When they came they brought fire

When they came they brought fire
We ran and hid within our houses
But they made their way into the houses
Terrace by terrace and as they diss the killed

But some didn't just kill
some raped and then killed
My friend Feranill was one of the unlucky ones
She was in the lowest terrace when they came

A tall dark ugly man was in the lead
They all spoke in a different tongue than us
They brought sticks of fire
They snuck into the fields by climbing

They killed the men who had weapons
Then they gagged the women
Then they took them into caves
There they only saw darkness

We ran toward the mountains
We fled with our provisions
Then we came to an unused cave full of nothing
We kept to the back and dark

The men gathered and whispered.
They only broke apart when they made an agreement.
Father's eyes were sad as he came and whispered to Mother
She burst into tears and he gave her a kiss

He went over to the blankets that held my new brother
He kissed him on the forehead and hugged him
Telä Blūke didn't cry but looked up at father
Then he turned to me with sadness

He held me to his chest for a while
I cried without reason
But so was he
It all felt like a dream

He told me he was leaving
I clung to him as he tried to stand up
I was almost his height but he seemed taller
He told me to take care of Telä Blūke and then he left

We waited for days but they never came back
So after two weeks the older boys and girls left I went with them
Mother was sobbing as I was leaving

We walked back to the city
The temple of the rock was destroyed
My once house was in ruins
The palace was destroyed and so was the king

His body a century old was on the ground
The healer's house was gone
The herbs that healed now dead
Telä Blūke held my hand as we saw past the central wall

Father's body broken next to my uncle
The shell of what once held his soul
Now broken and shattered
My father was gone

The man who held me as a child
The man who took care of me as a girl
My father
His spirit was somewhere else and free

Then we heard the whimpering
We held up our weapons
I almost shot my bow at her
He almost impaled her

We had almost killed the toddler princess.

by Mathew L. Tallman