The damage to the field made Balor want to kick and shout and stomp. If he didn’t have Alden with him, he would have thrown himself to the ground and thrashed like a child.

  The horse had trampled through nearly every row from end to end of the field between his and Draka’s houses. Gerard’s men had even led their oxen driven cart across the field so they could pile those grotesque bodies—if you looked at them as a whole and not just their top halves—into it. And what was worse, they were taking their time and had told him that he could neither help nor begin tilling until the priests got there. He might be willing to convert to worshiping the Cathol God but he was less than impressed with how his followers seemed to take their sweet time on everything. Alcer was not that far away.

  Across the road was untouched. The rows were untrampled, there were no corpses, no oxen carts, no soldiers dragging their feet through it. He might not be able to replant the house side in time for the season, but the larger field, that ran along the stream for nearly half a kilometer until Draka’s forest, which encircled it, would grow as it should.

  “This is a hard lesson, Alden,” Balor said as he walked with Alden across row after row toward the forest at the far end. “Honestly, I think there’s a few lessons to be had from this. First,” he held up a thumb, “You can’t control when your crop doesn’t grow. You just do your best to prevent anything you can think of from stopping it. Same as life, I think. Second, your neighbors aren’t always going to be helpful with it. And certain ones…” He narrowed his eyes with a turn toward Draka’s house, “Might purposely destroy it.”

  “He saved our lives, Pa,” Alden frowned and shook his head at him. “They were trying to get in the house. He made them go after him.”

  “Well, that’s another lesson, isn’t it?” Balor quickened his step when the sun started burning through his shirt.

  It was hotter than usual for this time of year. Just a bit further and he could sit down in the shade.

  “Sometimes, the best thing means the worst thing at the same time. Life likes to make you choose between bad and worse. Draka saved our lives, but our field is destroyed and might have to wait until next season to be planted. It is a small price to pay,” he grinned at Alden’s eye roll, “but it is still a price.”

  The shade of the forest cooled his shoulders and neck. Balor was glad to find his favorite tree to sit at wasn’t far down the line of trees. Alden had gotten tired of using his spear as a walking stick and leaned it over his shoulder, following.

  “And the last one,” Balor stopped and turned to him, “Is a big one as you get older. Especially now.” He cracked a smile, “Just because she’s beautiful doesn’t mean she won’t eat your heart out and tear everything you love apart.”

  Alden chuckled. “Truth is truth.”

  “Truth is truth.”

  The boar exploded through Alden and under Balor’s leg. He didn’t see it. He barely felt the splash on his back or the shredding of his leg before realizing what had happened.

  His foot twirled through the air one way and he was thrown the other. He slammed into a tree, his head bending awkwardly and his shoulder cracking. The eruption of pain from what was left of his leg and across his body overwhelmed all of his senses.

  He couldn’t smell. He couldn’t taste the blood from where his teeth had been cracked from the impact. He couldn’t hear. All he saw was Alden.

  Alden’s torso had been thrown to beside the tree that Balor was thrown into. His eyes were blank, lifeless, staring at nothing. Staring at him.

  He was louder and higher pitched than ever before. His boy. His baby boy. His life yet to begin. He was gone in a blink. In a single second. No goodbye, no ‘I love you’, no chance to take his place. How could this happen?

  The boar slammed him into the tree. Its tusks dug deep into his chest and lifted him to slam again. The beast thrashed and dug at him with its hooves.

  Alden couldn’t be dead.

  No, he was awake.

  He’s just frozen in shock. He’ll blink out of it and get away.

  Balor’s spine bent around the tree. He clawed at the beast’s ears. He screamed. Everything was shaking back and forth, vibrating through his head and vision.

  This is a nightmare. A dream. Nothing more. His son’s lower half isn’t over there and the rest of him over here. No, that wasn’t real. This was all a dream. Wake up. Wake up.

  He fell down the tree and rocked sideways as the boar pulled back from him. It bit down on his other leg. One more tear into his flesh to add to the pain. It shook him by his leg into the air, tree to tree, and down across the hard and rocky ground. Balor’s screams became muffled by his own lungs. His face was becoming wet by his own son’s gore as he was whipped through it again and again.

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  This was not a dream. This was a nightmare.

  Alden is dead.

