Recently on Instagram I did a Q&A thing, and one of the questions that was asked was about my writing. I haven't written anything in a while. So I decided I would download a writing prompt book to my Kindle to help me get back into the flow of writing stories. This is the first of these prompts. Feel free to write your own version of this prompt and share it with me so I can read it too :)
Before the existence of post offices and telephone lines, letters and news of importance were entrusted to Messengers. Write a story about a Messenger who bears news of an enemy invasion and his desperate run to the nation's capital and King/Queen.
My Story: Orion's Belt.
It was a dark and cloudless night. Orion had been 'gifted', as the other guards put it, with night watch duty. They knew Orion hated the night watch, and it wasn't fair he had been assigned to it for an entire week, because he hadn't been present last Wednesday when this rotations assignments were being decided.
Orion sighed as he stared into the darkness beyond Cosaint, the giant wall that his nation had built to protect them. Night watch duty was the strangest of the jobs when you were assigned to the group at Cosaint. It was a weird mixture of quiet and peaceful, dull you might say, but the need to be on high alert at all times, looking past the wall into the forest beyond for any signs of light, listening intently, focusing outward and attempting to ignore the sounds behind, for any hint of movement. The environment around you, the darkness, the silence, they all attempted to lull you into a peaceful, relaxed, even sleepful state of being... but the job itself entailed eight hours of total alert attention. The dichotomy hurt Orion's head.
As usual, tonight was another peaceful night. Nothing was happening beyond the wall, and the cloudless night drew Orion's attention skyward as he stared at the stars, attempting to see the patterns, people, animals, that his mother had once adored.
Orion, as you might have guessed from his name, was named after a constellation. It had been his mother's favourite, and she hadn't made it through his birth. Orion himself was lucky that he had. He sighed again. The name Orion was as much a blessing as it was a burden. The link to the mother he never knew gave him comfort, but the reaction of his father to the name in the years since had caused nothing but pain. And then there were the taunts from those he served with. "Star Boy", they would taunt as they pretended to look for Astrology readings, something Orion knew nothing about.
Movement in the forest caught Orion's attention, he looked down and scanned the treeline, looking for any hint of light and listening intently. After about two minutes, but it felt to Orion like two lifetimes, he left out the breath he was holding in. It was nothing, maybe an animal or something. No one was out there.
Orion sat again, looking beyond the forest now and into the land of Otther, and, I guess, a little into the past as well. His nation, the nation of Uzz, had once been a group of smaller tribes, as recently as his grandfather's time. It was when his own parents were babes that the tribes of Uzz came together, uniting over what bonded them instead of warring over their differences. And largely, what bonded them, was the threat of foreign, overseas, larger armies coming in and plundering our wealth and our people. But not every tribe wanted to be part of Uzz. Some of the tribes on our island could not see past their differences with us and they opted to remain outside the nation of Uzz, we call them Otther now. There are pockets of them all over the island. But in treaties they defined their land and the nation of Uzz build walls like the very one Orion now sat, to keep them out and stop Uzz having to deal with raids from the Otthers when we had bigger problems lurking beyond the waves. Our tribal people were a raiding people ourselves, and the death of the practice has been slow in Otther. They occasionally attempt raids again; thus the need for Cosaint.
More movement brought Orion back to the present. But it was followed by a screech and a squeak and Orion noted the owl catching it's prey as it flew back into the trees.
"I hate night watch" he muttered to himself and he pulled his cloak tighter around himself to ward off the ever increasing cold as the night dragged on. Orion had another job among the company at Cosaint. He was the Messenger. He had taken back ownership of the star boy name in this way. The Orion in the night sky famously has a belt, Orion's belt. Orion also had a belt, and in it he put letters from the troops at the front line, the wall of Cosaint, to their loved ones back in the capital, and he also brought their letters and messages back to the wall. This meant Orion's belt was loved among his fellows. Even if they still asked him to read the star's for them on occasion, Orion's belt, which is what everyone called it, was their favourite thing in the world, because it brought news of home.
It was while Orion had last been on a run, delivering letters, that the assignments for this week had been divvied up. That's how he landed with night watch all week. So, as much as the other's loved Orion's belt and the news it brought them, they didn't care too much for Orion himself; who had to go straight from a run back from the capital and handing out letters at the wall, to night duty, no sleep for this star soldier.
The twinkling of the stars, and the silence of the night, drew Orion's eyes skyward again. He searched the sky for his namesake. Even though he knew Orion was up there, he was never any good at identifying the supposed patterns people had long ago laid down in the star maps. He lay back, studying the sky, trying to remember which part was Orion.
A sound ripped through the darkness, piercing through Orion's reverie. He opened his eyes swiftly and saw the sky above him. He bolted upright, hoping he had not fallen asleep. The sound echoed through the night again. It was a scream, and it was coming from beyond the wall. There was another sound, a large whoosh, followed by a partial scream and a thud. Orion's eyes were wide now. He was piecing together a likely scenario based on what he was hearing.
Cosaint was not the only defence Uzz had against an attack from Otther. In the surrounding woods they had placed traps, so that if anyone attempted to come upon the wall from an unmarked route, well Orion didn't want to think about what the person who screamed was going through over those traps. It sounded like someone, and the scream was definitely human, and male, had gotten caught in a trap. The other noises, those were less obvious, but Orion was certain the person trapped had been killed by those traveling with him in order to silence his screams. And they weren't far away. Orion scanned the forest in the direction the scream had come from, but he could see no light and no other movement.
