Byrthiri
Five
I was gone for nearly six hours. Many of the villagers I visited were uncomfortable with the idea of giving weaponry and armor to a fourteen-year-old boy, and those that were willing didn’t have much to spare. Nor could I find someone who had a trunk or a cart for easier transportation. I returned home almost at midday dragging two heavy cloth sacks.
I expected absolute rage from my parents when they saw me. They were angry at first, because they hadn’t known where I had been. When she discovered why I had been gone, she simply got quiet and went to her room. My father glared at me and seemed to want to argue, but he said nothing. I thought this was a sign of acceptance of my decision until that evening.
“Do you have your things packed yet?” my father asked. “You need to be ready to leave with your mother and sister by sunrise tomorrow.”
I was enraged, but to placate him, I went about packing as though I was planning to obey. I figured that I could always simply refuse to depart in the morning; my mother and sister would be forced to choose between staying behind and waiting for me, and if my mother knew for certain that waiting for me would be futile, surely she would leave in order to at least keep Alani safe.
The time to make that choice never came.
That night was when Haugra fell under the first attack. There were only a small handful of raiders; they must have been traveling on their own time, straying ahead of the rest of the pack of invaders. They arrived late in the evening, long after sun had set, around the time mothers were putting their children to bed. My own mother was laying down a fussy Alani when we heard commotion outside—women’s shrieking intermingled with low jeering voices. My father and I ran to the door as my mother held Alani.
Outside, we could see even from our own home in the center of town that a fire was burning near the northern edge of the village. Black smoke billowed up into the night sky, obscuring the stars like dark, low-hanging clouds over hungry flames that reached eagerly upwards like beggars’ hands toward the sky.
My father pulled me back inside and ran toward the chest in the back of the main room, pulling armor on. “Help me get ready,” he said. “Now! There’s no time!”
Clumsily, unused to armor, I helped him pull his on, and handed him the two-handed sword he had bartered for only the day before. In that moment I realized that, though from childhood I had seen him as a man who would be a capable warrior, he was not. He looked out of place in armor that, having not been made for him, did not fit him as proper armor should, carrying a sword that seemed to put him off-balance. It hurt me to see. I was afraid for him.
“Stay here,” he urged, and he disappeared. I looked toward my mother.
“They’re here,” was all she could say. Her face was ashen and her eyes lackluster. Alani was crying in confusion and frustration, calling for her father, seeming to know, if nothing else, that he was heading into danger.
I hugged my mother tight. “I’m leaving,” I said. She protested with her eyes, making a strange choking noise in her throat but otherwise unable to vocalize any protests. I hastily put on my own armor, feeling almost foolish as I did so, conscious of the fact that it was an even poorer fit for me than it was for my father—I could feel my own thinness more and more as I got prepared to fight. I knew that I didn’t know what I was doing in a battle situation and wondered at my own audacity, but tried to set those thoughts aside.
By the time I got to the north end of the village, there were three homes that had been completely demolished by the flames. Already there were two bodies lying on the ground. One was dressed in foreign garb—likely one of the attackers—but it made me sick to realize that one of them had long hair and a dark colored gown, indicating that she was a woman of the village, one of our own people.
There were three other invaders. One held a torch in one hand and a sword in the other; the other two each had a sword and a shield. Fortunately there were four men of our own village and one who had traveled down from one of the neighboring villages; together they outnumbered the enemy and corralled them into one spot, surrounding them. I watched uselessly from the sidelines, clutching my sword in my hand tightly but suddenly more aware than ever that I didn’t know what to do with it. I was praying that none of the Dragon-Folk would escape their encirclement and come near me.
I couldn’t quite tell what happened next. I saw a jumble of clashing weaponry and armor; heard the clang of clashing metal; saw men fall. From the distance I was watching, it all looked more like a jumbled brawl in a pub than an armed fight. The only person I was watching closely enough to understand their movements was my father. I only cared for his safety. He locked swords with one of the invaders; took a blow to the helmet with his opponent’s shield; made a clumsy swing with his sword—and either got lucky, or had better aim than he appeared to. Blood gushed from his opponent’s throat. I tried to swallow my nausea at the sight. What kind of warrior was I then?
And then it was over. The sound of clanging metal subsided; at the end, the only additional three corpses on the ground were those of the Utlagi enemy. I looked up and my eyes met my father’s. I could feel my whole body shaking madly. I tried to swallow but my throat was dry.
My father was visibly angry, but I knew he wasn’t about to waste time scolding me when there was still so much to be done. “Help put the fires out,” he said.
We set about to work, knocking on the doors of the surrounding houses in the village to let the people know that it the area was safe and to ask for their help in gathering water. As we worked I couldn’t help but walk by the bodies that lay on the ground. Even looking at the Utlagi corpses made my stomach turn, but the woman that had been slain outside her house was impossible for me to look at without feeling like I would vomit.
And yet I couldn’t help it. In the panic of the moment and the attempt to avert my eyes, there was a lot I didn’t initially notice about her when I saw her lying there during the battle; that her dark hair was matted in places, for example, or the black stains on her dark gown. Her skin was pale, her features delicate. She was beautiful. She looked a bit familiar to me—I had probably seen her around the village at some point. Still, I didn’t know her name. Despite that, I felt a sense of pain at having lost one of my own people. I kept thinking, over and over, how easily it could have been my mother.
