by Melina Grace
Janen pushed his fear down until it nestled as a small hard ball in the pit of his stomach. He sized up another derk and advanced to meet it. This might be his first real battle, but he was determined it wouldn’t be his last.
He spared a glance around for Baylein. Janen had been at his house, organising a horse for the morrow’s ploughing, when the derk attack came. The two young men had grabbed swords and run out into the fray.
As the derks poured down the road, Janen found himself fighting through them toward Caris’ house. He saw so many of his friends and neighbours butchered, but he hadn’t seen what had happened to Baylein.
He, and all the boys, had been practising with the sword since they were old enough to pick up sticks. Though derks hadn’t attacked their village before, there was always the possibility it might happen one day.
Janen had excelled with the sword among his peers, especially the last couple of years, as he poured his anger at his situation into his fighting. He found the derks easier to battle than his sparring partners, but there were so many of them! And they didn’t qualm at coming at people from behind or in packs.
He almost stopped fighting in relief when he saw Caris on her rooftop calling to her parents.
A large claw raked through the air toward his face bringing him back to the reality of the danger around him. He raised his sword quickly, slicing the limb from a roaring derk. Janen could see Cheri and her parents running across the street toward Caris, and the derks pounding up the street toward them. He knew he would not make it in time, as he had not made it to help so many others.
Janen’s arm swung automatically as he spun, hacking into the derks surrounding him, his mind only half on the peril around him. He watched as the derks swarmed upon Caris’ family. One lunged at Caris’ mother and Caris loosed an arrow with lightning speed. It found its mark too late.
Janen focused his concentration on fighting as the pack around him thickened and derks began lunging at him from every side. He fought expertly but the derks were fast and this was the first time he had ever had to fight for his life, or to kill.
With a powerful swing, he severed the head from one derk, only to have it replaced by another. Janen knew he wouldn’t last much longer.
The anger he felt at the derks for destroying the people of his village fuelled his movements and lent strength to his lunges. He spun and swung with deathly speed, hacking into the derks around him, determined to take as many with him as he could.
He turned on one foot to stab a derk that had moved in behind him, but before he could strike, it was falling away with an arrow protruding from its eye. More fell around him and, with renewed clarity, Janen was able to fight his way to Caris and up the ladder onto the roof beside her. As she shot her last arrow, she began to scream, and Janen had to physically restrain her from flinging herself down the ladder to where the derks were fighting over the little that remained of her mum.
Janen hugged Caris to himself, terrified that she would break free of him. Eventually, she stopped struggling and collapsed in his arms sobbing. He held her, heart breaking at her grief, until The King’s Horse arrived.
Janen was mesmerised by their splendour. The riders held themselves with such nobility, and their horses were magnificent. A longing to be like The King’s Horse filled Janen. To be free of poverty, to be able to hold his head high, and ride for a noble purpose, seemed suddenly to be the only course worth following with his life.
His attention was broken from The King’s Horse by his concern for Caris. He noticed with relief that she was rallying. Reluctantly, he allowed her to pull away from him. Her green eyes, startling in their bright difference to all the other blue eyes in the village, sparkled. But, unlike the humour they usually evinced, it was tears that were catching the sunlight this time.
She didn’t stay to watch The King’s Horse, but disappeared behind her house. Janen wanted to go after her to make sure she was okay. Caris was the strongest woman he knew but no one from their town had ever faced anything like what had happened today. He considered following her but sensed she wanted some space.
As he climbed down from the roof, he noticed the leader of The King’s Horse giving directions. Reaching the bottom of the ladder, Janen stopped to watch him. He was of medium height and build, with short wavy blonde hair and a strong air of confidence. Janen could not peal his eyes from him. The sergeant saw clearly what needed to be done and gave directions with a quiet authority, showing obvious respect to those who deferred to him. He noticed Janen and smiled at him. Embarrassed, Janen looked away and began the gruesome job of retrieving Caris’ arrows.
Each arrow was firmly embedded through the eye of a derk. Derk skin was like leather, and though a firm shot with a strong arrow could pierce it, it didn’t slow them down too much. A good shot in the eye, however, was deadly, and Caris had found the mark every time.
She had fired the arrows deep into the derk’s heads, and Janen could only pull them out by putting one foot on the derk’s face and wiggling the arrows back and forward as he pulled. They came out with a disgusting sucking sound. Janen’s stomach churned. It would cost a fortune to replace these, he thought, as he forced himself to continue.
When Janen was finished retrieving them, he laid them on Caris’ doorstep, no longer able to resist the overpowering need to check on his family. He had four brothers at home to help protect the others, but he knew that if they hadn’t gained the roof quickly they wouldn’t have been enough. He was terrified of what he might discover, but could stall no longer. He began cutting across the paddocks to the western edge of the village, where his father and uncle’s small farms lay.
