Clay Farglade, Fight for Survival

Chapter 1


Clay looks at the man sitting by the fire. The man coughs, and its a scrowling one at that.
He then walks over to his mother, whom is lying in a bed half asleep.
Slowly he pats her forehead with a wet piece of cloth.

"I don't want to, father."

The coughing silences for a moment and the man by the fire speaks with a weak yet harsh voice.

"You have too, son. You can't stay here with us.
Tomorrow uncle Sigmund will take you away from here."

Clay turns around throwing the wet cloth to the ground, furiously barking at his father.

"No! I want to stay here and protect you both! I won't leave you! I never could.."

The man was about to sigh but a strong cough interrupts him.

"...Son, we've discussed this. It's not safe. And..
you don't want to be near us.. we won't make it that long."

Clay's eyes turns tearfilled.

"But why father..? Why? You could just have gotten a simple infection.. or anything!"

The man looks over at his son, a bitter face expression that's half hidden by a beard.

"No, son. I'm affraid its not. But the light is with you. And so will we too, always be."

The young man sighs and walks outside their cottage. He inhales the cold night air.
Slowly making his way towards a rather large rock, which he tend to sit on.

The wet grass tickles his feet as he makes his way towards it.
The forest surrounding their little home covering the sky,
the tree tops clouding the air with their dark colours.

Clay takes a seat on the rock, turning his view to the sky. Letting his mind wander off elsewhere.


"Rise and shine, lad."

Clay opens his eyes, everything is blurry and it takes a couple of blinks
before he can finally see his uncle standing above him.

The young man sits up in his bed, looking at his uncle once more.

"Ah, what is this? Yer ol' uncle won't get a hug anymore?"

The older man laughs as he grabs the teenager to give him a hug.

"Oufsh.. aye, aye. Hey uncle..!"

Sigmund lets go of his nephew and grins. He looks over at his brother.

"So, everything is ready?"

The man coughs and nods.

"Ah, yeah. It is. Packed in those boxes over there. - "
The man points towards a few boxes in the corner of the room.
And then contiunes.
" - And brother. Please, take good care of our son."

The newly arrived man, also seemingly older than Clay's father,
walks over to his brother and places a hand on his shoulder.

"Ya'know I will, brother. He is my flesh and blood as much as yours.
I would never let harm get to him, I swear to you that."

Clay gets out of his bed and pulls on a pair of leather pants and a shirt,
jumping into his boots once done with the clothes.
He walks over to his mother, giving her a hug and kiss on her cheek,
proceeding to hug his father.

"I love you, and will never forget you."
Clay wipes away a tear as he finishes his words.

The parents nods at him and says their goodbyes.
Sigmund grabs the boxes and walks outside tightly followed by Clay.

"Alright lad, we will ride up on the road out of here, a caravan will be waiting for us.
There's a few lads in yer age you might can befriend, aye? You'd need friends in these dire times."

Clay looks up at his uncle, nodding slightly.
Still consumed by the thought of having seen his parents for the last time in his life.
He silently mounts the horse brought to him by his uncle.

"Alright, uncle."

Chapter 2

"...And that was how Anduin Lothar and his four hundered men
slaughtered a horde of ten thousands berserking or-..."

The chubby boy riding not far from Clay ranted onwards with the tales he heard of great heroes.
But Clay turned his head to face his uncle.
His behind was starting to ache from the now long journey.

The sun licked his face with its warm rays,
the wind blowing just enough to keep it comfortable blended with the sun.
The hooves from the horses clappering in a rhythm as they touched the road.
Chattering from all the younglings and adults alike.

But Clay was silent, keeping his head forward and was lost in his own head.

"Don't worry, lad. They will always be with you.
In your heart. And their spirits will always follow you."

Clay turns his head towards the voice of his uncle.
There a man of quite the age, still as jolly as ever smiled down at his nephew.

"Alrigh' lad?"

