A buzzard’s cry hung over the field. Closer by, a dog barked once—an abrupt warning—and fell silent. From the forest came a dull crash, as distant as it was unexpected. Something heavy moved in the thicket. The wind shifted, bringing a cooler breath, the smell of damp leaf-mold—and something else he couldn’t name. The sun still beat down.

  When he lifted his head, he saw her on the boundary ridge. She walked along the edge of the field, careful not to step into a molehill. Golden hair gleamed like strands of freshly melted metal. A simple dress; the wind caught at its hem and teased the cloth as if to shake the road dust loose. Dara. She carried a clay vessel. The surface of the water held the sky.

  “Another day of heat. Better have a drink.”

  He set down the sickle and straightened to stretch sore muscles. The vessel was cool, moisture beading on his fingers. He took a pull. Water ran into him like life, spreading through his throat.

  “You’re making good headway—not much idling,” she said, nodding at the straight swath they’d carved through the grain. A bead of sweat shone on her cheek. He drew in the scent of dust, grass—and that other thing he always sensed around her, something no word would cover.

  “That’s our lot. You’ve got your hands full too.”

  She put her hands on her hips. Her nails were dark with earth, her skin a little reddened by the sun. She smiled at him with one corner of her mouth.

  “I can’t sit at home while the whole village works up to the elbows. They watch me anyway, being the headman’s daughter.”

  “That sounds like comfort, not trouble.”

  “Comfort is trouble when people are watching. I don’t want the village saying I’m a layabout.”

  “Is it really so important what they say?”

  “It is. They know me better than I’d like. You, too. There aren’t many of us here.”

  Her gaze slid over his arms and hands. He felt the small tremor of tired muscles reminding him they were there. His heart beat faster, but more steadily than usual, as if someone had set a measure to it.

  “I saw you by the forge yesterday,” she said. “You stopped at the axes.”

  “Just looking.”

  “Only that?”

  “For now.”

  The corner of her mouth twitched. A dragonfly settled on the ridge. For a moment it hung there, motionless, its wings beating so fast they turned transparent.

  “It’s foolish to dream of steel toys when there’s cutting to be done.”

  “You cut with steel,” he said, face blank. He wasn’t wrong. Dara didn’t much like it when he answered that way.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow. Your father and brother will want a drink too.”

  She turned, gathered her skirt so it wouldn’t snag on the sharp stalks, took a few steps, and glanced back over her shoulder. She gave him a slight, gentle smile. He took up the sickle again.

  When she slipped out of sight beyond the grain, he went back to work. His movements flowed faster now; his body found its old rhythm, but there was something new in it—harder. The blade sang softly through the heads of wheat. Sweat threaded down his temples and along his back. The world narrowed to the line before him, to his breath, to the steady, unrelenting cut.

  Birds lifted over the forest. A flock of ravens burst from the trees as if someone had flushed them with a stick. They wheeled above the crowns and fell silent. Even the buzzard that had been calling a moment ago had gone.

  Aloys came closer and looked over the neat swaths they had carved. He shaded his eyes with a hand against the sun and gave a short nod. Algar didn’t seek his gaze; he needed no praise. He knew what he was doing. Each movement carried its own purpose.

  Time drew out into a long thread. His shoulders burned, but the fatigue was a good kind. With every swing the sickle felt lighter. Now and then the blade snagged on something harder—a dry stem, a molehill, a stone you could feel in your bones. His hand tightened, the motion righted itself, and the rhythm held.

  Algar paused, bracing his hands on his knees. Sweat ran down his face, plastering his hair to his brow. The stand that had rippled under the sun that morning now lay in even bands. Over the forest, clouds were gathering—thick and black as tar.

  “Algar!” His father’s voice cut through the wind.

  He looked up. From the road Ivo was coming in, perched on a wagon that creaked under the load of empty baskets. The horse snorted uneasily, sensing the change in the air.

  “Just in time,” Semaj said, laying his sickle down and wiping his hands on his trousers.

  Algar swore under his breath when he saw he’d fallen a few paces behind. There was no catching his brother now.

