This work is based in part on the song “Bonnie House of Airlie” by Kate Rusby (one of my favorite musicians) and inspired by the world of Flora Fyrdraaca by Ysabeau Wilce
It fell on a day, a buenisimo day–a perfect day–when the corn grew green and yellow in the deep, black furrows the farmers cut into the mesa-top. The sun soared high above the great hacienda and the pueblo surrounding it. Senor John and his wife had gone, with the Azul Guard and a gaggle of servants. Lunch had been served. The air shimmered. The pueblo went still as everyone settled in for a siesta.
Lady Josephina lay upon sweet scented pillows, drowsing, letting the coolness of her dim chamber seep away the heat. Slowly, a strange and continuous crackle and rattle drew her from her slumber. She lay listening, wondering what the sounds could be. It seemed to be getting louder.
Then she heard the screams.
The girl leapt out of her vast bed and tore her dressing gown from the peg beside the door. The sounds were of guns and swords. She hesitated at the door and instant before tearing it open and racing down the long hall, her bare feet slapping rhythmically against the tile floor. The guards and servants that should have been in the long passage were absent. She reached the great double doors at the end of the hall and, despite the sound of combat on the other side, she hauled it open.
Her world exploded into a nightmare.
Airlie was burning. The House Guards in their proud red and blue tartan lay in their own dark blood. Servants and villagers too lay where they had been cut down. And the pueblo–the fair pueblo of her father–burned. Flames and grey kilted Dunkel soldiers gutted the village, both destroying with the same wild abandon. Behind her, in the hacienda, she heared the crash of splintering wood as the raiders set to work within.
“My lady!” a deep voice roared. Josephina realized it had been shouting at her for some time. She looked and there at the foot of the blood-slick stairs ascending to the hacienda stood the great Argyle. He was a towering brute of a man with a thick black beard. He was clad in a black chain mail and a green and grey kilt. A broad sash of the same tartan was thrown over one of his shoulders. A coyote tail hung from his bright helm. He leaned casually upon his massive two-handed sword and smiled at her as if he was not surrounded by blood and death. Behind him his leering troops looked up at her with eager and wild eyes.
“Come down, lady. Come down and kiss me.”
“I’ll not come down, nor kiss you!”
“Come down, lady” Argyle called again almost gently. She looked at the faces of the Dunkel soldiers who yipped and howled like coyotes amid the carnage of the courtyard. If only Senor John had been at home. But he was gone and the deed done.
Her heart broke. Unnoticed tears coursed down her fair face. Her feet carried her down the gore covered steps. She stopped before the towering Argyle, her head hung in despair.
“Take me away,” she whispered. “So I do not have to see this. Please.”
His huge hand patted her slender shoulder. “No, mi chiquita bonita, no you will watch until not one stone is left standing of this place.”
She tensed under his touch.
“Do not fear, my lady, you will be unharmed. You will be a message to Senor John, a flor perfecta amidst all this ruin. He will know I could have taken everything from him but I did not, and he will fear me all the more.”
~SJA
Tags: Airlie, battle, fantasy, flash fiction, lost
