{"id":415,"date":"2011-01-20T11:46:11","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T16:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=415"},"modified":"2011-01-20T11:46:11","modified_gmt":"2011-01-20T16:46:11","slug":"the-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=415","title":{"rendered":"The Village"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second of three stories I wrote last night in my return to flash fiction after a month or two off.<\/em><\/p>\n

\tThe bell rang, a single peal loud and long across the valley. A low sound, a mournful sound, it sent the birds scattering from their perches, and the womenfolk of the village running for the meagre cover of a copse of trees.<\/p>\n

\tThe men of the watch tower scrambled to defend their families, but they were ridden over and struck down, and the women in the copse found death at their own hands when they saw what had come. The copse became a funeral pyre, as did the village.<\/p>\n

\tThe land withered and desiccated, until the lush fields that had fed the village turned to little more than dust. Wind swept the land, and the last husks of civilization were blown away, eroded into nothingness.<\/p>\n

\tYears turned, and new springs dug channels through the parched ground as rain pattered down. Weeds clawed at the land, their roots breaking apart centuries old rock and dirt. In time, verdant life spread throughout the valley, and men returned, once more turning nature to their hand.<\/p>\n

\tA farmer digging in the field found the old bell with his plough, and it was set once more into a watch-tower, upon the same hill where once the old had stood.<\/p>\n

\tThe bell rung smooth and clean, but would only emit a single peal per day, and so the village called it the \u201cNightly Chorus\u201d, and let its fading echoes mark the coming of twilight, and the end of another day.<\/p>\n

\tMany years passed as the bell sung the death of the sun, and the new village grew large and content, perhaps even becoming a town in the later years. It was a pleasant place, full of country vigour and joy, and people found life there fulfilling, if hard.<\/p>\n

\t The bell rang, a single peal loud and long across the valley. A low sound, a mournful sound, it sent the birds scattering from their perches. That night, the village burned anew. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The second of three stories I wrote last night in my return to flash fiction after a month or two off. The bell rang, a single peal loud and long across the valley. A low sound, a mournful sound, it sent the birds scattering from their perches, and the womenfolk of the village running for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[36,4],"tags":[21],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pRIK4-6H","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":393,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=393","url_meta":{"origin":415,"position":0},"title":"Wheels of Persecution","date":"December 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This story is a continuation of Into The Swamp \u201cBugger! Bugger! Bugger!\u201d Ellgis cursed long and loud as the bucket of stones was hoisted into the air. Even with his inventive pulley system, the strain still showed in his back and face. Fryca watched anxiously, slowly paying out a guide\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":523,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=523","url_meta":{"origin":415,"position":1},"title":"A Pity","date":"July 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The sun set that night, as it had so many nights before. It would set again, years hence, but there would be an interregnum, a time in which the sun did not rule the sky. That time started innocently, for the sun touched the horizon as if it was any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":101,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=101","url_meta":{"origin":415,"position":2},"title":"The Last Farmer","date":"April 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"My longest piece of flash fiction yet, this one continues my happy theme of recent days. I'm not sure about the ending. I kept feeling like I should write another paragraph, but at the same time, the current spot is where I wanted to end it. I'm not sure which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":262,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=262","url_meta":{"origin":415,"position":3},"title":"Hollow Rage","date":"September 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The ideas that occur while showering... I raged against the dying of the light, but it was an empty rage, a hollow rage. All but the last glimmers of the sun had gone, and the death that is twilight stole over the land. I knew this time had to come,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":378,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=378","url_meta":{"origin":415,"position":4},"title":"Into The Swamp","date":"November 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"NaNo has been going really slowly for me, and I've lost interest in working on it at the moment, hence this story, which is the first in a short series. Hopefully I can pick things up in the next couple days. With a twang, the rope snapped. Fryca cursed. \u201cThe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":350,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=350","url_meta":{"origin":415,"position":5},"title":"Hia Breoedd, Final","date":"November 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the final entry in a short #FridayFlash serial based in The Four Part Land. Events that take place here will have a large impact in upcoming TFPL novels. Then the council bade Annwyd Arwedda and his travellers fair well, and told them to expect a messenger before the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Four Part Land"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}