Isabella's Victory

[bookwurm21]

Isabella flew over the smoking village, searching desperately for her family's small house. She hoped her mother was unharmed.

She spotted her home in a little less than ten minutes after flying over the village. She landed, running into the smoke-filled structure.

"Mother!"she called."Mother, where are you?"

She searched the small abode frantically, until she finally comes upon her poor mother. She lay on the floor, her eyes closed and her chest barely rising and falling. Isabella ran and dropped to her knees beside her mother, sobbing. She was only six. How could this be happening?

[bookwurm21]

A red haze fell over Isabella's eyesight. She would destroy the people that had done this to her mother. They would not get away with it. She flew straight up, bursting out of the embers in a fiery explosion of glowing coals. With a feral scream, she launches herself in the direction of a mass of black and white, knowing they were the people responsible for this. In her hand, she held a sword of finely-honed steel, the hilt jeweled and glowing in the light of the fire.

She caught up to them in less time than it took to create her, slashing wings off of bodies, and spilling guts as she sped through the mass of bodies, looking for the leader.

[bookwurm21]

She cut through the hoard of murdering scum, eventually coming up right behind the leader. She flew silently, gaining on her, drying the blood that soaked her clothes and weapon. Barrel-rolling to the left of the bandit leader, she flew, and when she reached the side of the man, she snarled a challenge at him. Killing him now would be unsatisfactory.

"I challenge you, vile scum, to a duel of Heron. The winner holds dominion over the loser." she said, shouting it at him to get his attention.

He looked at her, bewildered. This young child was challenging him to a death battle? Impossible. The woman in the house had said her daughter would be gone for a few days, and that she would return long after the hoard had grown bored of the burning town.

"I accept your challenge, child. Do not think i will go easy on you because you are a girl-child." He rumbled, unsheathing his own sword.

They landed in a clearing, the grass soft and springy under their toes, and the sun casting the battlers into sharp relief. The young girl, her clothing stained red from the blood of the man's fallen comrades, and her sword caked with the blood of its victims. The metal gleamed with an inner light, casting shadows on her face. Her silver eyes reflected the sword's glow, eerily bright in the shadows that were cast over her face. They shone with eagerness to do battle with the man, who's appearance was the opposite of the girls. There was no blood soaking his clothing and sword, no eagerness in his expression. There was no glow to his sword, and his plain brown eyes were dark in the bright sunlight streaming over his face.

They took battle stances, and he waited for her to make the first move. When she moved, it was much faster than he'd thought possible for a girl of her age, and more skillful for someone that small. He barely had time to pull his sword up and block the swing that would have gutted him.