“Jer, I need you to be strong right now,” Dad said to me. He had just taken Mom’s body out of the shelter, wrapped up in her bedroll.

  I was awake, but just laying there, not looking at anything. Somehow he knew anyway.

  Being strong was the last thing on my mind.

  I wanted to go back to sleep… forever. I wanted to wake up from this horrible nightmare. I wanted to hold Mother again. I wanted her to hold me, and never let me go. I wanted to yell at God that I still needed my mother. How could He let this happen to me, to Lil and Fin, to Dad, to our family?

  How could I be strong after losing my sure foundation? I was adrift in a vast ocean of nothing, never to see land again.

  Mother was the glue that held our family together. She was always there for me, for us.

  She was gone… forever.

  I had no energy left, no will to get up, to do anything again.

  God, just take me now, so I can be with her again!

  “Jerik,” he said, more gently this time. “I know you are hurting. We all are. I still need to take care of the family, and I need your help, now more than ever.” He paused.

  “I need to take care of the grave. Can you take care of breakfast?

  “Please,” he said. Dad never said please.

  I knew he was right. He needed me, my brother and sister needed me. I promised Mom last night I would always take care of the family.

  “Alright,” I said as I rolled over and got up.

  I couldn’t look at him right now, feeling too much guilt about my selfishness. I went out to work on the fire.

  While I worked on breakfast, Dad was busy digging a grave. I don’t know how he did so much with so little. He used rocks and sticks, and even what might have been a bone from the Roc.

  We had a quiet breakfast when it was ready. Lil was crying the entire time and didn’t eat much, but Fin just looked angry.

  “We will have a funeral for your mother, as soon as you are ready,” Dad said.

  “Can we wait just a little while?” Lil asked. “I’m not ready.”

  “Of course we can,” Dad said.

  It was nearly lunchtime when we were all ready for the funeral. Lil had collected a large bundle of wildflowers.

  “I’m not any good at saying goodbye, but I’m going to try my best.” Father said. “You all know your Mother loved you with her whole heart, with her whole soul. If she could she would have died for any of you. But that’s just what she did, she died for us.

  “I would like any of you who wish to, to say a few words to honor her life. Who would like to go first?”

  “I know Mother loved me,” Lil said. “She was the best mother in the whole world. I want to be just like her.”

  “Thank you, Lil. I agree, she was the best wife and mother ever. I hope you do just that.”

  That gave me the courage I needed, so I spoke next. “Mother was the person I saw every night and every morning. She was always there for me. I don’t know what I will do without her. How can life even go on?

  “Losing her is the hardest thing that has ever happened to me, harder than losing our home, harder than hiking for many days in the snowy mountains. But I promised her I would take care of each of you. So that’s what I will do.”

  After I finished, there was an awkward silence.

  “Fin, would you like to say anything?” Dad asked.

  He still looked at his feet but said, “I don’t think I can. I’m too angry.”

  “I can see that,” Dad said. “Believe me, part of me wants to go back and take revenge on the people who did this. But would Mom want us to be angry and full of vengeance right now? Or would she want us to be happy that she was a big part of our family?”

  “Mom was always so kind and happy,” Fin said. “How could people do this to her?” he asked.

  Dad thought for a moment, then said, “Frightened, angry people can do terrible things. Now that you know that, what does that tell you about remaining angry? I think she would say, you can choose to be evil like them, or you can choose to be better than them. What would Mom want you to do?”

  “She would want me to be better than them. But I’m still too angry. I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “I think it's going to take a long time until we can both learn to be better than them. But I promise to try. Can you promise to work on that with me?”

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  “Yes,” he finally looked up and smiled.

  “Good boy. Now, it’s time to lay your mother to rest.”

  He carefully picked her wrapped body up and placed it in the grave. Then we all helped cover her with dirt. When we finished Dad moved a large stone to be her grave stone. Lil picked up the bundle of wildflowers she had collected and arranged them artistically on top of the grave.

  Later that day we heard wild animals fighting loudly in the distance. Dad went to investigate. He came back later and said it was wolves fighting over the Roc corpse. He spent the rest of the day making our shelter stronger, since the cabin was not done yet. As we slept that night, I heard some animals sniffing and scratching around our shelter. Thankfully, none were able to get in.

  For the next week, whenever the weather was good enough we kept working on our log house. The walls were rising higher each day. It was backbreaking work, but I could tell I was getting stronger.

  One evening after supper, I saw Dad looking to the south, across the valley. I looked and could see a faint column of smoke rising toward the sky.

  “I’m going to go see who that is. I don’t think I’ll be gone for more than a day, but I want you to stay here and take care of things until I get back. Can you do that?”

