Balor spent the rest of the day in thought. Apart from whispers between Maud and Alden from the loft, there was silence across the house broken only by Aurie’s infrequent groans or mutters. He found himself wandering. His lips moved without a sound as he peered out the garden window again and again at Offla’s house across the muddy field.
Sometimes it was him commenting in his head about how the rains had come so suddenly and so heavily, other times it was the conversation he would have with Pierre once he returned from Eldrich. A few times it was what he would say to Balian when he saw him, though those always ended with sneers and growls. How could he do this to him? To Aurie? His own brother and sister-in-law? Threaten to kill all of them without hesitation? It was something Balor could never do.
When night set in, Aurie kept the hearth hot but no other light was made. No candles were lit. Balor listened to Maud and Alden snore while he and Aurie sat in the chairs in front of the hearth. Could he get Pierre to be reasonable with the taxes and let them leave? An advance, perhaps, minus the labor that would be needed to harvest it in their absence, so they could leave sooner? Or would he attempt to find a way to ease the hate in the village? Perhaps, he could help rebuild the bridge and promise aid to the harvest for the others. The village might be willing to accept, but he knew it would never be the same as it was.
Homesteader or no, he would never be allowed to do more than sell his harvest, if he was lucky. And it would never be as well priced again. But if they could stay, he could leave Maud’s thirty gold dowry as it is. Not a coin would be spent. If they left, they would deplete before winter’s end and there was no getting around that. She would be ruined even if she did finally agree to a match.
The next morning, Balor and Aurie moved the table from the door. It was the first time either of them had gone outside since that night and they gripped each other at the sight. The village was nothing like they remembered. Its houses and stores had been beaten into scattered clumps of floating debris and half toppled brick and stone walls rising from a lake. Most of the farms, including Balian and Gregor’s, were hidden somewhere beneath the newly formed lake. The stream was no longer a stream but a fast-flowing river that caused the lake to swirl at its edges as the waters flowed along it. The bridge was gone, only a chunk of the ancient cement slab stretching from Balor’s side like a short pier. The remaining buildings of the village were on the farthest end, just past the pub, standing untouched and surrounded by makeshift tents and overturned carts as shelter.
Aurie buried her head in his shoulder as Balor stared in disbelief. There were islands of ruins scattered throughout the lake where homes had been. Coralin’s pear orchard, alongside her peaches, could only be seen by the rapids moving between the tips of their tallest branches like fingers reaching from the depths. Balian’s house, though lucky enough to be just beyond the edge of the lake, still had the large tree that had battered through it lying on the ruins.
Neither of them went inside for the better part of the day. They hovered and stared. All the memories, their entire world, had been destroyed in a single night. Not just by their hatred, but by the gods themselves. It was Maud and Alden who finally got them to come back inside. Few words were spoken for the rest of the day, but there were none that could be said between them. They felt as betrayed by them as Balor felt by his brother. No words could change that. Now, more than before, he knew what he had to do.
The following morning, Balor made his decision and told Aurie. He could see the fear on her face when he took his spear from under their bed and pulled on his high shoes rather than his sandals. He needed to survey the damage to their lands and find out how many had survived. Regardless of his anger for his brother, he still had four nieces from him that he adored. It would be an opportunity to see if there was a chance he could talk some sense into them as well. They needed help to rebuild or move and Balor and Alden were strong Talkrois men. This was their home, too. At least, until that fateful night.
“You should bring Alden with you,” she had begged him. But he waved it away. The boy—man, now—needed to stay in case things went wrong. In case Balian was able to finish the job. He needed to see if he could reason with him. Reason with his brother. She gave him the warmest kiss he had ever had. Her lips tasted of pears and salty tears. Her pale blue eyes were brightened by her tears in the sunlight but never looked into his as he took his first steps out the door.
The ground was soggy no matter where he stepped. The road was thick with mud that caked to his shoes with a hefty reminder of the soreness he was still getting a grip on. It wasn’t as bad as it had been when he first woke up the day before, he had to be careful how he moved. Sometimes even a slight brush against his pants or shirt at the wrong angle made him wince. He followed the road along side his tilled field toward the stream.
His field had been unharmed. Soaked through, with lines of long puddles between the rows, but not a bit washed away. At the bank of the stream—really, river—he walked along the edge to see how high the water had risen. It hadn’t. Not over the edges that were once short cliffs before the shallow trickle of the stream over the pebbles he would spend hours picking through with Maud. He knelt beside it, bracing himself on the spear as if it were his walking stick, and shook his head in awe. None of it made any sense. Never, in the hundreds of years they had been here, had anyone spoken of the stream rising this high. Even the bridge, said to be over six hundred years old, known for surviving the most devastating of wars and destruction, was nothing more than a cracked slab barely wide enough for Balor to stand on. And how fast the water was moving. Like river rapids from the mountains, with foamy currents. Impassable. Rebuilding—or building—the bridge would be next to impossible with what they had here.
It wasn’t long before he looked up and found Balian standing on the other side. He had his sleeves and pants rolled, his arms thick with scrapes and scratches that were red lines through dried mud. His face was muddy with creases of skin where his dimples and few wrinkles were. His beard was black and brown instead of red, same as his hair. Those eyes were the same as they were last Balor had seen them. Fiery with rage.
“Come to boast, have you?” Balian called over the loud rush of the water. His dirty fists looked tight; his muscular arms bulged with veins. “How, once again, the gods blessed you?”
Balor straightened, leveraging his weight on the spear to keep the soreness in his hips from making him collapse to his knees, “You think I would do that? I came to see what happened, brother. This is beyond…”
“Don’t call me that,” Balian spat. “After all you’ve done, you have no right!”
“All I’ve done? You attacked me, attacked Aurie! You nearly killed us!”