  “It’ll pour any moment, sure enough. Load fast and back to the cottage!” Ivo jumped from the wagon. He was barrel-chested and broad in the shoulders, his hair gone completely white. His hands looked as if they could snap a plank with a twist.

  The first drop struck Algar on the nose. He glanced up. Lightning split the sky, and the wind chased the dust into whirlwinds. A good while passed between flash and thunder, though.

  “Come on, quick now!” his father urged, passing up sheaves.

  Their hands found the rhythm on their own. Grab, lift, heave. The weight bit into their shoulders, but no one slowed. A bolt struck somewhere beyond the forest, loud enough that the horse snorted and tucked its head between its shoulders.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  As the last basket landed on the wagon, the rain came down all at once. Drops hammered earth and leaves, beating the dust to mud. The air filled with the heavy smell of wet straw.

  “To the house!” Aloys waved them on and set off in the lead.

  They ran along the boundary, the ground slickening beneath their feet. Shirts clung to their backs, cold water worming down their collars. More lightning cracked above, washing the world in white for a heartbeat at a time.

  The hearth kept the cottage warm. Steam rose from their soaked shirts, and damp settled on the beams. Rain drummed on the roof.

  Mother moved between the bench and the fire. Shirts and trousers hung from a line by the chimney; beneath it sat a bowl of hot water. Claw lay under the table with his head on his paws, sniffing.

  “Change—now. We’ve no need of sickness,” Dior said; she already had dry clothes laid out.

  Aloys drew thin beer from the keg, a mug apiece. The head barely reached a finger. He set the mugs before his sons, then his own. A loaf lay on the board, with a few slices of salt pork and a bowl of onions beside it.

  Semaj sat and at once took the biggest hunk. He chewed fast, as if trying to make up the bit of day left outside the door. His eyes kept straying to the clothes drying by the fire.

  “In a hurry for the tavern already?” his father asked over the rim of his mug.

  “No use sitting here. There may be news.”

  “Mind you keep out of trouble.”

  “I’ll be back quick.”

  Charlotte pushed a little basket up to the table. She had arranged the apples so the red ones were on top and the green along the sides. She made a pleased face.

  “I picked them at noon. The prettiest ones.”

  Aloys nodded. He took one, lifted it, turned it to the light. He bit in; the crunch echoed through the room. He handed his daughter another piece and drew her close.

  “Beautiful, my girl. You worked well today.”

  Algar ate more slowly than usual. The warmth in his chest was giving way to the tiredness that came in waves. He listened to the patter of rain and the crack of the fire. Now and then the wind shouldered the door, pushing through the cracks with the smell of mud and grass.

  Semaj was already pulling a dry shirt over his head. He looked at each of them in turn, paused a heartbeat on his brother, and raised an eyebrow. Algar didn’t move. The elder gave a brief nod and opened the door. A handful of raindrops blew in.

  “Don’t sit there till dawn.”

  “I won’t.”

  The door closed. For a while there was only the rain and the far rattle of water running through the gutter.

  Charlotte settled herself more comfortably on the pallet and tugged at her father’s sleeve.

  “A story, Father! One with a knight. And a princess.”

  “We had a princess yesterday.”

  “Today it’ll be another. There are lots of princesses in the world.”

  Aloys chuckled and shifted on the bench so she could see him well.

  “I’ll tell you of Sir Renart. A strange knight he was. Lacked no courage, but he swung a flagon more often than a sword. Of his armor only a battered helm remained; the rest was leather and patches.”

  “He isn’t a knight if he drinks and has no armor,” Charlotte said, wrinkling her nose, stern as a judge.

  “A knight’s not just tin. Renart had a heart. And wits—better than steel, I’d wager.”

  Mother sat closer to the fire, holding her hands above the flame so her fingers would dry. A mouse rustled in the corner. Claw lifted his head and gave a single warning bark.

  Aloys went on: how Renart lost his way in the woods, came upon a cottage with only one window lit, and how his flagon saved his hide when he had no sword. The words rolled along gently, soft and familiar. Drowsiness crept into the room. The logs in the hearth settled and cracked softly, as if breathing.

