Chapter 6: 6. Cold Homecoming

Arthur and his father trudged back to their cottage to find it in shambles.

It was obvious their small home had been searched multiple times throughout the day. Everything that had been inside the building not nailed down had been tossed out the front door. The two windows with the thick, warped glass had been broken out for good measure.

As they got closer, an acidic smell told Arthur that the blankets had been pissed on.

He stood there, looking at the shattered remains of his bed, the food they’d set out for storage which was now ground into the dirt, and the shards of what used to be his mother’s favorite plates. He was so angry that tears fell silently down his cheeks.

His reaction was nothing to his father’s.

Calvan let out a bellow of rage and pain. He grabbed broken splinters of what had been their table and flung them into the forest. Kicking the wet blankets, he stormed into the house. From the open doorway — the door now hung off its hinges — Arthur saw him beat on the walls as if he were trying to knock new holes into them.

Seeing his father so out of control snapped him out of his own despair.

He had never seen his father like this. Never under the weight of all the little cruelties that came with every visit from the baron’s men. Not even when Arthur’s mother and little sister died.

Fear took root in his heart. Arthur stepped back, nervously, to the tree line. Not that he was afraid his father would turn his fists on him. It was just that his dad was the only one he had left.

If he were to learn that Arthur was the cause of all this…

I’ve got to keep the card a secret for a little bit longer. At least until I’m sure the baron’s men have left, he thought. Then I’ll dump it in the forest. I’ll bury it in a hole so deep not even the treasure seekers can find it.

Finally, his father seemed to tire himself out. The noise of pounding stopped and even from outside Arthur could hear him taking ragged, controlled breaths.

“Arthur,” he said in a too-calm voice. “Go get wood for the fire.”

With a quick nod, Arthur scampered into the woods. The sun was less than an hour from setting. Daylight grew thin through the winter-bare branches. Arthur ranged out further than he normally did, both because he wanted to give his father space and because he realized he could see better in the dimming light than he ever had before.

Another benefit of the card. Regret twinged at his heart but it was far outweighed by the guilt on his conscience.

The townspeople had suffered because of him. All their possessions, their food was destroyed…

Wait, was that fair?

You are reading story All The Skills at novel35.com

He stopped in place, frowning. It was easy to blame himself for this mess… like rolling a rock down a steep hill, where the bottom was self-loathing.

But what if Arthur had never followed the carriage? The dragon would have still attacked and then flown away with the card. The baron would have blamed the townsfolk, just because they were the closest nearby, and he could.

This wasn’t his fault. Not really.

It didn’t make him feel any better.

He returned home with his arms full of dropped dead-fall branches, which made good kindling. There was also a small shed outback where they stored seasoned wood. Thankfully, the baron’s men had ignored it.

Going to the shed, Arthur picked out several pieces of the split and seasoned logs — oak, which would take a while to catch fire but would burn hot and long. These few pieces would see them through the night.

When he returned to the cottage it was to find that his father had scavenged several unbroken items from the pile. Nothing special: A stone pitcher they used to store fresh drinking water, a few unbent utensils, and slab of polished wood they used as a cutting board but would now be their plate tonight.

The roots and smoked meat had been thrown into the dirt, but the animals hadn’t yet had time to take it.

With his father organizing the food, Arthur bent to the wood stove which seemed untouched and started the fire.

It was a task he had done hundreds, maybe thousands of times before. Taking out a blade so tiny and inconsequential that not even the baron’s guards had looked twice at it, Arthur used the sharpest edge to shave bits off the sticks of kindling until he had made a nest of thin wood and sawdust.

Then he took a flint rock his father had laid out and started knocking sparks into the nest.

Within three strikes, a spark large enough to catch hold fell into the kindling. Arthur blew gently on it, feeding it more out of the nest until he had a viable flame. Only then did he place the first oak log — raised just above the first using the two inner edges of the wood stove.

If he hadn’t gathered so much kindling, he would have used poplar to help it catch. However, the oak was well dried. All it would need was time.