Balor shuffled out of the bedroom, aching filling every part of him from his head to the creaking wood floors. He felt every slight bending of his knee, every movement of his fingers, every breath, as if a million knives and hammers were striking him at once. But he was hungry and the smell from the kitchen made his mouth water. He had helped Aurie out of the bed despite the agony and her growling about how her dress had been cut completely down one side.

  “This was my favorite dress of the three,” she huffed. She said something else, but the bruises spread across her back were louder than her words. It didn’t seem to bother her as much when she looked down and ran a hand across herself, stopping here and there where new scars had emerged, as if what Balor assumed from how his shirt and pants had been similarly cut dawned on her. The kids had tended them in their sleep.

  He couldn’t remember much of what happened after Balian struck him and the others began their merciless attack. It was all disjointed, scrambled together like unsorted grain. A foot crushing his ribs, horse hooves, the offlander’s breathing against him, the smell of sweat and blood, crying. Aurie’s words, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Bright light, the soft mattress, torches, rain, hooves spraying mud, fires reflecting in Balian’s eyes.

  What he did remember, clear as if it were a single second before and remained there, hovering in his vision, was the sight of the back of Balian’s hand hitting Aurie’s face hard enough that he heard knuckles and bone crack. That will never be forgotten.

  Balor stopped in his tracks, a hand to the wall as he wavered from a throbbing headache that made him dizzy. The table was against the front door with two chairs. Alden’s bed was empty. His heart skipped a beat as his eyes darted to Maud’s bed and found him sitting there, staring out the window, the spear in his hand. Where was Maud? He moved to see the shelves around the window to the garden. The other chairs were in front of the hearth. Its fire had died nearly to smoldering cinders. No Maud. The window was open. His eyes were cloudy and swaying, but he was able to see the offlander’s house up the hill across his muddy tilled field and the sun risen nearly over it.

  “Pa!” Alden skipped steps down the ladder to him. His embrace was so warm and painful, but it made Balor smile.

  “I’m okay,” he maintained his smile through his groan, “Where’s Maud?”

  “And why in the Rivers do you have the table here!” Aurie growled from behind him. Then, softer, she said, “It was a good idea. Barring the door like that. My smart boy.”

  “We didn’t know if you were going to wake,” Alden rushed to Aurie, who looked like she had just become aware of how bruised and sore she was the moment he hugged her. “Maud will be so happy!”

  “Where is she?” Balor couldn’t take the pain much longer. His back hunched from it and his legs were screaming at him to release them. He sat at one of the chairs at the table.

  “She went to Offla’s to see what was taking him so long,” Alden shuffled the spear from his left to his right.

  Aurie reached for it, “Put that back, what do you think you’re going to do with that? Get yourself killed!”

  “Aurie,” Balor called to her. The throbbing in his head was making his eyes loll. Not until I taste that stew, you don’t.

  “Just give it here and I’ll put it away. Never again…” Alden took a step back from her. Balian’s voice danced in Balor’s ear. He could see the same betrayal Balian had made him feel on Alden’s face.

  “Aurelie!”

  “What? Tell him!” She pleaded with him. Alden’s face said the same.

  “He was doing right. Let him be,” Balor held a hand up at her. With dread cracking through his voice as he looked to her, “He was protecting us like the man I raised him to be. Though,” he wagged a finger with a chuckle, “the bear might encourage your foes to think otherwise, believe you me.”

  Sheepishly, Alden looked down at the stuffed bear sticking out of his trousers.

  “Be proud of him, my love,” Balor pleaded as Aurie’s face dripped with tears and she wrapped her arms around her son.

  “I’m sorry, you just…all of this is…and you…”

  “I know, ma. I know.”

  “Alden,” Balor’s breathing labored, “Help your mother to the chair and fetch us some stew. I, for one, am starving.”

  “I have to keep watch still,” Alden gripped the spear with both hands, his feet already hesitantly edging toward the ladder to the loft, to the window he had been sitting at.

