ate a little bit of it. He didn't want to be scolded by his mother for ruining his appetite when she got up.
After a few hours of being alone in his house he'd caught the sound of voices and immediately hid in the corner of the kitchen next to the overturned table, the windows were shattered so it wasn't difficult to hear what they were saying although Devon understood none of it.
"It's a damn shame we couldn't catch up to them after we routed King Terris's army, this is the third village we found like this. Officers are always concerned more with their next promotion than welfare of people..." one of the voices grumbled.
"Yeah, you'd think that after we handed them their tails on the field they wouldn't have much stomach to do this kind of thing, but I guess when you don't have some stiff shouting orders at you, you get carried away." the other replied.
"Only couple houses left to check but I doubt we'll find anything.... Anyone alive?" the first voice bellowed as Devon heard him enter his own home.
"Two more bodies, a damn shame. Check around to see if anyone happened to make it." the heavy boots came closer as Devon tried to shut his eyes as tightly as possible. He heard the table he was hiding behind begin to move. His tail curled over his body hiding himself behind its bushiness and his ears folded back as far as they could in an attempt to make himself as small as possible, hoping that whatever it was couldn't see him despite the fact that the only cover he'd had was the table that was now gone. "Oh you poor little guy.... Sarge, we got something!"
Chapter 1: The Young Officer
"Sir....! Sir....!" Devon heard the voice of the messenger from behind him, He was just trying to get used to his new posting without being buried in other officers' work because he was the new appointee or the low rung on the ladder or just because they didn't want to themselves. "message from the captain sir!" Devon turned to speak with what he assumed was the hare he'd seen running about all morning.