Chapter 39

"When the wise Moon assumed the guise of a bent sickle in the murderous night, why did you not take the premonition?"

~

The Village of Lyrishveil,

Kingdom of Tristendyre,

The first Phrinight of the Second month,

XXI Year of Regency

The Village of Lyrishveil was russet and quaint where even the houses were made of timber in frugal construct, as opposed to the remnant part of the Kingdom of Tristendyre that was of gravel and stone.

Jaycob had never had business in that particular village, for it was one that contained inmates of lower income levels and dismal economy.

They were elite merely in the concept of penury and producing rustic goods that were light in price. However, most of the men therein were employed in meagre and odd jobs and the women delivered homespun food to the neighbouring towns.

The Archer's destination, presently, was the Xaviers' home where he expected to meet the wife and household of Mister Joab Xavier.

As the tall man approached their residence of dwelling, he noticed that the front door was left open like the place had been ransacked.

He wondered if he was to investigate for captivated natives of the house, for none did approach when he knocked the frame of the door. Further, there could not have been a serious plunder, for the neighbourhood did not seem disturbed.

There was the approaching sound of crying from the corner of the street like an adamant child was wailing and running to his ward.

Jaycob turned his consideration to such commotion, for he could not invade that house when there may be attention coming to him.

From the bend of the avenue, a little girl came running towards the rustic residence before which he stood, crying, "But Mia is still inside, mama, I won't go without her! Papa gave her to me!"

Jaycob looked to find the child bearing absolute semblance to Joab Xavier, as if she was his daughter.

"Shhh; Elise, no! Return here, there is no time!" called the anxious voice of another older lady who hastened at the wake of the approaching child.

The teary-eyed young thing stopped and looked up at the tall Archer who was standing between her and her house. The woman that followed halted in petrified shock when her sight landed on Jaycob standing at the front porch of the Xaviers' Residence.

"Elise!" her voice called in a shrill scream, whilst her eyes that were overcome with horror shifted between the man that she seemed to hold an odd premonition against and the little daughter that ran into their evacuated house.

Jaycob could not discern the reason for such abhorrence, but he knew that, despite the disrelish, this was the woman he had to hold an informal interrogation against. He approached a step forward and the lady repelled like he would mean her threat.

"Do not come near us", she begged like both contempt and fear had scraped her voice.

He shifted back, showing his bare palms and rendered: "I bring you no harm."

He could gauge that the mother was caught in a predicament where she wished to safely retrieve her revolting daughter that had absconded into the house and maintain her margins of distance from him.

There was a large valise of her belongings that she seemed to have dropped on the floor behind her.

It appeared as if the family was fleeing from their home in urgency, for the unkempt disposition of their house and the temperament seemed not as one of a party leaving to a leisurely vacation.

"Sir, we have not wronged you, tell me, kindly, where is my husband? Where have you kept him?" asked she, like she would be abridged to tears at any moment.

Her expression made it vividly evident that her emotions were raging as the waters crashing against a great dam in torrential rains that could shatter at any moment and flood her very being.

"I have no knowledge of where he is presently", said Jaycob, his senses striving to understand what the prevailing situation seemed to hold.

Amidst the disarray where the woman remained tense and unconvinced of his words, torn between saving her daughter and evading the Archer, she suddenly looked up and lifted her hand in an impulsive gesture to point at something beyond him at her house, with a yelp.

There was a crash of an object that dropped from above (where she pointed) towards the Archer. Jaycob instinctively deflected it, in quick reflex from her warning. It seemed to be a grill of a window hurled against him.

He looked up to see the said open window of the first storey of the Xaviers' cottage where from the lattice had been unfastened and dropped to injure him and met the sight of a person in a dark cloak jumping from the pane on to the paved roofs of the neighbouring house, making escape.

In an attempt to seize the cloaked man, Jaycob began to chase, hands searching to summon arrows that could shoot his garments and stop their flight.

When he heard the scream of Missus Xavier, he turned his gaze over his shoulder to see black puffs of smoke exiting the door and windows of the house and flames.

The elusive person who had possibly committed the arson was no more his prime priority; an innocent young child was inside the burning body of the house and needed rescuing.

Shifting his course towards the fires that were incinerating the construct, he twisted the long capes behind him into the flex of his arm to avoid catching the embers and drew the collars thereof over his nose before dashing inside.

He paused to listen for any sound of crying although it was potential that the child may have suffocated from the lack of fresh air and passed out.

He closed his eyes for a quick moment and called her face to mind and discerned the situation of her presence that was lying beneath some blazing rubble and debris. The judgement of his power was nebulous, as it oft had been in dire situations of calamity and chaos.

As he made his way through the scorching inferno, towards the heart of the house, he knew vaguely where the girl seemed to be.

Jaycob was careful to dodge the flaming panes and pillars of the place that were descending when the entire architecture collapsed under the compulsion and nature of the torrid flames.

He ran through the ignited rooms, and when he reached where the girl had been reckoned to be, he desperately hoped she was alive, as he dug through the rubble of burning timber beneath which the child was.

After removing the boulder, he noticed that the girl was fainted, with her temples bleeding and the shards of a broken vase strewed beside her.

She was holding a doll that looked like it was a shoddy make of ripped cloths and cotton and a small portrait of Joab Xavier's family. The fire around her was beginning to consume her fragile and unconscious being.

As there was no water to banish the blaze that was spreading over her, Jaycob removed his cape and proficiently wrapped it over the girl and the flames, till the fire could not breathe.

The Archer lifted her up in his arms along with the burnt toy and the picture in her hands and carried her out of the blistering and withered house.

When Jaycob exited the place that could only be called the residual cinders and ruins of a home further, he heaved a great breath of air for the sweltering inside had been suffocating like he could not have survived the tribulation.

The whole village had gathered about, a few bringing pails of water to hurl at the descended construct that could no longer be saved of its misery.

The robust and contagious flames had greedily begun to wage its reigning grace over all the houses of the neighbourhood as if its subjects were made of inviting coals.

The people were engaged in bringing the insatiable gluttony of the fire to its inevitable death at the quickest in their human power. How prodigal that the rains had ceased when they were needed.

Through the clamour and congregation, the mother that was wailing came running towards the Archer, an avalanche of tears streaming down her face like her very eyes could have extinguished the fire.

Jaycob's breath was heavy and ragged like he could not completely inhale crisp air for the crowd and the combustion. He knew the mother desired to see her little girl, but the Archer could not afford such pleasure at that moment.

In fact, his reasons were that it was not even pleasurable. "She needs immediate relief and professional nursing. Are there any physicians nearby?" asked he, his voice hardly a sound more than wheezes.

Missus Xavier shook her head meaning a 'no' as wails from the population gathered around them erupted from every side for all the victims afflicted and maimed by the scorching fire.

"There is a Physician in Hazenvale that we visit", said she, sweating and frazzled.

"Lead!", he coughed and the woman hurried and tumbled, gesturing the path as she scurried towards the street she knew

Jaycob followed swiftly, hoping the woman would be faster, but she did not know that the child had been bedevilled by more than just the pursuit of the fire.

~