---------------------------Prologue------------------------- ------
Velos awoke with a start as his dreams dwelled on the horrors of the night before. Thinking they were simply that, he expected to wake on his straw filled bed but instead, found himself lying down against a rotten log, as if he was hiding from something. Confused, he stood up scanning the area around him.
To the east, he found the land barren except for the seemingly endless rolling hills that took the shape of the sea. Knowing that a few miles more, beyond the horizon, laid Sparta. To his west, he saw a little village among the prairies that was recently torched to the ground.
With pure horror threatening to engulf him, the tall, lean boy with short blonde cropped hair raced down to his village to see if anyone had survived the carnage. Running through the once familiar village of his, he stopped at the doorstep of his house, tears rolling freely down his cheeks.
A lump of rock formed in his throat as he saw his once beautiful house, with golden brown thatch placed on the roof, completely destroyed. In place of it, he found a total wreck, something that didn’t even resemble the house he once lived in. Rummaging through the ruin, searching or anything that he could salvage, anything that would remind him of what had happened, he came upon a sight that he wished was a dream.
With trembling hands, he reached down and grabbed the doll that was clutched by his sister’s death grip. Carefully, so he would not damage it, he placed it in the bundle of the things he managed to salvage. With his soul torn apart, he couldn’t stay there, knowing that somewhere in that ruin his parents were laying, dead.
Grabbing the things he managed to find, the family sword and his sister’s doll, he strode away into the woods, whispering to himself,
“ I will come for you, Roman bastards.” Hoping that revenge would fill the empty space in his heart.
[This message has been edited by thesaints1 (edited 02-23-2006 @ 07:30 PM).]