Yesteryear Fiction

The Raiders
By Hala Nogimbe


When the raiders rode into our camp, I ran.

It was my duty. Fetch father. My mother’s voice echoing through my mind as she touched her forehead to mine. I could feel the raiders in the distance, the hoofbeats, the jingle of chains, grisly trophies, hands, ears, teeth clattering together in a clamor that was the warcry of death. I swallowed as I reached the warrior’s tent, tore open the flap with one tiny hand and saw it there, in the swirling dust. Eyes as dark as carbon, flesh as white as bone, every inch cloaked in shadow that fell like haze, moved as it moved, as it looked at me from atop the pile of butchered bodies that had been our camp’s retinue of warriors, our only guardians, my family. Even as the tent flap fell back into place, I saw the thing there, in my mind’s eye, as though the rage in my heart burned hot, a pile of tiny embers in my chest, the heat was quickly smothered by my growing fear. It had seen me, it had killed everyone I’d ever looked up to, and as soon as the raiders reached our camp, the rest of my family, my mother, my elderly grandfather, everyone– we would follow them quickly into the afterlife. Now, there was only me, only this moment.

When the raiders rode into our camp, I ran.

I ran, and this time, I didn’t stop.


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