I expected absolute rage from my parents when they saw me. They were angry at first, because they hadn’t known where I had been. When she discovered why I had been gone, she simply got quiet and went to her room. My father glared at me and seemed to want to argue, but he said nothing. I thought this was a sign of acceptance of my decision until that evening.
“Do you have your things packed yet?” my father asked. “You need to be ready to leave with your mother and sister by sunrise tomorrow.”
I was enraged, but to placate him, I went about packing as though I was planning to obey. I figured that I could always simply refuse to depart in the morning; my mother and sister would be forced to choose between staying behind and waiting for me, and if my mother knew for certain that waiting for me would be futile, surely she would leave in order to at least keep Alani safe.
The time to make that choice never came.
That night was when Haugra fell under the first attack. There were only a small handful of raiders; they must have been traveling on their own time, straying ahead of the rest of the pack of invaders. They arrived late in the evening, long after sun had set, around the time mothers were putting their children to bed. My own mother was laying down a fussy Alani when we heard commotion outside—women’s shrieking intermingled with low jeering voices. My father and I ran to the door as my mother held Alani.
Outside, we could see even from our own home in the center of town that a fire was burning near the northern edge of the village. Black smoke billowed up into the night sky, obscuring the stars like dark, low-hanging clouds over hungry flames that reached eagerly upwards like beggars’ hands toward the sky.
My father pulled me back inside and ran toward the chest in the back of the main room, pulling armor on. “Help me get ready,” he said. “Now! There’s no time!”
Clumsily, unused to armor, I helped him pull his on, and handed him the two-handed sword he had bartered for only the day before. In that moment I realized that, though from childhood I had seen him as a man who would be a capable warrior, he was not. He looked out of place in armor that, having not been made for him, did not fit him as proper armor should, carrying a sword that seemed to put him off-balance. It hurt me to see. I was afraid for him.
“Stay here,” he urged, and he disappeared. I looked toward my mother.
“They’re here,” was all she could say. Her face was ashen and her eyes lackluster. Alani was crying in confusion and frustration, calling for her father, seeming to know, if nothing else, that he was heading into danger.
I hugged my mother tight. “I’m leaving,” I said. She protested with her eyes, making a strange choking noise in her throat but otherwise unable to vocalize any protests. I hastily put on my own armor, feeling almost foolish as I did so, conscious of the fact that it was an even poorer fit for me than it was for my father—I could feel my own thinness more and more as I got prepared to fight. I knew that I didn’t know what I was doing in a battle situation and wondered at my own audacity, but tried to set those thoughts aside.
By the time I got to the north end of the village, there were three homes that had been completely demolished by the flames. Already there were two bodies lying on the ground. One was dressed in foreign garb—likely one of the attackers—but it made me sick to realize that one of them had long hair and a dark colored gown, indicating that she was a woman of the village, one of our own people.
There were three other invaders. One held a torch in one hand and a sword in the other; the other two each had a sword and a shield. Fortunately there were four men of our own village and one who had traveled down from one of the neighboring villages; together they outnumbered the enemy and corralled them into one spot, surrounding them. I watched uselessly from the sidelines, clutching my sword in my hand tightly but suddenly more aware than ever that I didn’t know what to do with it. I was praying that none of the Dragon-Folk would escape their encirclement and come near me.
I couldn’t quite tell what happened next. I saw a jumble of clashing weaponry and armor; heard the clang of clashing metal; saw men fall. From the distance I was watching, it all looked more like a jumbled brawl in a pub than an armed fight. The only person I was watching closely enough to understand their movements was my father. I only cared for his safety. He locked swords with one of the invaders; took a blow to the helmet with his opponent’s shield; made a clumsy swing with his sword—and either got lucky, or had better aim than he appeared to. Blood gushed from his opponent’s throat. I tried to swallow my nausea at the sight. What kind of warrior was I then?
And then it was over. The sound of clanging metal subsided; at the end, the only additional three corpses on the ground were those of the Utlagi enemy. I looked up and my eyes met my father’s. I could feel my whole body shaking madly. I tried to swallow but my throat was dry.
My father was visibly angry, but I knew he wasn’t about to waste time scolding me when there was still so much to be done. “Help put the fires out,” he said.
We set about to work, knocking on the doors of the surrounding houses in the village to let the people know that it the area was safe and to ask for their help in gathering water. As we worked I couldn’t help but walk by the bodies that lay on the ground. Even looking at the Utlagi corpses made my stomach turn, but the woman that had been slain outside her house was impossible for me to look at without feeling like I would vomit.
And yet I couldn’t help it. In the panic of the moment and the attempt to avert my eyes, there was a lot I didn’t initially notice about her when I saw her lying there during the battle; that her dark hair was matted in places, for example, or the black stains on her dark gown. Her skin was pale, her features delicate. She was beautiful. She looked a bit familiar to me—I had probably seen her around the village at some point. Still, I didn’t know her name. Despite that, I felt a sense of pain at having lost one of my own people. I kept thinking, over and over, how easily it could have been my mother.