The war wagon tore down the flooded road like a monster unleashed.<\/p>\n
Horses screamed.<\/p>\n
Soldiers scattered.<\/p>\n
Mud exploded beneath the iron wheels as the chained woman and her son remained trapped near the ravine\u2019s edge.<\/p>\n
The boy refused to let go.<\/p>\n
Rain blinded him. His bare feet slipped in the mud. But both hands stayed locked around his mother\u2019s arm with desperate strength.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease!\u201d he cried. \u201cDon\u2019t take her!\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman tried to shield him despite the chains cutting into her bleeding wrists.<\/p>\n
\u201cRun!\u201d she screamed through the storm. \u201cRun now!\u201d<\/p>\n
But the child only held tighter.<\/p>\n
The wagon was almost on top of them.<\/p>\n
Then\u2014<\/p>\n
A rider burst from the rain.<\/p>\n
Black armor.<\/p>\n
Dark horse.<\/p>\n
Moving fast enough to split the chaos apart.<\/p>\n
Without slowing, the rider leaned from the saddle and grabbed the boy by the back of his soaked tunic, ripping him away from the wagon\u2019s path seconds before the iron wheels crashed through the exact place he had been standing.<\/p>\n
The chained woman screamed his name.<\/p>\n
The wagon skidded violently beside the ravine, one wheel slipping dangerously close to the collapsing edge.<\/p>\n
Thunder exploded overhead.<\/p>\n
And as soldiers struggled to regain control\u2014<\/p>\n
The mysterious rider pulled off his hood.<\/p>\n
The woman froze instantly.<\/p>\n
Because the face staring back at her belonged to a man executed three years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The war wagon tore down the flooded road like a monster unleashed. Horses screamed. Soldiers scattered. Mud exploded beneath the iron wheels as the chained woman and her son remained trapped near the ravine\u2019s edge. The boy refused to let go. Rain blinded him. His bare feet slipped in the mud. But both hands stayed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}