Clay looks down, thoughtfully taking his uncle's words in,
he nods slowly and looks back up.

"Aye, uncle. But, never had I planned for this to happened,
never did I ask for this.."
Sigmund shakes his head and his smiles turns to a serious one instead.

"No, lad. None of us did. But that is how fate works, we can not alter it,
but we can choose whether to work with it, or against it.
Or to forge our own destiny. But fate itself, can nay be altered."

Sigmund pulls the reins of his steed and rides forwards to the front of the caravan.
Clay turns his gaze to the sky, spotting a hawk soaring through the sky aiming for a prey.
He sighs and looks down to the back of his horse, softly stroking its mane.

"I guess he's right then.."


The fireplace sparkes in the dark night.
Ashes and smokes errupts as a stick is poked into it.
Clay absently leans his head onto his hand,
the free hand he uses to poke the fire with.
Barely does he notice as someone sits down next to him.
It is not until the boy speaks that Clay snaps out of his own thoughts.

"Oi, mate? What's up? You seem rather moody."

It is the chubby boy from before.
He smiles childlishly at Clay as they gain eye-contact.
Clay shakes his head to the boy and replies.

"Oh, I.. I just can't stop thinking of my parents.
I had to leave them.. it's just wrong."
The boy nods and claps Clay's back hard.

"Cheer up lad, we all lost something.
And we will all remember what we lost,
cheerish the memories.
But there aint no use to mourn, that does no good!

Tell me, lad. What's yer name?"

Clay blinks as he looks to the boy,
not being able to comprehend the change of subject he answers politely.

"Clay Farglade."

The chubby boy grins at him and shoves forth his large hand,
grabbing Clay's and shakes it heavily.

"I am Hendrek Borsaan!"

Clay nods and smiles to the other boy.
Eventually they start chatting and more of the boys gather to them and
accompany them in their talking.
The night passes by and the boys enjoy the talks of everything between heaven and earth.
As the moon rises higher, and the night getting darker, so does the fireplace slowly fade to its end.
Once so have happened the boys eventually withdraw to their tents and gets to sleep.
Their journey is from far over.

"Oi, lads! Rise and shine ye sleepy-kobolds!"

Sigmund slams a plated fist into his shield a few times outside the tents,
yelling loudly to get the young boys awake.
Clay slowly opens his eyes as he's indeed forced awake from the horrible sounds and yells.
He gets up and pulls on his boots and shirt, packing together what he was sleeping on and heading out of the tent.

"Alrigh' lads! Tomorrow we will reach our destination.
But we still have a day's travel left. So keep that smile up, alrigh'?!"

Sigmund laughs and turns to the other Captains,
assuming a low conversation.
The militia that were travelling with the caravan packed together the tents once the boys had left them all.
Tieing it all onto their packhorses.
The company then mounts their horses and starts their long journey once again.


"Halt!"
Sigmund holds up his hand firmly as he holds the reins of his horse.
An approaching small company of four horses from the opposite direction slowly approaches the Caravan.
Eventually the four travelers joined up with the Caravan and it was told they were expected.

Later that afternoon when the Caravan had stopped for the day,
and everyone had dismounted and gotten used to the ground again, people,
or ratherly, the boys started to flock around one of the new travelers.
They were acting like five-year old kids, shouting out their names and asked for a name and whatnot.

Clay then noticed that the person they crowded around was a girl,
about all of their own age.
She was of very good look, and by far thin.
Her hair covering half of her face, it was rather unkept,
but that did not make her any less fancy.

Clay laughed slightly as he realized what his new found friends were doing and walked away,
circling around a new made fireplace. As he sat down, he looked towards the group again,
he notices how the girl is looking at him, she smiles faintly and quickly looks to one of the boys,
but is obviously not paying much attention to them.

Clay looks at her, smirking as he gets the hint. He then leans back and looks up to the sky.
A new life were approaching.