He stood.
The scream and the other sounds were reason enough rouse more guards. He walked to a small rope that was positioned to his left and pulled. A bell rang, not loud enough to wake everyone in this fortress just behind Cosaint, but enough to wake the guards in their stations just below the walls.
As Orion looked behind him, watching as his colleagues emerged from their on duty house, he heard another sound from outside the wall. Turning, he saw a bright ball of fire heading directly for him. His heart raced and his eyes widened, he said a prayer to the Uzzian god of protection, after whom this wall was named, and knew this was the end of his life.
But he had miscalculated. The fireball was not headed for him, instead it soared over his head and smashed into the bell tower with a loud clang and an even louder crash. The sound jolted Orion and he ran along the wall, toward one of the staircases down into the fortress as the bell tower came crashing down where he had stood only moments before.
Orion looked over the wall again. He could now see a growing number of little flames at the tree line some two or three kilometres away from the wall. The Otthers had clearly given up on their sneak attack tactic that caused them to end the life of one of their own when they heard the bell ring out. Now it was an all out assault on the wall he was seeing preparations for. And he was the only guard on the wall, and he was also Orion, of Orion's belt, the guy who was meant to run at the first sign of trouble to alert the capital and mobilise the army to provide back up as swiftly as possible. Orion's duel duties contended in his mind. He reached the stairs down into the fortress and ran past them. He had to be a guard until there were more guards on this wall. Then he could be Orion's Belt again. He ran up to one of the turrets scattered along the length of Cosaint. He used his own torch to light the large cannon positioned there, always at the ready, just in case. He aimed it at the largest concentration of lights he could see, and fired.
The cannonball flew through the air and hit exactly where he wanted it to. A number of mini flames were now extinguished and a larger flame began to spread in its place. Orion was already on the move to the next cannon to repeat the process when a cannonball from the Otthers hit the wall. It shook, but Cosaint was built to withstand much more fire power than this, and hopefully more than the Otthers could muster. Orion fired his second shot. This time he hit closer to the edge of their group, there were still flames here, but a lesser concentration of them. Still, even one less enemy on the side of the Otthers was one less enemy for Uzz to be concerned about.
Orion heard another noise. He turned to see a number of the guardians of Cosaint running up the various staircases to come to the defence of the town. The captain nodded to Orion as he ran past him.
"Shoot for the stars Orion", he said, shaking Orion awake again. It was time, time for him to run.
He took the steps down two at a time, passing ascending comrades as he went. They patted him on the back and the shoulder and mumbled godspeed and other words of encouragement as he went.
Orion was exhausted, it was less than twenty-fours hours before he arrived back at Cosaint. Now he had to run back the way he had come, again.
The earth shook as Orion ran. Explosions sounded behind him. The full power of Cosaint was being unleashed on the Otthers, and they were fighting back with the same amount of ferocious determination. Orion couldn't stop to look. He had to keep running. Cosaint was surrounded on both sides by forest, but on this side there was a large, straight road. It led right through the woods.
Orion ran like he had never run before. But he was also aware of the exhaustion in every fibre of his being. He had no sleep. And he was tense over what had happened that day. Who wouldn't? He cleared the forest in what felt like the shortest amount of time he had ever run it, but also the longest as he muscles screamed. He thought of the old lady who lived in a small farm house on this side of the woods. Sometimes he would stop in to her with supplies and news of the nation. And in turn she would allow him some time to rest and some food. Her home cooked rabbit stew was one of the best he had ever tasted. He looked in the direction he knew her house was, only about a kilometre away. How he longed to go there now, to rest, to have some stew. But he knew he couldn't, and he knew that dear old woman would be asleep still. Dawn was creeping in, but had yet to make itself fully known.
No, Orion couldn't go to rest. He had a message, the most important message ever to find it's way 'into', figuratively speaking, there was no physical message, Orion's belt. He had to press on. He ran past the turn to the elderly woman's home, cursing himself with every step he took.
Not too far out of the woods, Orion came to his next obstacle, his next choice to take the easy road, this time literally. Left brought you to the capital, directly, but it was almost all uphill until you could see the capital from above. Then it was downhill until you ascended Capital Hill itself. But there was also a road to the right. It didn't go to the capital, but in about ten kilometres there was a fork, and turning left on that fork did bring you to the capital. This route went around the mountain, so much less climbing, so much easier to run it. However, this route added about fifteen kilometres to the journey. Even with the benefit of flat land, this would make the journey too long; especially at this crucial moment. So, left it was... That's the choice Orion needed to make. His muscles could take a break later. The capital was the goal. And he needed to get to it as fast as he could.
He started towards the left and the earth shook again. This time it was much more violent than previous. Two loud sounds were heard coming across the trees. The first was victory cries, and Orion allowed himself a moment to breathe a shy of relief. But then the second was heard, there was a second bell at Cosaint, further back from the wall, louder, deeper, crisper, than the one Orion had to ring earlier.
The wall has been breached, Orion realised on hearing the bell. He looked ahead of him, up the hill, all the fatigue that had been coursing through his body instantly gone, and he ran on.
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