InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sacrificed ❯ Sacrificed ( Chapter 1 )

Sacrificed

 

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of his companions; I am simply inserting them into my own little wicked romance novel. After all, sometimes a girl just has to have romance…screw the plot. Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and VIZ.

 

1025: Near Wessex

 

Torchlight kept the darkness at bay, but nothing could stop the driving sleet and snow from soaking the crowd to the bones. For a hastily assembled mob, they moved silently through the forest surrounding Heiligshire. A richly cloaked rider led the group, his roan snorting smoke from its nostrils to mingle with the mist and ice. No sainted person would be out on a night like this.

 

But then it wasn't a saint the townspeople were seeking to appease during the frigid February night, but rather a demon. The Norsemen who once captured this part of England called the area `het rood legt bos vast' or The Forest of the Red Moor. Rumors swirled around that the old Lord and his Lady had been cursed, that they had sired a horribly deformed monster and that to this day, one score and eight years past, he still dwelled in the old castle.

 

Winter had been particularly harsh. The snows were deep and ice and freezing rain fell on an almost daily basis. It made it neigh impossible for any villager to make it the hours' ride into the nearest town. The harvest had been small and the Count of Moor, Lord Kouga Wolfe, demanded a steep tax to remain on his lands. That was the reason for the nighttime journey in the cursed forest. A sacrifice had to be made to ensure the people's survival though the winter.

 

Dressed in virginal white and bound tightly in place behind the rider was a young village woman. Many said she was chosen for her beauty, the hope being that the savage demon would be swayed by such a pleasing visage that he would call off the bitter north winds. Still others knew the true reason for the girl's fate, she'd refused the proposal of Lord Kouga and he was not a man to take refusal lightly. Her mother and brother sobbed silently in the middle of the crowd, their pleas having fallen on deaf ears.

 

“Hold.”

 

Kouga raised a hand to stop the group's forward motion. Roughly twenty paces ahead stood Red Castle, its windows shuttered and dark against the cold. No smoke rose from the chimneys, no motion came from its stables.

 

“I'll go the last few feet alone and leave the girl.” His icy blue eyes landed on her distraught family. “Remember, your daughter's sacrifice will not be in vain. Because of her, the village will once again prosper and you will all have food in your bellies.”

 

With a sharp heel, he urged his mount forward. When he was certain he was outside of even the sharpest of the townsmen's hearing, he stopped and dismounted, pulling the girl roughly from the back of his horse.

 

“Surely marrying me would not have been as horrible a fate as freezing to death or being eaten by starving wolves, my girl,” Kouga sneered.

 

To his great disappointment, the girl raised her chin and spit in his face. “I've seen the way you treat your whores, My Lord. I doubt I would fair much better as your wife.”

 

With a snarl, Kouga backhanded the girl and sent her reeling into a snowdrift. Already soaked, with her skin stinging from the pelts of ice raining down, she hardly noticed the blow. However, she did notice that Kouga had apparently lost all patience with her and had drawn his sword.

 

“Perhaps I should leave you in pieces?”

 

As his arm drew back, a fierce cry rent the night. Cries from the crowd mingled with the creaking of hinging as the drawbridge at the face of the castle slowly lowered. The cry sounded again, like an animal posed to attack.

 

Kouga sheathed his sword and swung back onto his saddle. He mock bowed to the form trembling in the snow.

 

“I take my leave, dear Lady.” With a whoop he called to his people.

 

“The demon accepts his gift! Let us leave this place lest we bring his wrath upon our own heads!”

 

The girl remained huddled in the snow, too tired and to cold to lift her head and see the fate the approaching footsteps brought her.

 

*Heilig = sacred

*1025 = before the Norman (French invasion of England which took place in 1066)

*score = twenty years (I'm always forgetting this!)