The executioner - What a beautiful axe!

The axe came down fiercely, splitting that small piece of wood in half, which was placed on top of a larger and thicker piece of wood. The man passed the axe to his left hand, then picked up the two pieces of wood from the ground and threw them into the small pile he had already managed to assemble that morning. The branches he had gathered to cut were finally finished. The cold wind seemed to fade away with the darkness as the vast sky beyond the mountains began to turn yellow.

The woodsman was a systematic man, always waking up in the middle of the night to start his day, so he could go to sleep when the night began. That day, he had put on his red checkered shirt with white details and his light brown knitted pants, with two strips of fiber attached to the pants to place over his shoulders and secure the piece. His black leather boot reached up to his knee, allowing him to overcome any obstacles he encountered in the middle of the forest. Dominique was nearly two meters tall, with eyes as brown as his short hair. Thanks to his former occupation, Dom had earned the nickname "the executioner". He was born in Ard Taj on a night of the red moon. When he was six years old, he faced the fury of the citadel when his mother was accused of witchcraft, in an episode later called "The Night of the Witches". Thirteen women accused of witchcraft were arrested, and Dominique's mother was one of them. Over the eyes of the boy, who sneaked a glimpse of those chained women amidst all the straw on a large platform in the center of the citadel, a torch ignited a flame that would never be extinguished from his mind. In an instant, the garments of his mother and all the other women were consumed by the flames. The twelve burned and screamed, while everyone who watched shouted with joy. Dominique and his father had their bodies stripped and examined, and only after no marks were found, they were released. "She was murdered for trying to help others," his father always said. Dom's life had always been difficult, but after that night, it turned into a nightmare. Dom, at the age of six, struggled to clean up the blood of the executed prisoners in the public square to earn a few coins, which paid for food and water for him and his father, who withered away after his wife's death until he did not wake up one stormy morning. Dom had to spend a day and a night with his father's body in the small shack they had on a slope far from the royal fortress until the gravedigger came to record the death and take the body away. After that, as contradictory as it may seem, Dominique's life began to improve. He managed to save the leftover coins, and with them, he bought his first axe, an old piece with a crooked and weak handle that would break in two with any strong blow, but it was with that axe that Dom replaced the royal executioner when he passed away. Dominique, now with a grown beard, was invited by the Lord of Ard Taj himself to take over the old executioner's axe. The young man had never been happier, and he thanked for a long time for cleaning that floor in that place when the King was looking for a replacement. For years he practiced his craft with mastery, never refusing to obey the orders of the royalty, even if it cost the lives of children or women. He had never been a sentimental person, nor had he found a wife. The little he earned was enough to cover his expenses and those of his axe.