  “Yes. Do you think people are following us?” That was my biggest concern.

  “I don’t know, but I doubt it. I think Hampston is just glad to be rid of us.” With that, he grabbed his pack, filled it with a few supplies and added his bedroll to the top. He grabbed his bow and quiver, as well as strapped his sheathed sword to his belt. Then he left.

  He wasn’t back the next morning, I wasn’t too concerned yet. But I did watch for him throughout the day. We mostly explored around our new homestead. We even found some more ruins with some usable wood. I was excited to tell Dad when he returned.

  The next day was more of the same since he wasn’t back yet. We did go check on the Roc. The bones were bright white and had been picked clean by the wolves. We all collected a bunch of feathers to use to soften our beds and pillows. Lil decided that the feathers must be magic since the Roc had strong magic.

  Who knows, maybe she’s right?

  I collected some of the smaller bones also. Even if they weren’t magic, I was sure they could be made into various useful items.

  Dad had not arrived before we headed to bed again.

  The next afternoon we saw several horse drawn wagons in the distance coming toward us. I told everyone to hurry and hide, since I didn’t know if they were friendly or not. They were not coming very fast, the ground was pretty rough.

  When they drew closer I saw Dad riding on the front wagon. He jumped off and ran over to find us when I waved to him. He said they were merchants with some supplies we needed and wanted to see what we had to trade. He warned me, however, that he should do most of the talking and to not say anything about magic affinities. I agreed with him.

  After they pulled near to our cabin, they unhitched the horses to let them graze. Dad invited them to join us around our campfire, which he had built up to be nice and warm. I knew we didn’t have a lot of food to share, but they had brought out their own food and cooking supplies.

  “Welcome to our humble home,” Dad began, once everyone had some food and found a log to sit on. It looked like there were about a dozen men and a couple of women.

  “Looks like a lot of work, to me,” one of the men said. I later learned that he was the leader, by the name of Pralish.

  “Well, it’s just perfect for us. Look at all of this land.”

  “I heard there was a small settlement here, years ago. Clathar Downs, that was the name. Been trying to remember it all the way here. Don’t know what happened to it, though.”

  “Sounds like a great name to me. I think we’ll keep it.”

  Pralish looked around our camp. I saw all of his people looking at the feathers and bones we had collected.

  Pointing at them, he said, “May we take a look?”

  “Of course.”

  Some of them went over to our collection, along with Dad, and started picking them up to examine them. I could see some of their eyes get big. They were excitedly talking in hushed tones.

  “Do… Do you know what these came from?” Pralish asked.

  “Actually, I do. That roc was very difficult to bring down.”

  “You killed a roc? All by yourself?”

  “Yes, well me and my boy, here.” He pointed at me.

  Their eyes got even bigger.

  “Well, we would be interested in trading. I’m sure we could find a buyer for some of these.”

  “I thought you might be interested. Well, as you can see we are in need of a number of supplies.”

  They started haggling over the value of various things. I kind of tuned them out after that. Dad had me take the kids with me and went out exploring more.

  Before we left, Lil took Dad aside and quietly said, “Dad, the bones and feathers are magic. Don’t trade them all away.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t. Besides,” he said with a wink. “I know where we can get more.”

  Turning to me, he said, “Don’t go far.”

  So we tried to stay where we could still see the camp. It was dark, anyway. Eventually, we wandered back close enough to hear what they were discussing, though we still kept our distance. It sounded like they were going to spend the night here, and leave in the morning. They had not been to Hampston yet, but planned to go there eventually. Dad warned them about the shady mayor.

  The discussion turned to the ongoing war. It sounded like the Divine Empire of the Moon was making advances against our Kingdom of Landria on multiple fronts. The king was calling for more infantry and would enact conscription soon if there were not enough voluntary recruits. There was an ongoing search for more trained mages, as well.

  The discussion turned to how ruthless and depraved the enemy was. I got physically ill when I heard how they either slaughtered or enslaved civilians and razed their villages and crops. Any mages they discovered were immediately conscripted into their army, or tortured to death if they would not bow to their rule. They told several gruesome horror stories about torturing officers and mages.

  The merchants left the next morning. They left us with candles, plenty of tools, a few weapons, lots of rope, as well as some leather, cloth, sewing supplies and food.

  They all looked quite pleased as they drove away.

  Lil was happy we still had some feathers and a few bones left.

  Over the next few weeks we made faster progress on our cabin. Using our new tools as well as more wood from the other ruins we had discovered, we soon had the structure finished. We were all excited to move in, but quickly discovered that a house without any furniture was not very interesting.

  At least we had a roof over our heads, and a strong door that could be closed and barred.