This story takes place a few days after When the dust has settled, when the family has just returned to their home again.
I woke up with a gasp as the sound of a loud, thundering crash came down upon us in the middle of the night. In my usual dreams of nightly horrors I had ridden upon grey, lifeless fields covered in heavy rain and mist and ashes, and as I looked back, the men I led through this land of bitter death had their hands upon their throats. Gasping, coughing and trembling they were, their eyes filled with terror and the knowledge of their own inevitable doom, and I saw them falling off their horses one by one; their hearts and lungs giving up as they slowly drowned in the thick, unforgivable fog that might as well have been poison, and it likely was. Below me, Ealfin was struggling to step through the sticky mire upon which we suddenly found ourselves in. His hooves dug deep into the black tar-like substance, and each step only pulled him further down until he moved no more, and we were both stranded there upon this black sea of death, while my men were already dead or dying. The sky was veiled behind a drape of black clouds, and it was dark as early night, even though I knew it to be midday at the latest. No stars I saw through the covering clouds when I glanced up, no moon or light shined behind that black canvas now, there was nothing to see except a fiery red, glowing tower beyond the mountains upon the horizon, and the very sight of the tower itself filled me with a heart-gripping vision of utter dread and despair, more so than seeing my own men drown upon dry land and my horse forever locked and held in a black embrace of burning tar and ashes. With a sudden white flash of thunder coming from the skies, I then found myself in my bed, my face sweating and my hands were cold. I looked at the woman sleeping by my side, in our own bed, in our beloved home in which we had just returned to mere hours before, and she stirred beneath the blankets and glanced back up towards me with questioning eyes, as if she had been awakened herself by the very same dream I had. In my state of in-between sleep and waking, my mind fought hard for a second to convince me that I was indeed awake and the sound I heard had been real, not something out of a dream, and the loud neighing of horses and hooves galloping away finally pushed me over the edge of dreaming and fresh into the waking world.
- “Yllfa.”, I said. “Did you hear that?” I shook her shoulder, and startled she rose from the bed, sitting up beside me and holding the blanket wrapped over her chest.
- “Waelden?”, she responded with a whisper. “What is that, the stables?”
From across the house, the light and tender voice of a waking girl echoed, and it did not sound happy, more of a grieving complaint that her sleep had been disturbed.
- “Oooow. Quiet!” Ethel said, before her voice turned back into a light snore and heavy breathing. I looked back to Yllfa and put my feet beside the bed, both eager and nervous to learn what caused the noises that woke us.
- “I don’t know. I’ll go up and look, you stay here. Perhaps it was only a fox or other predator agitating the horses.” I told Yllfa reassuringly, even though I knew her wolf-heart wouldn’t permit her to sit idly by in a wondering moment like this. With a huff she swung her legs out of bed and walked behind me for a moment, and then she turned her steps towards the doorway.
- “I’m coming too… Ethel may be awake.”
I gave my beloved woman a swift nod, as I looked out the bedroom window. It was dark, and my eyes still adjusting to the somber darkness of our room. The outside was dark as well, but there was a strange flickering light, much like that of a bright burning lantern, coming from the side of the house that I couldn’t see from here, and it lit up the stables. Suddenly I registered a large shadow passing by outside, the shape of a man and not a beast, and at that sight my heart began to race, and my breath quickened. I then realized that I could smell something burning, for there was a taste and smell of smoke and fire in the air, though I knew not from where. I raised my voice to warn Yllfa, right as she had passed through the door. My tongue struggled for just a moment to find the words, and I heard my own voice being filled with both anger and terror.
- “What the… Yllfa!”, I screamed. “Wake Ethel, quickly! There’s someone out there!”
I rushed out to the main room, and Yllfa had already reached Ethel’s room, and was trying to wake her. I looked around for anything I could use, for in my state of waking terror and confusion, combined with the dark house not lit up by candles and the hearth, I had forgotten where my knives were hidden; those very knives that I had placed in easily found spots after the dunlending had visited us and nearly killed me with his own blades of poison. Most of my weapons and armor were outside still, safely tucked away upon a covered cart behind the house. I shouted in anger at my own stupidity for leaving such outside, and at my inability to remember where I had hidden my deadly knives and seaxes, and that I had two of my old spears and a shield hanging upon the wall didn’t seem to cross my mind at all. It was then I spotted the dwarven-made bearded axe standing near the fireplace. Its handle was long and its head shining like silver even in the dark of night. I picked it up, and I noticed Yllfa and Ethel coming out of her room. I saw our two cats, Kitta the old house resident, and Rags, my own cat that followed us to our new home, cuddled down under a bench together. Their eyes terrified and their tails fluffed up to three times their size. Herne, our dog that had finally been named by Ethel just a few days before, had Ethel’s blanket in his mouth as if he had tried to wake her already by dragging it off her. He dropped the blanket and started to bark loudly towards the door. My little girl was draped in her worn and hastily repaired nightgown, perhaps still a few sizes too large for her, but it was her mother’s and she loved sleeping in it. Ethel gasped as her eyes caught hold of the front door and the windows beside it, where smoke came billowing in through the gaps. The house was burning.
