"Don't you dare say something like that, you wrench. I knew you were upto tricks when he brought you into this house. You're a nobody, a nothing. If you're gone . . . nobody is going to look for you Lot. You're a nothing and that son of yours is a half nothing, half something due to my blood. You're absolutely nothing without us, know it well even though you think you know it not. It is true. I swear it to whatever void is going to take me before my eyes gloss over. He will come back for me. He promised me and I believe him that this war was only something he was doing so that he could take me to live in the duke's city where I could be surrounded by people who understand me instead of these rural slummed folk. All you know Lot is how to run and hide and lie. Do you think you'll make it if you take one step out there in the world?"
All of these things had been going through her mother in law's mind when she had been putting food on the table and making sure that the roof was sturdy and safe. It hadn't been easy to be a woman trying to convince others to help her. She had done it for them because she wanted this house to be comfortable for her mother-in-law too.
Lot couldn't believe what she was hearing. Did she have time though, to be fighting at a time like this? She gave her mother in law a dark look. "We'll discuss this later, when death has decided today is not the day to knock."
She didn't want to put her son's life in danger, jut to give in to her mother in law's delusions, it had been such a long time since she had done anything for herself. She patted her son's bottom lightly as she turned her head to the door.
"Mummy, is grandma not coming with us." Komi said at just the wrong time.
Lot, had no idea, as she used the free hand not holding onto her son, to open one of the windows. She opened the window wide and cool air immediately came into the house. She flinched as she put her son outside of the burning house onto the cold clammy ground outside. She took a breath to steady herself before speaking as calmly as she could manage. "Komi, can you tell me what you can see around there? Don't go too far as mummy will be just there behind you. Promise me, that you won't forget mummy."
She knew time was precarious as Father Arne was already behind her with his cane. She heard one of the beams of the house falling and she gasped as there was a thud sound against the door. What was coming for them? Those who had nothing when the house was already burning . . . what was here in the house that was unburnt?
Father Arne lifted one of his knobby knees then and with a strength that she didn't know that he possessed, he pushed aside her son and fell flat into the forest. There was a sound of hurt from her own son, and before she could look back at her mother-in-law, her instincts were loud as she tumbled headfirst through the open window and caught her son.
Father Arne cursed next to her as they heard the door burst open behind them. Lot could hear her mother in law saying things to the intruders. Father Arne got up then, his walking stick in his hand. Lot was furious, but happy that her son was unharmed.
"Mummy was is that sound? It sounds like it's frightening for you. I want to come in there and help you. I can do it too."
"Be quiet now." Lot got to her feet, she could feel the scrapes in her tights as she looked at the dark wood ahead of her. "Father Arne, will you be alright?"
"I'll manage. I'm old, not much to take of value from me. You on the other hand, go up the mountains and to the major village beyond. If it is the ogres who have already taken so much from us, you will find solace there."
Lot's eyebrows knitted together as she looked back into the house that she had built with her husband. She could hear the pounding then, of people inside their house, ransaking. "What are they taking? What are they looking for?"
There was a loud sound of her mother in law screeching. "There is a young girl here, to service you all. She can't have gotten far. You should know that she has stolen my young grandson from me. If you return him then my son will pay you handsomely. He's a squire. He belongs to the fancy legion that the duke set up . . ."
There was the grunt of something inhuman and Lot's blood ran cold as her feet ran faster than her mind could keep up. She looked into the house that was burning, seeing the flames start to lick up the walls. She couldn't remember getting up. She forgot that her son was in her hands as she ran up the winding trails. Everywhere she could see fire of the things that were searching and getting frustrated that they weren't finding.
Her son had long given up on speaking and he was sucking his thumb as he body slowly was losing body heat. He was limp and all signs of life were starting to leave him. Her heart sank as she realized that it was not going to turn out well. She knew that as she tripped over brambles. Her knees aching with the ascent up as the dark forest melted into harsh mountain. She could see hatchets were people had come to harvest coal and other stones. She finally looked down then and could see that the fires were farther away than they had been before.