  “Was that what you were doing?” Balor regarded him for a moment.

  “Until Maud comes back with Offla.”

  Aurie put her hands to her mouth, muttering under her breath, “Alone?”

  “I had to stay. But if the village crosses…”

  “Go, resume your post, soldier. We’ll…” He winced as the pain intensified from him lifting himself back to his feet, “…manage.”

  Alden bounded back up the ladder and slid to the side of the window. Balor shuffled toward the hearth with a comforting hand on the flat of Aurie’s back and grabbed the bowls from the mantle. He shared her worry, with all his heart and spirit he felt it, but it was met with appreciation and unmatched pride. The bear, though. Balor began laughing as he ladled soup into a bowl and handed it to Aurie, whose hands were shaking as much as Maud’s.

  “That plowing bear,” he whispered to her through the painful chuckles.

  She was still crying but she laughed a little, too. She carried her bowl to the table with careful steps, obviously hurting as much as he was. He was by her side a moment later, helping her into the chair.

  “Smells good,” He beamed at her.

  Aurie nodded, tears dripping into her bowl. “Everything does.”

  “Alden!” Maud’s shout from the window sent Alden flying down the ladder and across the room to the garden window. Balor and Aurie twisted in their chairs to watch as Alden struggled to lift her through. When Balor went to stand, Aurie’s hand pressed him back down with a nod that told him, ‘You would only make it harder.’

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Just get me in!” Maud growled.

  “You’re so slippery! What did you do, jump in it? Hold. On.”

  “Don’t grab my sleeve, you’ll tear it!”

  “Maybe if you didn’t bathe in it, you mad woman!”

  “Use both hands, rabbit shit.”

  Balor and Aurie were in tears trying not to laugh, their foreheads touching when they leaned into each other.

  “You practically pulled my dress off! What is wrong with you? My arms, cockbiting ass, my arms! The elbows! There…” Alden fell to the ground with a thud as Maud landed on her feet on top of him.

  Maud stumbled past him and fell to her knees with hands over her gaping mouth at the sight of Balor and Aurie sitting at the table, both smiling at her. Their smiles wavered. Her dark hair was slathered in mud, her face and dress smeared with it, with thick clumps padding where her knees would press. But neither of them stopped or even slightly leaned back from her rushing embrace. The pain that burst through them was worth it.

  “You’re alive! Awake! I’m so glad, we were so scared you wouldn’t…”

  “We’re alright,” Balor said while he and Aurie held both sides of her muddy face that was now streaked with tears.

  “I don’t see him, is he coming?” Alden was leaning his head out the garden window.

  Maud straightened, her smile instantly removed. “He’s not coming. We’re alone.”

  “That’s not true, he’s coming back, I know it!” Alden stomped from the window with his spear in hand and shouted accusingly at her. “He wouldn’t just leave us like that!”

  “He’s gone, Aldy!” Maud growled, stomping to meet him.

  “Maybe you just didn’t look hard enough. Did you check the shack? Maybe he was just trying to get his saddle and stuff together.”

  “Alden, it’s all gone! I looked. Feedbag, his sword, his boots, everything is gone,” Maud put a hand on the top of her head and leaned her head into it. “We’re all we have.”

  Balor’s own mouth gaped and his eyes lost focus on everything in front of him. The hooves, he remembered. Offla’s horse. He had charged them. Carried Aurie and him to the bed. But he knew, there was no way he didn’t know that it had been their fault. His shoulders felt weighed down by more than the pain from the beating. Everything was far worse than he imagined.

  “He did what he could,” Balor blinked his eyes back into focus. There was a steadiness in his breathing.

  “What he could?” Maud whipped around at him. “Are you plowing mad? He left us to die!”

  “Maud!” Aurie barked.

  “He did! He knows the village will cross as soon as they find a way to rebuild the bridge and murder us, and he left! All of this is because of him!”