“Pity I didn’t.”
Balor’s head leaned with furrowed brows, “How can you say that? What did I do other than treat a neighbor like the good man he is to warrant such cruelty?”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“You know what you did,” Balian growled with a jabbing finger. “You know exactly what you did. You haven’t been a brother to me since pa died and don’t plowing deny it!”
“Shit on you, I’ve always been nothing but good to you. All this is…beyond anything you could be harboring against me.”
“Still,” Balian threw his head back with a loud, malicious cackle, “Still, you deny it!”
“Deny what, Balian? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Look around you, this anger of yours went too far and there are more important things to deal with, like rebuilding that bridge so Alden and I can help.”
“We don’t want your help. No one wants the help of someone who steals land from his own blood.” The look of hatred on Balian’s face when he returned his gaze upon him made Balor gasp.
“That’s what this was about? You would kill my family for something we plowing agreed on, together!”
“You agreed. You forced it. I had no choice. No chance to fight it once you gave Pierre the papers.”
“The stream was a natural border between our lands. How else would we split it? It would have been ridiculous…”
Balian’s foot thrust forward, his fists rising as if he wished to strike Balor from across the wide river. “I got less than a third of what I should have because of that. Had to change to growing cotton instead of wheat for it. That house,” he pointed to Balor’s, “Should have been mine! I had seven mouths to feed to your four and you were already living in the other.” He pointed to the ruins of his own house. “We were renting, barely scraping by already. And you took the house that was bigger and almost all of the land!”
“I’m the oldest. It was meant to be mine.”
“Couldn’t overlook that fact as easily as the will saying I got half of the farmland, could you? Two years, Balor, we nearly starved because I was nothing more than a laborer while the cotton grew to harvest. My only son died because Coralin was too underfed to make milk, you son of a snake!”
Balor felt his knees shake, his mouth fell open, his heart skipped a beat, his eyes bristled. “I didn’t know that’s what caused it. You could have come to us, we would have taken care of you.”
“You could’ve asked.” Balian’s voice was as cold as his glare.
“I thought the other house was…it doesn’t matter,” Balor couldn’t look at him anymore. He looked at his feet and shook his head, “I’m sorry for all that, Balian. Truly, I am. Had we known, we would’ve done anything we could to help you, you know that. I thought that he…well, I didn’t know. You seemed to be doing well with it, from what I knew.”
“No one cares what you think or thought. You know, I would have killed you last. After Alden, so you knew what it felt like to watch your only son die as I have.”
“It wasn’t my fault! You can’t blame me for that. Your pride stopped you from coming to us for help. This isn’t you, Balian. Those aren’t the words of my brother.”
“Never call me that!”
“You are my brother! By the Rivers, you’ll always be my brother.” Balor’s fists clamped the spear. He was shaking with rage. A long breath cooled him, “Look, you can have the land you want if you put this behind us. The offlander is gone and frankly, the land was never worth making you my enemy. Had I known, I would have done this long ago.”
“You knew.”
“You can have it! Take it, work your portion, turn it for harvest. It’s still there, you’ll make your taxes and then some! I’ll help the offset, promise you me, with all my heart, brother.”
“Plow your charity. I don’t want my portion. I want all of it. And I will have it.”
Balor waved his fist, roaring across the rushing waters, “Over my dead body, you monster!”
Balian only smiled, “That was the idea.” His smile widened, “Tell me, did you ever tell your friend, the offlander, that you were tilling his land? No, I suppose not, or he would have stayed where he was while we beat you and Aurie like you both deserved.”
There were no words. Balor stumbled back. When Sadie died, it seemed like such a small thing to till up the hill until the house. Who would care, he had thought. But now he knew. They all knew. It wasn’t the offlander who had caused him to be exiled. He was going to be exiled eventually regardless; they were just waiting for a reason that would be enough to kill him. Because that’s what you do to a land thief in Talkro.
“All this time,” Balor said as his head filled with air, his ears muffling themselves. He felt nauseous. Thank the gods Alden wasn’t here to hear this. What sort of man was he? How could call himself a father, a brother, a son? His hand tightened on the spear and braced his head on it.
“Nothing to say? No loopholes to defend yourself with this time, I see. When we find a way to cross, we’re finishing what we started, offlander or no.” Balian lifted his nose to the air, “It already smells…” He brought his glare to Balor, “Sweeter.”
Balor met his glare with a tremble. There was no reasoning with him or anyone. He would move them and hope that Maud would find it in her heart to understand. His days as a farmer were over. His days as a good father were finished.
Balian’s eyes widened beneath smushed brows at something beyond him. Balor turned to see and drew in a breath at the sight. In the light of the morning sun, the silhouettes of Offla’s house and shack became connected by a line of marching shadows, high spears rising above them.
“I am sorry for all that I’ve done,” Balor looked to the sky, then dropped his head as he straightened. To Balian, he called, “Perhaps your chance will come sooner than you think. And perhaps you’ll do justice to me and me alone.”
The shadows seemed unending, filling the road going down the hill like a slow-moving worm with prickly spears and fluttering flags protruding from its back. A horseman’s silhouette crested the hill among them. They would reach his house soon. He should be there when they do. Without another word, he lifted the spear from sticking in the mud and made his way up the road, leaving Balian gaping on the other side of the stream.
As Balor walked and the blinding sunlight was covered by the hill, he saw that it was the Baron’s Men. At least a hundred of them, clad in red tabards with gold fleurs-des-lis and chainmail shirts, some with shields, some with bows on their backs, all with rimmed iron helmets. Hope gripped him at the sight of the Baron’s Captain, Gerard Solle, riding among them on his tall brown warhorse. For all but the offlander’s land being tilled, Balor had the law the Baron enforced on his side.
He may yet find a way to fix all of this.
