Burning with Life

The fireplace burned with life in the back corner of their house. Lance had been staring at it for hours, still sore and rubbing the bruises on his left arm, the one which remained tied to the chair holding him captive. “I’m going to find a bounty so I have the money to buy your damned supper,” his mother said to him, before slamming the door on her way out. Her savings of coins glimmered in the firelight across the table.

Lance reached over, but she had tied the back legs of the chair to the wall too.Even at thirteen, he saw the irony that she spent her time helping people with the sword on her back while not doing any kindnesses for him. “It’s dangerous outside,” she often lectured. “I don’t ever want to see you out there because you might get hurt.”Lance returned to rubbing his bruises.

He reached for the knots around his other arm and fiddled with them, but that’s when she burst into the house. She dropped a dead sheep from her shoulders onto the floor. He hid his loose arm as though it were still tied down. She’d already seen him move, though. “You got further today.” His mother tossed a fresh sack of coins on the table, then sheathed an unstained sword. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen blood on it. “Let me fix that for you.”

She walked around the table and loosened all of his bonds, keeping her hand on top of the hilt to her dagger. He didn’t understand that. “Can I go outside and play, mommy?” But he already knew the answer.

“No.”

Lance rubbed his wrists where the ropes burned him. He waited for her to step away so he could stand from his chair and stretch his legs. “I want to play with my friends.”

“You don’t have any.”

He helped her empty the sheep’s intestines in preparation for dinner.She shoved him aside when the timing of his movements collided with hers, even though he was only trying to help.He quit helping when she shoved him so hard that he fell, and sat on his favorite chair dangling his feet to pass the time.

*

“I killed a big monster today,” she said during dinner. “Used my sword to cut its head clean off.”

“Why isn’t there any blood on the sword?”

“I told you to stop asking me questions!” She reached for her dagger – she planned to hit him with the hilt – but he pulled his hands away and protected them under the table until her urge passed.She left the dagger on the table just in case. “It was rampaging through the village and killed two people with its big claws.”

*

Lance woke to the sound of the door wobbling against the wind. He remained still and silent, tied to his chair, for several minutes, listening for the sounds of his mother’s snoring. He twisted his neck to pop the cracks, then resumed what he learned earlier in the day, and loosened the ties on his wrists. The fireplace was still burning and her sword was standing upright beside it.His mother was asleep in the next room, the bedroom door opened in case he made too much noise.

Lance stood, certain not to wake her as he tiptoed around the creaks in the floor, all the way to the front door. He unlatched the lock and peeked outside. A large rock was standing beside the front door. He slipped outside and used that rock to keep the door shut and muted, using one hand to hold the door and the other to move the rock in place.

The chill whistled through his ragged shirt and pants. His learned fearfulness instructed him to flee to the safety inside his house, but his curious feet followed the road instead. Several villagers were gathered around a firepit nearby, talking, drinking, and spitting. He walked up to the fire to warm his hands and bare feet.

“Where did you come from, boy?” asked a young man through a thick beard. Lance turned to look, but could not see beyond the light of the firepit, so he pointed in the general direction of his house.“Your mother saved us, kid. Came right through here on horseback and chased away another crazy woman pilfering the coins off a corpse. The woman, despite the sword in her hand, ran off and fled towards the shepherd’s home. Your mother took off after her.” The man turned to his comrades and asked, “Did she ever find that crazy woman like she said she was going to?”

“Speak nicely of Rita,” said an elderly man to defend ‘the crazy woman’.He had a trimmed, gray beard and a shaved head. “She doesn’t belong anywhere, just like the rest of us, since The Cataclysm introduced werewolves, ghosts, and golems to the world. I’d rather she be a known crook than an unknown horror.”

“You’re only defending her because you slept with her,” a third, younger man retorted.

“I didn’t know who she was,” the old man resigned. “It took a few months before she bared steel on me. Besides, that was over ten years ago.”

The young man eyed Lance. “Hey, boy.Where did you get all those bruises?”

Lance turned and ran back home. If his mother discovered that someone knew about the hurts she gave him, she would tie him down with twice as much rope! He pressed one hand to his door and kicked the rock aside. He reached one leg into the house first, then the other, twice as certain not to make a noise. His mother’s snores deafened the sound of burning logs in their fireplace. Her dagger lay atop the mantel.

He walked over and grabbed it, then snuck into the bedroom. He unsheathed the dagger and pressed the steel against her neck. Her eyes opened, but she did not panic. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Adopting the family business,” he said. Lance pressed harder into her neck and pulled. “I’m slaying a monster.”

Lance burst through his front door, blood dripping from his arms and ran back toward the firepit in the middle of the village. Blood left a trail leading all the way back to his house.“What the hell happened, boy?” asked the youngest man. But Lance did not answer.

Instead, he ran into the bald, elderly man’s arms, weeping, and asked, “Can you help me, dad?”