  “Maud! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “I was just there, mother. I know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “We caused this, Maud,” Balor piped in, louder than both of them, but also calmer. Maud shook in disbelief when Aurie nodded. “He did more than I would have in his place. None of us can fault him for saving himself.”

  “You…you did this to him?” Maud’s words cut through him in ways he forgot were possible. “To..us?”

  Balor swallowed knives. All he could do was nod and watch Maud’s glare burn and wrinkle against the flood within her. He didn’t see the pain in Alden’s face until he heard him say, “Why would you do that?”

  “What are we going to do?” Aurie whispered to him.

  Balor shook his head, watching Maud glower as if she were—dare he say—heartbroken about the offlander? And brimming with fury and disappointment at her parents. He tried to think. If they left, he wouldn’t be allowed to sell the land. It wasn’t his, but the family’s, so it would just return to Balian. If he waited until harvest, the gods know what will happen by then. He could use Maud’s dowry to pay for somewhere in another village, but it wouldn’t be enough for much more than a few months of rent. It certainly wouldn’t pay for a new home no matter the size. Nor land. And his poor girl, who has proven herself a woman worthy of the world, let alone a good husband, in the span of a few moments, would be without hope of stability in her future if he did that. Perhaps, he began to think, with the offlander gone, he can make a truce with the village until the harvest and, instead of paying taxes, they leave with the revenue. Let Balian deal with Lord Taggerty to get his hands on the land. The thought of his brother made his skin crawl and his teeth grind.

  “I can’t think,” Maud had made her way to the ladder. She sat with a defeated sigh. “I don’t know what to think, if I could. How could you let this happen?”

  “We didn’t know,” Aurie grabbed one of Balor’s hands from his lap and laced her fingers into it. “If we did, we would have…”

  “Would have…what? Stopped them from driving him off and nearly killing you?” Maud put a palm out at her, “It doesn’t matter. I really would rather shit than listen to excuses right now.”

  Aurie gulped. She was wide eyed and speechless. Balor hesitated to correct his daughter, partially out of fear of having that particular glare pointed at him, and partially because he agreed that they both, he and Aurie, deserved it. A moment later, Maud turned her glare on him anyway.

  “What are we going to do, now that you’ve both plowing destroyed everything?”

  Balor and Aurie met gazes.

  “Well, you’re awake now. So, figure it out. I’m going to get these muddy clothes off and try to get at least a little sleep before the sun is in the window.” And Maud was up on the loft, pinning her blanket across it as a curtain.

  “I’m mad, too,” Alden said with a calmness that made Balor crinkle his brow at him. “Causing them to come for Offla? I never thought…Well, I think we should leave. And if you don’t, then maybe me and Maud should. Wherever Offla went, I’m sure he’ll take us in.”

  Balor’s heart fell to the floor. What could he ever say to that? The guilt in him made it hard to breathe.

  Alden went to the ladder and stopped at the bottom with a frown. “That’s the only place I can keep an eye on the villagers, Maud. Can I come up when you’re done?”

  “Use the woods, Alden. They’re not there yet, remember?”

  “Why are you being mean to me? I didn’t do anything.”

  “We need to fix this,” Aurie tightened her hand in his, “Our family is falling apart.”

  “I’m not sure we can,” Balor hung his head.

  They must have reached an agreement because Maud pulled the blanket down and Alden began climbing up. Her muddy dress splattered on the floor behind him with Maud’s growling, “There! Now there’s a part of the floor that won’t burn as fast.”

  “If we leave now, we only have her dowry to pay rents, if we find any around,” Balor said as quietly as he could without fully whispering. “And I’m pretty sure that will only get me another beating.”

  Aurie’s wide eyes were fixed on the muddy dress lying in a heap at the foot of the ladder. They only got wider as Maud and Alden lifted the ladder up sideways onto the loft with them. Balor only sighed.

  “You’re probably right,” Aurie said with a nod.