  The howl came suddenly—long and low, carrying in a wide arc over the fields. A second followed, higher, like an answer. A third, short and cut off.

  Aloys fell silent. Charlotte sat up. Mother’s gaze went to the window. The firelight flickered.

  Claw rose from under the table and padded to the window. His ears pricked; the hackles stood along his back.

  “Check the byre or the wolves will get the cattle,” Mother said, not taking her eyes off the door, impatience taut in her voice.

  “Leave it,” Aloys said. “Beasts fear to come into the village.”

  “Go, I tell you, or I won’t sleep.”

  Aloys slid his feet into his boots and swore under his breath. He paused at the door and looked at them all. Charlotte had curled into a ball with the blanket under her chin. Claw paced, his claws rasping on the boards.

  The door swung open and let in the smell of wet earth. The rain no longer poured; it dripped steadily from the eaves. Night was thick. The yard lay in half-light, darker patches marking the path to the byre.

  Aloys strode past the hayrick. The threshold board of the byre creaked under his boot. The bar was still in place. The cows stood warm, chewing placidly. One tossed its head and a chain rattled.

  The howl came again, from another quarter this time. Perhaps the pack was circling the forest’s edge, testing where the world of men ended. Somewhere a branch snapped.

  Aloys stopped between the byre and the fence. His eyes had learned the dark, but there was only gray and black. The forest looked like a wall from which nothing came and into which nothing went. He listened a moment. He heard his own breath, the water dripping from the roof, the faint patter of mice.

  “Peace, then. Likely the pack ran into a bear,” he announced as he stepped back into the room.

  Claw circled him, lay down, but didn’t lower his ears. He was still listening.

  Algar stared into the flame. The fire broke into small yellow patches that died and were born again. The howl still moved across the fields in his ears like a shadow. From the corner of his eye he caught the coal-glow reflected in Claw’s eye. The dog was not asleep.

  Aloys tucked the blanket around his daughter and drew the bench closer to the hearth. The house grew quieter. The rain thinned to a whisper. The wind shifted and brought, instead of mud, the scent of a wet forest.

  “She was worn out already. You’d best sleep too, son.”

  Mother doused one lamp, leaving the other by the stove. The light dimmed and everything softened. Beds rustled; the blanket whispered. Claw rose and lay closer to the door like a guard.

  Algar stretched out on his pallet. His body sank into the hay, heavy and grateful. He lowered his lids and for a moment saw Dara’s hair on the boundary ridge, bright as strands of harvest. He heard his father’s breathing settle, his mother shifting the logs so the coals would last till morning. Outside, the night clung to the forest.

  The howling didn’t return. Only its echo remained in him, brief and cold. He pulled the blanket up to his chin. His fingers twitched once more, as if still gripping the sickle’s cool, smooth handle. Then they slackened. The fire stretched in the hearth and dimmed a hair. The house sighed. Time to sleep.

  A monumental figure took shape out of the dark. Black armor, forged from darkness itself, gleamed with a baleful, dead sheen. Beneath a horned helm, eyes burned with black fire that seemed to swallow the light around them. In his hand was a sword inked with red runes that pulsed like a heartbeat. Skulls frozen in a rictus of pain were set upon the knees of his armor. The hearth’s muffled glow barely touched him, lending him an almost unearthly aura.

  “I will free you from your weaknesses.” The voice did not sound in his ears but somewhere deeper, spreading in all directions at once and rending the silence. His village lay behind him like a backdrop, utterly drained of life. Roofs sagged toward the ground, and in the distance the mill wheel turned though no wind stirred.

  A violent slam of the door tore him from the abyss of sleep. He opened his eyes to the room’s half-dark. It was only Semaj, back from the tavern, creeping toward his pallet. Algar burrowed his head into the pillow so as not to wake his father. Judging by the steady snore, it worked.

  He rolled onto his side, but the image clung to the underside of his lids like soot. His heart still hammered in his chest, and cold sweat ran down his spine. The room was quiet, yet the echo of that voice still lingered in his ears.

  And in the dream — or the place beyond dreaming — something ancient finally speaks back.

  what do you think the voice meant by “I will free you from your weaknesses”?