“The Layard Land” By: Sky Wang

    

 Bayou lays on his bed and the same memory of his grandmother singing to him a lullaby and building snowman. The breeze brought him back to the nightmarish night.  It was a jet-black night when Bayou’s hometown was burnt in fire. The screaming of an innocent child stretched the light of the burning fire. As Bayou walked further, he could only see ashes or dead bodies. The little boy shouted for his grandmother and lost his conscious then fainted in the midst of the smoke. 

    As he woke up in a mountain cave, a tall, strong man with white moustache stood beside him. His deep blue eyes are as pure as the person who stayed with in his hometown, so pure. The man put his shoulder at the side of the cave as he was bleeding. As Bayou opened his eyes the man whispered some incantation and built a stamp with a word “Layard” using his magic. “where am i, what happened? Who are you?” Bayou asked, with fear,“your family is slaughtered, if you want to revenge and seek out the truth, don’t let anybody else to see this stamp until you are facing the strongest enemy of this country, ‘the highest’,and defeat the person who killed your family. 

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Bayou looked at this man with blood coming out from his amor, he stopped him from keep talking and all of a sudden soldiers from the king’s army rushed in to the cave and found the man and the boy. The man shouted to the sky,“ Fight for the ones you love.” and his throat was cut with his body laying down.  Bayou couldn’t control himself but cried immediately. The solider rushed to Bayou and swayed his sword toward him. A man between the soldiers stopped him and was asked that if he is one of them, he shook his head and said, ”He is innocent, I saw the man trying to kill him.” Only until then did Bayou realised that he was out from the danger.

    The sound of Ben snoring woke up him and forced him to walk out. He was trained to become an assassin to kill the country’s biggest enemy, “The highest.” Bayou’s country, which is called the “mainland” is dominated by the wise king “Framingo.” Some says that he berated an army with he himself alone using his battle skill. Everybody called him the strongest person in the world. Now the northern part of the mainland is occupied by the man called “The highest” with his followers. Bayou was told that those people slaughter his family. The king found soldiers from the whole country to assassin the man who tried to disturb the piece of mainland. Bayou trained hard just to see the person. The armored man told him to because he was too eager to get this revenge. Tomorrow will be the time for him to defeat “The highest,” because he and his team will be sent secretly to the north of the mainland and assassin him. The boy also wanted to know what exactly happened that night because of the weird behavior of the armored man.

    The horses are fully packed with weapons and food for emergency Bayou and three other men started their journey. Ten days was long and Bayou got the opportunity to know his teammates one by one. Lily was from the East with short straight hair and she joined the army to earn money for her family with a younger brother who is studying in the capital. Han is a carpenter from the capital city and he is the tallest guy among the five. His silver amor has to be hidden into a cape just to keep him low-key.  He also made all the finest weapons around the country so he will follow other assassins as back-up. Beside the laughters followed by a man with cape and he didn’t participate in any conversation during these ten days. From his cape could Bayou saw his white hair with a scar on his left eyes. ‘I better watch out’, Bayou thought. Also, Ben is Bayou’s closest friend ever and he is a blonde hair boy with fat belly.

    “We are here, in the basement of ‘The highest’ and all his followers,” said Han, in a little cave hidden in the snow. “I wondered why the king doesn’t come to kill the …. The highest himself but choosing us to come,” said Ben. Lily put her little dagger into her pocket and answered, “There are more enemies than highest waited to be defeated.” By finishing their talking, Bayou saw many horses with torch and a man stood in the middle of the crowd. Bayou soon realised that the man is the highest because of his magic. It was exactly the same as the man saved him years ago in the cave. Ben rushed out with sword on his hand shouting, “Ready for your death?” His body was soon wrapped with snow and his shouting soon became begging not to be killed. Lily pulled out her dagger and asked Han to follow her. Bayou thought about his mission and Ben’s stupid behavior, he thought they are going to fail so he decided to put his weapon down. This didn’t stop the other soldiers from rushing into the cave and Ben was about to be killed. “I have something to show you!” said Bayou. Then he soon took out the coin he got years ago and showed the word to the highest. The man’s eyes turned from dark, frozen into sorrow and burst into tears, “We have people left in here!” After listening to their leader, the soldiers stopped their horses and watched Bayou with hope, and the word “Layard”.  

     Only the strongest soldiers will be selected and taught to use magic in Layard’s tradition. Gendley, which was the previous name of the highest trained to become the most overwhelming soldiers in Layard. There is a rule for using magic is not to kill the innocent using your magic. However, another boy with ambition wanted to use this power to conquer the whole land and escaped by killing “The highest”, a name given to the ruler of the Layards. He uses his power to kill normal human in the battle field and become a king and his name is Framingo. By the deepest fear he assembled all the army from the mainland and slaughtered Layard’s home seven years ago. The highest was killed and the number of army is too huge so the Layard failed in the battle. Gendley was out for a mission so he wasn’t killed that night, so does Bayou. Bayou stood on the camp fire surrounded by Layard’s soldiers who were all too desperate to survive. Bayou couldn’t believe that the man he swore to serve was the man who killed his family and the man he decided to kill was part of his family. He couldn’t trust the highest at all and decide to fight for his country in the last seconds of his life. As he shouted and swings his sword to the soldiers, the man with cape stopped him and took off his cape. Bayou recognized him immediately. He was the solider who saved him from murdered 7 years ago! As he walked to the front of the highest,” Sir Gendley, I know my words are worthless but please accept my apology and I sincerely hope your family can rest in peace.”

    Bayou was trained as the last hope of Layard and defeated the king, “The highest.” The old generations of Layard jumped into the battle fire from the castle. Bayou remembered what “the highest,” taught him and built up a new country where everybody can study magic but use them in different ways and he called the country, ”The Layard Land”.

WORKS CITED

Fantasy art  webpage. May 23, 2019.http://sf.co.ua/id177740

Fantasy art  webpage. May 23, 2019.http://sf.co.ua/id144515