Harrick gazed down over the valley, seeing only thick
haze where he knew his wife and home rested below. The fog usually burned off
by midday this time of year, but Harrick didn’t know that yet. He muttered a
curse to the gods for his poor luck and retreated into his recently acquired
hovel. He cursed again to look at the place, a ramshackle hut with naught but
three mudbrick walls and a thatched roof. The hardpack dirt floor didn’t
inspire much confidence either.
Seeing little in the valley but fog, Harrick’s eyes turned
to trace the rectangular outline of the low stone fence surrounding his new
domain. With minor repairs it would serve nicely as a pasture for his town’s herd
of scraggly goats. The more daunting challenge would be to provide an
acceptable domicile for Lysara and the little ones. For now, the only structure
on the large grassy expanse - heretofore to be called Harrickstead, he decided - would have to do for him and the wiry
dusty-blonde boy sleeping in the corner.
“Boy! Up
with you!” Harrick growled through his tangled brown beard. His normally gruff
voice was even more so at this hour. The boy turned over on his straw mat but
stirred no further. “I said UP WITH YOU! BOY!” he yelled, applying his open
palm liberally to the boy’s rear.
“Oi, quit it dad,” the youth groaned tenderly
examining the accosted area with a sore hand.
“It’s nearly mid day you lazy lout.” Harrick spat at
this, as if the boy’s leisurely awakening were a direct affront to his manhood.
He added a fatherly kick to the abdomen on his way to the small larder. He
ripped off a hunk of stale bread and a sliced a cube of hard cheese to give his
son. He hadn’t planned on staying away from their village for much longer; the
stores in the larder could only sustain them for a few days more at most.
“Here, eat these.” He tossed the meager breakfast towards his eldest.
“Is this it?” the boy whined.
“Did you spear a stag while I was asleep? I must have
missed it.” He paused in dramatic anticipation of a wise remark. None came. “I
didn’t think so. Now eat, and be happy there’s any bread left.”
“Mum always gives me warm oatmeal with berries as
morning repast,” he continued to mope despite being nearly through with what he
had.
“Well your mamma isn’t here now.” No, Lysara wasn’t
there. “And what in seven hells is repast?”
he added rhetorically. He stormed out of the shack and looked over the valley
once more, this time with an immediate sense of dread. The mist had cleared the
valley, but the village remained obscured. Though heavy and dark clouds
lingered high above, a more ominous air veiled the settlement. Black smoke
plumed and swirled across a wide area on the near side of the land below. Bastards burned our fields. He could
read the telltale signs of marauding easy enough, but from who? Only his
brother Tor even knew of his trek away from the village.
He had imagined convincing his stubborn wife to
abandon their current home would prove challenging, but the smoke dashed those
fears and replaced them in an instant.
Rubbing his eyes groggily with both hands, the boy
emerged and joined his father at the overlook. “Why is that field burning
father?” Harrick was pleased that the boy had noticed. He’d proven surprisingly
useful on this escapade, more due to his wits than his skill in battle.
“I don’t know Denn, I don’t know.”
Several minutes passed before the boy’s curiosity
boiled over again. “But when will Brother Tor arrive? Why wasn’t he there like
you said he’d be?”
“I said I don’t know boy, quiet with you.” Harrick’s
simple thoughts had yet to attempt to connect the threads of the past days, and
his son’s questions threatened him in a way he didn’t expect. The boy is already beyond his father in many
ways. What has she been teaching him?
“Father-“ he began inquisitively.
“I said quiet boy!”
“But father!” He waited in anticipation of another
interruption, but none came. “The only thing that makes sense is that Brother
Tor lied to us. Set up a trap.” Harrick remained stoic, his bulky jaw set hard
against the tangled knots of his beard.
“Don’t you see? He knew the men who lived up here would be too strong
for one man and one boy alone.”
“No they weren’t. We bested them easily. That’s a
stupid plan you stupid boy,” he said with great relief at seeing a crack in
Denn’s logic.
“Only because we changed the attack and came in from
the high ground!” Harrick began to soften at this, slowly incorporating this
set of conflicting ideas. His son allowed him time to ponder before continuing.
“Brother Tor expected us to die here.” Again he waited for the news to set in.
“He probably thinks we are dead.”
Just as Denn said these last words, Harrick saw it
too. His satisfied smug expression melted into a visage of pure vitriol. A
simple enough plot, but he was a simple man. That’s all it took. Well, all it
would have taken without his son’s tactical advice.
“Well then, we’d better show him what dead men can
do,” he said in dark amusement, frightening his son with the seriousness of the
jest. Channeling rage into brotherly competition came naturally to Harrick; it
was practically the only emotional tool he’d ever learned to use.
They set out immediately upon gathering their weapons
and remaining food. If they made good time, they might make it back to the
village with some daylight left. Denn directed his father towards the cover of
the sparse woods on their right, away from the outrageously open approach down
the barren center of the hill. He began vacillating wildly between barely
suppressing his frustration with his father’s stupidity to shamefully pitying the
big oaf. Mercifully, crossing the rocky and tangled terrain of the woods required
near total concentration, providing a welcome diversion from such thoughts once
their descent began in earnest.
A plump rain droplet caught Harrick on the cheek, but
he barely noticed. Denn got pelted in the eye and shout out a word not fit for
a boy his age - earning him a smack, this time from his father’s shaggy backhand.
Moments later, sheets of rain started coming down, mostly unimpeded by the
loose canopy of autumnal leaves above. Both were drenched to the bone in
minutes, Denn staving off shivers as best he could. Soon the ground began to
soften. Another quarter of an hour and the ground had transformed into a
shifting bog. Clumps of wet dirt massed on the soles of their patchwork leather
boots, and soon Denn stood nearly an inch taller. Or at least he would have if
he weren’t hunched over in his drab grey cloak in a futile effort to keep warm and
dry.
The trip down the hill exhausted the boy to the
brink, but provided no serious danger. At one point he spied a dappled fawn
with its mother in the distance, but this was no time for a hunt. By mid afternoon
the sun poked itself free, providing merciful respite from the dank rain. The
bottom of the hill opened to a verdant clearing, with the village hidden from
view behind a line of poplars in the distance. As they approached the clearing,
Harrick’s pace quickened with excitement. Denn had to break into a haggard
sprint to keep up.
“No, da’” he yelled brethlessly. “Stop stop sto-op
you halfwit!” With that, Harrick pivoted midstride and swung around to teach
his son a punishing lesson. He was perplexed to find Denn nowhere in sight. “We
have to be more careful.” Denn’s exasperated voice seemed to come from the
forest itself. He emerged from behind a tree far to his father’s weak right
side and continued. “If you want to get mum back and Oriena and Hrae, you can’t
just go stomping through the field.”
“Any why shouldn’t I, boy?” he grunted as he lunged towards his petulant son.
“Do you want to know or do you want to smack me
again?” Denn quipped before darting behind another tree. By the time Harrick
arrived to flush him out, Denn had already snuck several yards further back
into the wood. “Because Brother Tor is as easy to outwit as you are,” he boomed
out, deepening his voice as far as he could.
“And how do you propose we do that?” asked Harrick
sincerely. Denn’s trickery confused and frightened the big brute. He began to
wonder if his son hadn’t learned a bit of magic from his mother.
“Well. First, hit me,” Denn said from behind. Harrick
wheeled around again to find his son not two yards away, smiling and pointing
below his right eye. The shockingly painful blow came with a smile and without
hesitation.
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