Janen sat on the back step of his family’s small home. He had told himself there was little chance they would have survived. The derk attack had come so fast, very few people had made it to safety. Even so, arriving back at his farm to find only blood splatters and a few body remains had been a shock. He had gone to his own farm first and finding no one had suspended his horror long enough to search his uncle’s farms, but they were all gone.
He returned to his house. Unable to think clearly, he sunk down onto the back step where he sat numbly staring at his mum’s torn and bloody dress lying in the grass. Grief filled him at the loss of those he loved so dearly.
He had been close to his mum. She was a remarkable woman who had married his father, for love, despite his poverty. Janen had not only loved her for the way she nurtured him, and all the men in her life, but he had also admired her for her grit and unwavering principles. She had given him hope that, despite being the third son of a poor family, he might someday rise above his circumstances.
He had been close to his father and brothers as well. They had done everything together. On a poor farm, the working hours were long, but they had enjoyed each other’s company and weathered many hardships together. He sobbed brokenly. He felt so empty and lost. The world seemed a much colder and colourless place without them.
Janen raked his hands through his hair and tried to dry his cheeks on his dirty sleeves. There was work to do. He didn’t know what the future would hold for any of the survivors and couldn’t focus his thoughts to consider it, but there were those who needed his help now. He walked back the short distance to the village to begin helping with the removal of derks.
As he worked alongside the villagers and King’s Horse, he became increasingly aware that there was no future for any of them in the village. Finally, he commented as much to one of The King’s Horse.
“No,” the young man replied, “Crispin will arrange an escort to take whoever of you who want to, back to another village or town.”
“Then why are we doing this?” Janen asked as he stood up to stretch his back.
“Do you want to do this?”
Janen looked around in consideration. It would be terrible to leave his home, but if he had to do so, then he couldn’t leave it looking like this. That was one victory the derks wouldn’t have. When he remembered th
e village where he had grown up, he wanted to remember it the way it had always been, not covered in rotting derk bodies.
“Yes,” he replied simply.
The young horseman nodded and replied, “Over the years we have found that people recover more healthily from their grief if they can clean up and say a proper farewell to their village before leaving, and there will be some who will not leave so we do this for them as well.”
“Thank you for your help,” said Janen.
The young man nodded sympathetically in reply.
Janen lost himself in the hot and gruesome job of moving derks. The sergeant came over at one point and sent the man Janen had been working with on an errand. Janen looked around for someone else to partner with; the derk’s bodies were too heavy to lift on his own. He was surprised when Crispin bent over and lifted the derk’s large head, waiting for Janen to pick up its legs.
As they worked, Janen had to concentrate on not staring at the sergeant. Everything about the man evoked a feeling of awe and admiration in Janen. He led with such authority, he was so confident and dignified, but he didn’t lord it over anyone and was always shouldering the most gruesome jobs himself. Janen thought he could follow him to the ends of the earth.
When they were finished, Janen began to head back to his place to clean up. Others had prepared the rocweeds for a fire. They would have a pyre for what was left of their families and friends, come dusk.
“Janen”.
Janen turned to see his father’s cousin behind him. He had noticed him earlier, helping to carry derks out of the other end of the village. They clasped each other’s arms firmly in shared sympathy.
“I have Clover out at my place. The derks didn’t make it up there before The King’s Horse arrived.”
“I’ll come collect her in the morning, if that’s alright?”
Darny nodded in reply and, turning his back on Janen, walked off in the direction of his farm. Janen watched him go. Darny and his wife had survived, but none of the village children had returned, and everyone knew they wouldn’t. Janen had often watched the delight parents took in their children and the love they lavished on them with a bittersweet wondering if he would ever know that joy. He couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to see your children die so young.
He walked slowly back toward his farm. He was glad to hear about Clover. His dad had leant the horse to Darny to plough their paddock. It wasn’t much of a horse, but she was obedient, hardworking, and surefooted, qualities his parents had always taught him were among the most important. Clover would, at least, be something for him to start over with. He wouldn’t have any money, the last of that having been used to stock the larder and buy supplies for the farm until the next harvest.
He would have clothes, some food, his bow and arrows, a sword, and now a horse. More than enough for a man to make his way in the world, he thought with determination. Though not enough to provide for a wife, and never enough to pay a bride price. Not that that had ever really been a possibility anyway. The thought came unbidden with a stab of pain in his chest, adding to the familiar ache he had carried for the last few years.
****
The soldiers had set up camp on the north side of the village in the Robin’s Field. The few surviving villagers had gathered the Rocweeds intended for the evening’s fire and created a pyre. In an area so barren, they never used wood for burning. It would not need to be a large fire, though close to six hundred had been slain, there was not much left of them.
Caris stood by her house, not sure what to do. Someone had cleared the area in front of her property; most of the activity was concentrated in the middle of the village now. Though she knew she should help, she could not bring herself to approach the people who knew how she had killed her mother.
