Intro

For a moment the child watched his mother frown, the moment did not last; he
squeaked as a man, towering over him took him roughly by the arm and tore him from his
mother’s grasp.
“No! Leave him be!” She yelled, as Merrick watched her pull a knife from her belt.
Another man unceremoniously punched her, Merrick watched as his mother’s eyes lost
all emotion, and even as she fell, even as she bled, even as a third man drew a sword, she
screamed and drove her blade into one of the men. Merrick’s cry echoed his mother’s as
four feet of enchanted steel slid through her abdomen,
“Mother!” Merrick called as she struggled against the man. The woman, stood again, as
the soldier watched in surprise, “He is my son! You have no right to take him from me!”
the last was merely a whisper as the soldier’s blade bore though her once more. “Seeing
as he is gifted, and you are now about to die, He is now property of the Most Honored
King,” The third man said as the woman’s last breath left her body. Merrick felt her life
leave, a piece of him break away, a piece of his heart die, his eyes filled with tears as her
lips formed his name one last time, eyes blank. Merrick reached out to his dead mother,
as the men forced him to the ground, one last scream filled the street as bells called for
Morning Devotion: “Mother! . . .”