Even as a young boy, working the fields with his father or helping his mother cook, he'd seen death. Lambs that did not survive a hard birthing. Sheep or hens slaughtered for feast days. He had seen death. But the first person he'd ever killed…
Most likely, the raiders from the Ganathwood had waited outside the village most of the night. They'd waited until the eastern sky was just light enough to cast the village in a muted glow. The first shepherds had just been walking bleary-eyed out of their homes to tend the fields when the first raiders slew the guards and threw the gates open wide. Lewan didn't know how or when his father had been killed. He hadn't seen the body until it was all over and the raiders were dragging him away.
The sound of his home's front door being kicked in and his mother shrieking had woken him instantly. Outside, the flocks were bleating.
He'd sat up on his straw mattress and started to call out for his mother, but hearing the raucous voices, the main room's table being thrown aside, and his mother continued screaming had filled him with a sensation he'd never known before: sheer terror. As a small child, Lewan had been afraid of the dark, and thunderstorms had often sent him scurrying to the pallet his parents shared in the main room. But this was something entirely new. His hearing and vision sharpened, but his heart was pounding so hard he could feel his temples pulsing. He felt cold all over, like he'd been rolled in snow.
His mother's screams intensified, but amidst the shrieks Lewan had heard the creaking of the ladder that led to his loft. Someone was coming up. His breath coming in ragged sobs, Lewan rose. Taking steps that were far too slow-he'd barely been able to get his feet to move at all-he staggered to the far corner, where their croft's roof almost touched the floor and the shadows were deep and dark. A pile of dirty clothing and his heavy winter blanket in need of mending lay there. He'd crawled under them and waited.
The hatch on the floor next to the far wall slammed up. A wild-haired, unshaven man thrust his head and arm through the opening. That hand held a knife. He looked around- looked right where Lewan lay curled in the shadows-then called down, "Empty! Just a loft. My turn. Now you hold her!" And he'd leaped down, leaving the hatch open.
His mother's voice rose to one long, agonized shriek, then broke into quiet sobbing. With the hatch still open, Lewan could hear at least two men chuckling and another breathing heavily. How long it went on, Lewan could never remember, but in his nightmares of the following years, those sounds went on and on and on, mingling with terrified screams and angry shouts from outside.
"Done?" a man's voice said, then, "Finish her. We'll start the roof."
Lewan heard the man leave, heard his mother cry out once more, a short burst of air, almost as if she'd fallen and had the wind knocked out of her. Then more footsteps, and the only sounds were those from outside the house.
Peeking from beneath the blanket, Lewan had been unable to look away from the open hatch, sure that at any moment the wild-haired man would return. And that's where he was looking when he saw the first ember fall. He gasped and looked up. A large area of the thatch was black, and little specks within the black were glowing like orange stars.
We'11 start the roof. The men had torched the thatch!
Still shaking, Lewan crawled out from under the blankets and made his way to the hatch. More sparks were falling. One lit on the back of his hand, and the sudden pain almost broke his shock and sent him into full panic. He shook it off and scrambled the rest of the way. He peeked over the edge.
The croft's main room was in shambles, their table and water basins shattered, the door cracked almost in half and hanging on by one hinge. His mother sprawled on the dirt floor, her homespun nightshift torn up the middle, leaving her nakedness exposed. She lay in a dark puddle that Lewan first thought was the blanket she shared with his father, but then he saw it had the gleam of wetness. Thickest around her head, it formed a sickly mud on the floor, but where it had soaked into her shift, even in the dim light of predawn, Lewan had seen it was red. And worst of all, the dark blotch under her chin that had seemed like a shadow at first glance… his eyes seemed drawn to it, and he saw that his mother's throat had been cut open from just under her left ear to her collarbone.
"Mother!" Lewan had called, then rushed down. In his haste, he'd slipped and fallen, landing in the mud surrounding his mother. A bit of it splashed onto his face.
Closer to her, he could see the lifeblood trickling out of her, a new wave with each beat of her heart.
"Mother…"
She'd turned her head at the sound of his voice. The blood pulsing out of her neck splattered her cheek. Her jaw hung slack, the tip of her tongue protruding between her lips, the slightest hint of her teeth showing. She swallowed and tried to speak, but all that came out was a horrid groan.
That had snapped some semblance of thought back into Lewan. He remembered his father slaughtering the sheep. One careful swipe across the throat, and the sheep would bleed out in moments.
He rushed to his mother on his hands and knees. The mud squished between his fingers. He grabbed a fistful of her ruined shift and pressed it to the wound.
"Mother, make it stop!" he said, and it was then that the tears had begun to fall. "Make-it-stop-make-it-stop-make-it-stop!"
The fire was growing. Lewan could hear the great roar and crackle of the flames consuming the roof, and large chunks of burning thatch began to fall in his loft: Sparks and cinders rained down the open hatch, and the loud pops all around told him that the fire was catching in the timber itself.
"Mother, we have to get out. Mother!"
She was still trying to speak, making that terrible wet moaning sound. One hand, shaking like an old woman's, rose to reach for him, but fell halfway.
Smoke was filling the room, and the sound of thatch falling in the loft overhead was a constant patter.
"We must leave, Mother!"
Lewan let go of his mother's shift. It was completely saturated with blood. He stood, grabbed one of her wrists, and pulled. She didn't budge. He pulled harder, and his feet slipped in the mud. He came down hard on his bottom and sobbed.
"Mother, please get up."
He scrubbed away the tears, and when he looked down at her again, she was watching him. She blinked once, hard, then swallowed and said, "Lew! Don't… let… me… bur… burn!"
She coughed, and the blood flowing from her neck spurted out like a fountain.
His mother tried to speak more, but all that came out was a frantic whisper. Her hand, twisted clawlike, reached out for him, missed, and raked through the bloody muck.
Lewan grabbed her wrist and tried again. Still she didn't move. Her skin felt chilled, but the room was growing hotter with each breath. Lewan coughed. His eyes were starting to sting and well with tears as smoke filled the room.
"Burn his mother croaked. "Lew! No… burrrr-!"
A large hunk of thatch, blackened and filled with tongues of flame, hit the floor at the bottom of the ladder. The fire began to lick at the wooden ladder, blackening it. More cinders followed, and the sound of the fire overhead became deafening.
Covered in bloody grime, tears running down his cheeks, Lewan stood and stumbled over to the hearth. The black kettle his mother used to prepare their meals still hung over the gray coals. Lewan grabbed the handle and lifted it off the hook. It was heavy. Twelve years old, he was small for his age, and the kettle was made of thick iron. It probably weighed almost a third of what he did.
A fit of coughing grabbed him, and his vision clouded over. The tears flooding his eyes were as much from the smoke in the air as his fear and grief.