Billy Jo collapsed into sleeping alcove next the Harfreder. He was exhausted. He had spent the entire day digging graves. There were so many. Some of the people he barely new, others were friends, and then there was Gyda’s parents.
Harfreder was curled up protectively around Gyda. In the dim light from the one burning lamp in the long house Harfreder looked so frail. When he first met her he thought she was fierce warrior. She even intimidated him somewhat, despite the fact that he had nearly a foot of height and a hundred pounds on her she had been stronger than him when they first met. Of course things were different now. He was stronger than her, a lot stronger. Somehow it made her seem more fragile. He knew she was still a fierce warrior, but he felt even more protective of her now than he had before. She had been hurt badly. Not physically, but emotionally. Billy Jo was new here and it hurt him badly, he could only imagine how bad it must be for the people who grew up her to see people they had known their entire lives killed. He couldn’t even comprehend how Gyda felt. When she wasn’t crying she walked around in a stupor barely aware of her surroundings; it scared him. He wasn’t sure if she was ever going to recover from this. Her parents had hid her under some blanket when the lizardmen invaded their house and told her to keep quite. She must have heard her parents being killed. Something like that could screw you up for life.
He and his friends had been making plans. They couldn’t stay. It wasn’t a question of if there would be another attack, but when. The snake people were after them for some reason and as long as they stayed the village would be in danger. Of course it would be in danger if they left, but the others were working on a plan for that. Planning wasn’t his strong suit, so he tried to help out where he could which meant today he was digging graves. One thing he knew for sure was that he would make the snake and lizard people pay. Whatever it takes, he would make sure they never threatened Fyrkat or any other village again. The exhaustion finally over took him and he fell into a fitful sleep.
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