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The village in the dark : IV

I went ahead. I could hear him walking behind me after I made the turn back, that and the faint sound of metal against metal. As we got closer to the village, the louder the sound got till it stopped suddenly. Hugin's words earlier rang in my head. "It's only a matter of time." I ran the rest of the way to the village, Hugin following me.

When we got to the gates, the fight was already done. Brother had Hrolleif on the ground with his blade right through his chest. He pulled it out, stained the snow with it then pointed it to Hrolleif's house.

"Is there anyone else wishing to challenge me! First son of Hrolleif, do you wish to draw your sword against me?"

No reply came from the house. Brother turned and pointed the sword at Hugin.

"And what about you, second son, do you wish to draw your blade?" Hugin started shaking where he stood and let out a guttural scream that lasted for far too long. He fell to the ground with tears streaming down his face. I made my way to my brother and helped him to the house.

I laid him next to the fire, went to search for some cloth, and get the medicine.

I opened his mouth and slid in the berry, "Crush and swallow it. It should hold off the pain for a while," I did as I said.

I took off his clothes and nearly vomited at the sight of the gash. He let out a weak laugh,

"Is it that bad?"

"You don't get to speak,"

It took me till the evening to take care of the wound. At the end, when I finished sewing to the bit. Most of my clothes and the floor were stained by his blood.

He looked at my expression and laughed, "I can assure you that it was worse on my side,"

I looked at my hand, then at him,

"Did you need to kill each other? Weren't the deaths that we suffered till now enough?"

He smiled and turned his eyes to the roof, "It was always our way, sister. He wouldn't have let me go even if I said no. You remember your scriptures but always forget our customs,"

"I thought you said the customs weren't useful in these times?"

He laughed, "Help me up to the bed. You need to start making preparations for the night early."

For all his stupidity, he was right. After helping him to the bed, it took me the rest of the night to get everything bared. While moving everything, I could hear the slow cries of Hrolleif's wife and the prayers being put as the ceremony was done for the body. For the rest of the night, I sat guard while my brother slept. The voices came and went, then came again. To my left, in the direction of Hrolleif's house, I could hear growing screams, then silence. Near the morning, before the voices went away with the dawn, I could've sworn I could hear Hugin's voice from the other side of our door.

--

In the morning, a knock still continued at the door. Slow and empty like the ones that we get in the night. I went to the living room; checked that it wasn't dark out before I started getting the barricades off the door.

When I opened it, I was met with Uncle Aelfled with a defeated look on his face. He gave me a weak smile,

"Freyja, I was afraid that you two didn't make it when it took you so long to open,"

"It's a heavy load to take care of alone, Uncle," I said,

"Of course, Is your brother still..." he trailed off his words,

"Yes. He's just sleeping,"

He let out a sigh of relief, "You patched up the wounds nicely, I assume?" I nodded,

"As much as I could,"

"You've grown into a fine woman Freyja," he said, "Shame it had to be through this,"

I shifted my gaze to the ground. "Quite rude of me, Uncle. Do you wish to come in? We don't have much food left ourselves, but I'm sure I can manage to cook up something for you,"

"No, no. It's quite alright. Here," he said and dug out a wool bag from his coat. "I brought you some herbs in case you ran out last night," "Thank you, Uncle,"

"Bring the logs and food that you have remaining, and we'll have a big fire tonight. Just the three of us,"

"What about Hrolleif" He paused for a moment,

"I'm sure you heard the screams last night," I silently nodded and his implication.

"Take care, Freyja. See you two tonight,"