- “Yllfa, Ethel! Get your weapons. We have to get out, now!”, I screamed to them with as much authority I could muster. I was no stranger to danger and terror, having seen men fall beside me in battle and nearly being slain myself many times, but fighting a fire from inside a burning house is a battle unlike any other, and one that is doomed to fail. We had to escape quickly. Yllfa rushed to the bedroom again, and took down her family sword from the wall, and I had forgotten we had that too. Ethel quickly went back to pick up her treasured bow and quiver, her boar-slaying gift from Elfmar of Faldham, and as she came back, she stared at the building smoke.
- “Mama… papa… the house… it’s on fire.” was all she could get on her tongue, an obvious response to terror and stress, not unlike my own. Yllfa held her composure and her eyes glowed nearly orange like a wolf’s in the dim light, as she kept Ethel close to her. Outside the window I could see flames rising along the walls, and the only way out was through the front door. I rushed towards it with my shoulder first, trying to break it open as quickly as possible. Even if there were flames outside, we could hopefully escape that way through the large doorway if we did so quickly. The door resisted, and I slammed my shoulder into it again. It wouldn’t budge more than an inch. I put the axe between the door and the gap to pry it open, and then I saw one of our carts burning there. More and more smoke filled the room, and it was becoming harder and harder to breathe. I coughed and kept forcing the door with shoulder and axe to no avail, for it was completely blocked by the large cart’s weight, and no might of mine or the others combined would open it now, even though I kept trying.
- “Smash a window, Yllfa! There are men out there, so watch out!” I shouted to the women, who had already begun to think straighter than I did, and Yllfa had quickly ripped wide strips of cloth and soaked them in the water bucket, and tied them around their heads. She gave one to me, and I tied it around my face as well, while she and Ethel threw a chair against the small window. The old, brittle glass between the wooden frame shattered easily with a loud crash and Yllfa used the remains of the now ruined chair to remove any sharp shards left behind. I looked up, only to see the inside of our roof covered with smoke. We had precious little time now... we had to get out.
A whistling arrow suddenly passed by Yllfa through the open window, and a loud “thunk” was heard as it embedded itself in the wall. I looked at it in despair, and from outside I heard a voice, and a laughter… a gruff, menacing voice that filled the air through the crackling of a building fire that would soon grow large enough to take hold of the thatched roof.
- “Did I hit anything, you old gafr?! Perhaps that dihiryn, that little rascal of yours?!”
The man’s voice turned into a thundering laugh, and he kept firing crude, barbed arrows through the window, and I saw Yllfa and Ethel hide beneath it. Yllfa looked up to me, and her wolf-eyes were full of both hatred for the man outside and determination for us all to survive, while mine were likely more glowing with true fear for my family’s life, and the rising knowledge that we might all burn inside under the man’s watchful bow and arrows, unable to get out without being shot to death. Which death is worse, I thought? Fire… no doubt. My daughter wouldn’t burn alive like this, nor would my woman, or myself. Arrows or no, we had to get out. I screamed at them to come towards me, and further into Ethel’s room where the fire had not yet found its way. Yllfa picked up the cats in her arms, and they clawed badly at her out of stress and of fear; her arms soon awfully scratched, itching and bleeding, but she held onto them like they were her children. Ethel dragged a struggling and barking Herne across the floor, before the dog soon collapsed from his own stress and anguish, and the smoke that had begun to fill the room more and more.