  Another charge of the boar sent him into the tree, jagged tusks impaling him again. It whipped its head to free itself with another tear of his bones and skin. The boar took a step back from him, red eyes beaming hungrily.

  “No more,” Balor begged. Everything was distant but the pain. The world was nothing to him. There was nothing. Only pain. “Please. No more.”

  The boar slammed its snout into him and bit down. Balor wailed.

  A steel spear slammed through the boar’s ribs, pinning it to the ground on the other side of Alden.

  Balor couldn’t look away from the beast. It was still. Glowing red eyes staring blankly. The spear looked almost silver sticking out of it. The cylinder at the end had the spikes out, more than half of it was through the boar.

  The boar’s eyes turned to him.

  “No. It can’t, no.”

  The boar’s hooves kicked bloody leaves in splashes of ichor. Its legs snapped and bent like arms to dig its hooves into the ground.

  It lifted itself, pulling the spear that had pierced all the way through with it. The beast’s legs snapped back into place and it straightened. It looked at him. Like a man would.

  “Impossible.”

  The monster charged.

  Blue light erupted as Draka slid between Balor and the creature. The demon jerked upward with a squeal, lifting the front hooves. Too close.

  Draka was on top of it with all the speed he could muster. He leapt for the spear, barely reaching it. Bracing with his legs on the side of the beast’s ribs opposite the spear, Draka pulled with all his might. He sent flash after flash of Holy Light at the creature, but he was too weak to destroy it. It only kept the monster disoriented.

  Each flash was dimmer and dimmer. Lesser and lesser. But the boar was kicking and spinning to get him off.

  Draka fell onto his back with his bloody spear in hand. The boar collapsed, its spine pulled out of its back. Draka had pulled the spear out like a lever. He was on his feet the moment he hit the ground.

  He swung the spear over his head and brought the spiked end down like a hammer. Swing after swing, Draka clubbed its head. A twitch and he pounded it again. Then, he threw himself to Balor’s side with a toss of the spear.

  “Lord God Almighty, grant your Holy Spirit through me and into Balor and Alden so they might live.”

  “No.”

  Draka gaped.

  No, that can’t be. What? No. He wouldn’t. What has happened that he is being denied? Did he defy the Lord somehow? Is it his sin that is preventing him from healing Balor? But he had confessed in the cleansing.

  “Holier than Holy, Blessed Father, Your Will be done. But if there is any way that you could heal Balor so he might return to his family, I beg for it to be so. If Alden might rise, as Your Will has commanded for others through me, I beg for it to be so.”

  Tears rolled down Draka’s cheeks and over trembling lips. He was shaking. It was too much, too quickly. The Lord wouldn’t allow the Enemy such a victory. But he knew that was a lie. God’s Will is beyond him. Beyond all. His Plan is greater than them. They were insignificant. But they were good people. They were turning to Him. They had taken Him into their hearts.

  “Draka,” Balor was barely calling above a whisper.

  Draka looked at him, spilling his want to scream and lash out in coughs and jerks. Droplets from his eyes were making his jaw cool.

  “Please, Lord, let it be so that he lives. His family…”

  “Take care…of my girl…s. They…need…you.”

  Draka felt Balor’s last breath leave him and his soul with it. God’s Will be done. Draka gaped, shaking.

  Silence. Unmoving green eyes, with nothing but redness and haze in them. Draka drew in a breath. His jaw locked. He waited. Balor’s chest will rise. It will fall. He will blink.

  Silence.

  Draka erupted. Jaw clenched, teeth gritting nearly to shattering, they spilled from him. Silence. He couldn't scream.

  He wanted to scream. He clawed at the air, his fingers and hands shaking, useless.

  He fell into the ground, one arm over Balor, the other over Alden. His heart was in a vice, ripping apart in his chest. In his soul.

  He clawed their bloody shirts into his fists, prostrating himself to God’s mercy. He wanted to break his vow of silence in a shrill plead to the heavens. In silence, he begged for forgiveness. Begged for his hands to heal them. Begged for Jesus to intercede on his behalf, convince the Almighty to be merciful.

  There was one last answer.

  “No.”

  Draka sank into Balor, unable to make a sound. Not even to say goodbye or that he was sorry. That he wasn't good enough to save them. He only clenched his eyes shut and felt the heat fade from Balor’s body while he listened with bated breath for one more beat of his heart that would never come. And then he cried.