Part one: by a thread

Staring up at the blue sky, only a couple of white clouds floating by slowly like fluffy ribbons. Shivers running over her back as she admired the beauty as the reality struck her. "This is the last day of my life."
A funny feeling, as if submitting to it, from the moment she planned doing this. Still a knot formed in her throat. She swallowed hard and shook her head, some drops of sweat falling on the dusty floor. The sun had been beating down on her for 2 hours now, but she was used to it. Laboring on the fields lightened her fur as well altered other parts of her being like the others.
She clinged her five fingered paws to relief the stress around her pulsing wrist, the rope is tight and cut in to the skin under the fur.

"Here they are. I hope, today I will make clear to you that I will not tolerate any disobedience!" The warden yelled, his face reddening as he realizes his speech didn't draw as much effect as he has hoped for.

A grin of spite formed on her lips as she mentally remarked. "What can he expect? Most of us are all broken and at loss… But some of the new ones will take notion." She knew, giving a quick glance over the crowd stopping at a little kid. Around 14 years old, fur worn off paws. He looked dirty, tired and miserable. "If only we could have made it." She looked down feeling pity, not for herself, but for all the others. "If only we had succeeded."

The warden carries on walking fort and back yelling his plea. As he does so, most of his words only reaching the outer perimeter unheard as everyone is lost in his own thoughts. Today was one of those days, that couldn't be much darker.

Men have died in the mines, sometimes in the summer firefighting costed lives, but those days weren't held in such high hope. They worked for weeks to the day of yesterday. In the moonlit night they opened the tunnel under the watch house and stole the main gates key leaving the guard behind with a broken neck. She opposed to the violence Hijard used. The others might get punished for these deaths. Ultimately they got spotted when they opened the gate. A guard was actually sleeping above the gates wall. Covering around 150 feet she got run down by a horsemen dropping on her like a sack of sand. Hijard put up a good fight, nearly pulling down the horseman trying to bring him down, but eventually got hit on the head by another rider.

She jerked her head up as drums start beating. The warden still red with anger standing center in front of the poles they where all bound to. The chopping block just 10 yards away, black with old blood. The blade of the executioner chipped and worn off, his face like patches of skin, "Why would he care?" She thought "He gets paid, so having to hack twice or more to get it… get it done." she thought as another knot formed in her throat.

He was also the head of the guard having withstand many outbreaks. He is also one of the cruellest men she had ever encounter. She brought it off pretty well, her back sore from the whipping she received. But others where beaten senseless, Hijard is hanging limply although his best efforts to keep himself standing. She clenched her eyes for a moment not wanting to think about what they did to his leg that stood under an odd angle and it looked like he lost loads of blood. Her attention swerving up as one of her close friends to her left got fetched.

If it was the scorching sun, the whipping she only received an hour ago, or the cheer terror that seemed to boil up between her shoulders she did not know. But for her life she could not see who it was, although they were dragged by only mere meters from her sight. Her vision blurry, her head a haze, her body hanging limply on the ropes as her legs won't support her anymore. And even then fading, fading away even more like going to sleep while having a bad hangover.

In a reflex she started breathing again, her vision returning. Feia, 27 years of age. Mother of a boy of 4. Being pulled forward on the ropes around her wrists.

Then her attention got drawn beyond. Near the main gate, someone is walking there toward the group. It seemed so out of place, no escort and at this hour while they are caring out executions. Her breath stocked once more, as she realizes a number of things; An enormous hole in the main gate, like being blown through with a cannon ball, the guards on it gaping down at the figure walking their like the devil himself was out there.

"Can it be!?" She breaths out.

Black fur with purple stripes, even with this distance his blood red eyes seam to pierce through everything, a slender short muzzle, two black horns standing between his bat like ears. She never met him, only heard tales of him. Rumors, legends! She couldn't believe he actually existed. But here he is, walking their like in a nightmare.
His grace only adding up to his impressive looks, dark blue with red garment, two curved blades at his side in a single scabbard. His stride long and determined soon he stopped just yards from the warden and crossed his arms.