NightFall: Book One: Bloodlust Is the Cure for the Immortal Soul Read Online Free PDF

be bloodshed in every niche of the village. Blood seemed to cry down from the sky and drown our village in torment and anger. Children ran, screaming for help, screaming for their mother or their father. Crying for the soldiers not to kill their family. I can still see the aftermath. Still smell the stench of death that permeated the streets. I can still remember the small children who lay lifeless on the path, having been trampled by horses of the soldiers. Unfortunately, I had arrived too late to assist any one. I only saw the agony left behind. I had later found out that my parents accidently got in the way and felt the bite of the wrong end of the sword. Given the state of the village, they would have died any way.” Saldivar blinked back tears. They glistened like diamonds in his ebony lashes.
    Van saw the despair in Saldivar’s amber eyes. He swallowed the sudden lump that had formed in his throat. He wanted to say something comforting to Saldivar but words failed him. He figured that there were no words to mend such a broken past.
    Still, Saldivar needed to press on. “It seemed like it only happened yesterday. But it had happened in 1227. I was young. I wanted to see the world. And that was how I was pa id for my ambitions,” he ground our roughly, his voice breaking. Van could clearly hear the regret lacing Saldivar’s words. It was evident that he was beating himself up over it every day of his lif e.
    “I was very distraught over the unlikely demise of my parents. I felt so guilty that I had been away when this tragedy had started. Sadly, as I had said, I had arrived too late. It seemed I should have been there with them. We could have died as a family.” Saldivar’s eyes were somber at his last statement. “Now I am-like you-the only one left.”
    Saldivar’s eyes unexpectedly clouded over in a fiery rage that Van only slightly understood. “At first, I though t of ending my own life. Of going to the edge of France and jumping off into the frigid waters of an unforgiving sea. It would be my judge and executioner. I thought I had nothing left to live for.
    “But soon those feelings were superseded with absolute hatred. I then swore with everything that I was, with every bit of honor left in me, I would taste revenge. Revenge for my parents, retribution for all the children and the parents that they had lost.
    “I was so filled with malevolence I was not thinking properly. I was blinded by my new found rage. My faux pas was trying to sneak into our enemy’s castle. But I was clumsy the way I went about it. My anger had clouded my good judgment. I was captured by the guards patrolling the area. They hastily threw me into a dungeon that had never seen the light of day . The king did not even see me nor did he wish to. They gave me not a second thought. I was fed every other day. The food left something to be desired. I guess they had tried to kill me by starvation.”
    Saldivar finished the last of his wine and took a calming breath. He knew he needed it in order to get through the next part.
    “I was beate n a few times a week. Molested…… raped, even, by some of the guards who found my shame amusing.”
    Saldivar’s face twisted in anger. “Had I been well, I would have killed them. But if I had killed them, I surely would have faced a beheading at sunrise, and alas, would have accomplished nothing.
    “But with hardly any food or water-along with the beatings-I weakened quickly. I could not fight them off as one guard would hold me down while the other had what he called his ‘fun’ with me. Then, they would switch places and defile me. Again and again. It was a never ending humiliation.
    “Oh and how I despised them. They had sick, twisted minds. As they forced themselves in me, they would make me say mea culpa over and over again.”
    Van audibly gasped. “ I’m guilty,” he said to himself more than to Saldivar.
    “Yes,” Saldivar concurred with fire in his eyes. “Very revolting,