- “Quickly Ethel, hold on to your bow… we may well need your arrows for that man outside.”, Yllfa says. Her voice is muffled through the water-soaked cloth, and Ethel is trembling with the bow in her hand, though her own determination is growing, and her hands become steady in that single moment, as she steels herself. I knew she wouldn’t miss this time, if it came down to that. She’d make the shot. I pull down the old shield from the wall, and as we make our way into Ethel’s room, crawling and crouching to stay as low as possible, the fire has grown to engulf the roof. The menacing laughter outside grows ever louder and my anger rises with it, and I want nothing more than to get out of here and rip out his black heart out of his chest with my bare hands and feed it to himself and his own wicked dogs; but the laughter quickly stops, and I hear a curse being screamed instead, as the galloping of many thundering hooves are getting closer, and the man’s voice grows silent and seems to disappear into the night.
I breathe as little and as shallow as I can to keep my lungs free from smoke, and I bid the women to do the same and that they stay on the floor where the air is still nearly breathable, while I take my dwarf-axe to the window frame of Ethel’s room, for the frame is small, and not large enough for us all to crawl out of, least of all Yllfa and myself. I keep hacking away at it... the tremors of impact shook my arm as the axe’s head cleaves and crushes the old wood with ease; shards of glass are flying everywhere with my first blows, and wooden splinters do the same hereafter, and all the time I hold my shield as protection, should more arrows fly through and seek out our soft flesh, now mostly covered in a mixture of soot and sweat, and fearfully knowing the heat of the fire nearby. This window is our only chance to survive, our only way out. From the main room I hear a loud roar and a crashing sound as the thatched roof is beginning to collapse, and much of it falls down in pieces and spreads its fire inside the main room, though it also serves to put a few flames out with the impact, and leaving glowing embers behind on the floor. Our time is growing shorter and shorter, the smoke is growing ever darker and heavier, and our breaths the same as our lungs are beginning to fill with black, poisonous smoke, making us all coughing and gasping for air. The smoke keeps pouring into the room and up towards the roof, and still I keep hacking, smashing, destroying the window frame and the wood around it with all my strength to make it large enough, all while Ethel holds her bow ready behind me should I need to move aside for her to shoot. A voice from outside startles me for a brief second, until I see a man clad in green and brown fast approaching, and his steel helmet is glowing red in the light of the flaming fire. From around the house, the voices of many men rise as they shout orders about fetching water from the well, and use everything they have to stop the fire, if possible.
- “Is there anybody still in there?!”, the man closest to us shouts, and he rushes forth towards the window I’ve just been destroying, and the sound had likely reached his ears. The man is large and broad of shoulder, and he wears a chainmail under the green cloth that bears no visible mark, though still a common garment for a rider of Rohan to wear. My eyes wander to Ethel, my daughter, the very light of my life. She’s sitting close to Yllfa and the animals, her eyes terrified and shocked, yet determined and ready with the bow should she need to use it, though her breath is short and coughing, and her sweet, pretty face sooty and grey, from what I see over the cloth covering her mouth.
- “Aye, three of us! Get my daughter out, and fast!”, I scream back to the man, and I drop everything I’m holding to pull Ethel towards me, and with no effort I lift my daughter up to the window, and she feels like nothing heavier than feathers in my arms as I practically throw her out of there, without her protesting or saying anything, while still holding the bow and arrows in her hand. I just want her out of here, no matter the cost, and I see the man taking Ethel in his arms and swiftly carries her away from the burning inferno that is our home, and my only thought is one of hope then, that my daughter will be saved by good and righteous men, and that I had not thrown her into the evil hands of the enemy. Another man comes right after the first, he wears a thick helmet made of leather and his long, golden beard eases my thoughts as I turn to Yllfa, to see her out safely as well. She looks at me with her determined wolf-eyes, that stubborn, piercing gaze that I have grown to love so much, as she clearly wants me out first, but this time she will not win this stupid battle of wills in the midst of a burning inferno, and I pull her towards the window, just like I did with Ethel. Still she holds the cats, both now shocked and terrified and lying still as she hands them to the man outside, and she crawls out of the window as I lift and hold our dog Herne to yet another ready and able man that comes right after the second. I pick up the axe and crawl out as well, so my dear she-wolf will not lose sight of me, nor I of her. We stay together as a family, even in the face of fire and death - as I had promised Eda just a few days ago. When I know for certain we are all safely outside, men, women and beasts, I walk together with Yllfa towards Ethel and the large, kind man of Rohan who comforts her, and I look back for a second to witness a collapsed roof, I hear the crackling of a fire still burning, and I hear the sound of water being splashed around the house by eager and willing men, bound by oaths and honor to protect the men of the Mark, and all that we love.
Behind me, I see our home, our livelihood, our dreams of the future… swallowed in a deadly dance of fire and smoke.
The story continues here, as told by Yllfa: The meaning of Home.
