Sarah tired of the long day at her parent’s laundry. She had carried many deliveries. Despite being with child, and beginning to show it, she insisted on continuing to work. Sarah had never been the sort who could laze about the house. She would have gone mad with nothing to do.
Still, the work was hard and the bags heavy, so her parents had hired one of the local boys to help her with the deliveries, an eleven-year-old named Matthew. He was strong for his age, a ruddy boy with a mop of brown curls and blue eyes. Some day, she thought, he’ll have his pick of wife.
“I’ll take that one,” Matthew said as he pulled a heavier bag of laundry out of Sarah’s hand and gave her the much lighter one.
“You don’t have to baby me, Matthew. I can manage.”
“You keep saying that, but I can’t just let a mother-to-be carry around the heavy things while I take the small stuff. What kind of man would I be then?”
Sarah admired his ethic and decided to stop arguing with the boy. He was, after all, here to help. And as the weeks pushed on, her back ached more and more with the heaviness of her child. “Well then, let’s get going. Mr. Oggle will want these linens for his customers.”
The two of them walked across the street. Sarah noticed a pillar of dark smoke rising from beyond the hills of her family’s property. “Our farm! The house must be on fire!”
“I’ll go tell your father!” Matthew started to run back toward the laundry. But the thunder of galloping horses stopped him cold. They both stared down the road coming into town. Wraith Riders poured in like a storm surge. They rode into Millertown with weapons raised high and torches set ablaze.
As they passed through, sending pedestrians running in terror, they flung their torches through the glass windows of storefronts. Anyone caught nearby was slain with the sword. Matthew pulled at Sarah, urging her to escape. She stood in shock at the sheer ferocity of the attack. Why are they here? Why now?
Neither Sarah, nor anyone else in Millertown, saw the demon flying here and there among the people, searching for the girl he had seen with the priest of Shaddai-his wife, now with child five months. As fierce as the Wraith Riders were, they did not kill any of the young women, knowing the girl was extremely valuable to Lord Mordred, their entire purpose in Millertown revolving around her safe capture.
Half of the town stood burning, forcing anyone in the buildings out into the street where the riders sifted for Mordred’s prize. The demon found her. Sarah tried her best to run ahead of the tide of marauders. Matthew pulled her along as best he could. An invisible hand seized her by a wad of her blonde hair. She jerked backward at the neck, but Matthew kept her from falling. “Matthew!” she screamed as the demon stopped her from going any further.
The Wraith Riders responded quickly once the girl was identified. Black horses surrounded Sarah and Matthew. A Wraith Rider dismounted and seized the girl-careful not to damage her unborn child-collateral for their master’s use.
Matthew battered the black rider, but a leather gauntlet backhanded him out of the way. Sarah wondered where her father was. All she could see were the stamping hooves and snorting muzzles of their dark steeds. She thought, for a moment, she heard the voices of men trying to stop the riders from taking her. A brief clash of steel ensued beyond the circle of horses, then the moans of the dying.
The rider bound Sarah’s hands with a leather cord and hoisted her up onto one of the saddles. The muscular arms of a Wraith Rider surrounded her from behind, controlling his horse with leather reins. He turned the animal quickly, then they shot away from the chaotic scene. The others followed, leaving Millertown in their wake of terror and destruction.
Matthew struggled in the dirt. The right side of his face throbbed terribly. When he rubbed it, his hand came away covered in blood from several deep gashes across his cheek. People he knew wailed in the streets for their loved ones slain in the attack. Others, wounded, moaned, rolling around in pain like salted slugs.
A pair of strong hands reached under Matthew’s arms, hauling the boy to his feet. He could hardly stand. His head spun in a daze. “Matthew, are you all right?”
It was the voice of Arness, Sarah’s father. Her mother was crying next to him. “Matthew, where is Sarah?”
The boy tried to fix his eyes on Sarah’s parents. Blood dripped onto his shirt collar. “They took her,” he said, trying not to cry.
Sarah’s parents looked at one another. There could be only one reason why Mordred’s Wraith Riders would single out their daughter and abduct her. Somehow, Mordred knew about Sarah’s association to Gideon-knew she was his wife. And as Sarah had confided to her parents: Gideon was traveling with Shaddai’s Deliverer.