The Stormriders

Back then we were The Stormriders; we would thunder into people’s lives like heavy dark clouds of chaos with the lightning of our steel flashing as we caused chaos, death and destruction all around us, leaving burning and bodies behind as we sped away – there and then gone like any sudden storm.

Back then: we were known, we were feared. Everyone ran for shelter when they realised The Stormriders were coming, the clouds of our horde massing on the horizon of their lives, ready to destroy everything they held dear, ready to rip all their small worlds apart.

Of course, as we became known and feared, the ordinary folk appealed to their lords, their barons, their kings, to do something, to stop us; to bring an end to the storms that ripped and destroyed their meagre worlds.

We were not heroes, we were not the kind of outlaws who become legends by taking the side of the oppressed, we were not facing the forces of overwhelming power. We were the outlaws that make children scream, women cry and men curse our shadows as we pass. We were not brave, we were not just. We were weak and cowardly, except when massed as some great storm cloud ready to tear the sun from some poor unfortunate’s life, but we did not care. We thought we were free, we thought we were wild; we thought we would never have to bow or kneel to any man, noble or common.

Most of all, though, we were wrong and we knew we were wrong and we knew that one day the world would take its revenge on us all.