RRH-Prologue

Instructions

Bran ran, the pack of angry villagers chased him, who knew you could get killed for your name. His feet hit the hard snow as the mob chased him, their pitchforks gleaming like the stars, his feet were bear and cold, covered in bruises from tree-roots and raw skin scraped on ice. The mob still followed him, they shouted at him like a pack of wolves, hungry for his flesh. “Bran you demon’s son!” “Come back ‘ere and get burned you devil!” His feet smacked the ground, but the villagers were getting closer and a lake loomed before him, covered in ice. He ran out onto the lake, slipped and hit the ground with a massive thump and then skidded out into the centre of the ice. “Die Bran! Die here die now!” a villager shouted, and stabbed his pitchfork into the ice. Cracks appeared upon the surface of the lake, they widened and split the ice under Bran’s feet. He put one leg on each side of the opening dark water below, but both ice fragments were too far apart, he fell, plummeting into the cold, biting water below. From the side of the lake came a massive cheer, the devil’s son was dead! Bran was sinking lower and lower into the icy water, suddenly adrenaline came back to him and he swam to the surface. The mob was gone, probably celebrating their success, but Bran was alive, he pulled himself up on the bank. And looked at his necklace, a crossed yew twig, a protector against evil. “Meow.” He turned round to find himself staring straight into the eyes of his white cat, Luna. He picked her up and stroked her, she was soaking wet, she must have fallen in with him. He tried to stand up but fell over, clutching his right leg in agony, it must have got broken when he tripped. He reached out to the bottom of the tree trunk and fell to sleep.