Caris decided that when her fellow villagers left to find another village or city to settle in, she would not go with them. A surge of excitement welled up in her, hope that she had not felt in years lifted her. Guiltily she squashed it. How could she be happy when so many of her loved ones had just died? The thought could not be fully quenched, however, that though she would mourn, she might also find a life. It would be a difficult one, full of hardship, she was sure, but perhaps it would also be interesting, at the least, it would be different.
At her front door, Caris found her arrows. Someone had removed all of them from the dead derks before the soldiers had dragged them to a massive mound outside the village. Caris wondered that anyone had the stomach for such a gruesome job. Though such quality wood was precious, she had determined to find some more and make new arrows rather than retrieve them.
They had not been washed; there was so much work to be done, her benefactor would not have had the time to go to the creek. It must have been one of my sister’s husbands looking out for me for the sake of his wife.
With a stab of guilt, Caris realised she hadn’t even found out who among her sisters had survived. Still she could not bring herself to go amongst her people. She would go to the funeral, she decided; she knew she could not stay away from that no matter how much she wasn’t wanted there. It would be dark and she could hang back. Though she would never see any of them again, she wanted to know who had survived.
Caris picked up her arrows and headed down to the creek. When she arrived, she washed them numbly. Finishing, she sat down beside the water. Loss hit her ─ not the loss of her family, friends, and home; she wasn’t ready to face that yet, but the loss of this creek where she had spent so many of the best hours of her life.
This thin corridor of paradise, in an otherwise bare rocky landscape, had been the destination of many of the villagers whenever they had a spare afternoon, or if they just had to escape the heat or take a break. There were plenty of places along its shady course that people frequented, but this spot behind her field had always been her favourite.
She had spent so many happy hours as a child here with her sisters, and as they grew and moved on to their new responsibilities, she had enjoyed coming on her own to wade in the water and sit on the bank under the trees, watching the birds and listening to the merry tune of the creek.
Caris watched the water splashing over rocks now, and a deep longing filled her. A longing for her sisters to be sitting beside her, for her parents to be safe in their house, for everything to be as it was yesterday. The beauty of this spot normally came with a deep sense of peace, but now it brought only grief.
She sat quietly with tears creeping down her cheeks. Part of her wanted to be preparing for her departure, but in truth, there was not much for her to do, and she knew that when she was done, she would only be anxious to leave. Caris had determined that the morrow’s morning would be the best time to depart. She still hadn’t decided where she was going but she wanted to give the derks time to move away. She would go to the funeral tonight, sleep, and head out in the morning with a full day to begin her journey. There was no reason to put it off longer than that.
As the sun headed down on the horizon, it began to cool under the trees by the water. Caris said goodbye to the place that had given her so much joy in her life. She headed back to her house, mentally organising what provisions she would take. She was used to going on three-day hunts with her father and some of the other young people. Caris figured that the same supplies would do for a longer trek. It seemed surreal to her that she would not be returning this time.
The house should feel different, she mused as she gathered her things together.
She felt disconnected – from her home, the village, the people preparing the funeral... the horror that had filled her afternoon.
It just feels like mum and dad are out at one of my sister’s properties for the afternoon. It should feel emptier, a place I dread to enter alone. As Caris began packing her small leather hunting-bag, she garnered some comfort from her familiar surroundings. While she was here in her house it felt like Mum, Dad, and Cherri were still partially with her; briefly she let herself imagine that she was going hunt
ing and that her dad would be going with her.
When her daydream was ended and her hunting gear packed, she began to assemble the extra provisions she would be taking with her.
In her parents room, Caris found the small heavy leather purse that held her parent’s fortune. Stifling the surge of grief that threatened to overwhelm her, she pushed the silver under the rest of her gear refusing to think of how this money was supposed to have supported her parents for many years to come.
She headed to the kitchen. Caris would hunt for most of her food and would gather greens along her way, but she figured, she may as well take some hard bread, cheese, and biscuit to last as long as it would.
She tried to think if there was anything else she would need. She ran through a list of ideas, considered taking the hunting outfit and boots Cherri had hardly used, but as she planned to make some kind of life for herself among people, she decided she could buy what she needed when the time came. In the end, Caris opted for just a simple dress to wear when she stayed in towns or villages for more than a night.
Maybe a town would be a good place to settle; surely, she could find something meaningful to do in a place with so many people. The thought of trying to find her way in a city scared her, but a town was an exciting prospect. She wished she had Cherri’s ability with a needle. She had heard of people in towns who spent their entire time making clothes to sell, but she knew someone would need to be blind before they parted with money for something she had made.
Having finished her packing, Caris wandered idly around the house waiting for full dark. She knew the funeral fire would not be lit before that. She moved aimlessly from room to room absentmindedly straightening the furniture. Finally, she got the broom out and began to sweep the floors. She imagined her mum’s exclamation of surprise if she walked in the door now. Though never lazy, Caris had always preferred to do her work out of doors. “Oh Mum,” she sobbed crumpling to the floor. “I wanted to save you!” Caris pleaded for understanding.