Courage Read Online Free

despair was winning hold over him.
    In all his life, he’d gotten attached to people, but never to a degree where their deaths would send him into a bout of depression. If he’d allowed such closeness, then his life would’ve been nothing but funerals and holes in his heart. The distant compassion he felt for the mortal realm helped him cope with his longevity. But, for some reason, with Sandra, the scenario playing out before him had seemed impossible. She was too lovely of a person to die years and years before him, without him. Once he caressed the depression in her face, his throat constricted and he felt sick. He pulled her body to him, pressed her face to gaping hole he felt in his chest and began crying.
    All he had to do was wake her and she would’ve lived. The moment where he passed on shaking her shoulder played in his mind over and over. Flaming boulder or no, her death was his fault.
    Either an eternity or a second later, an authoritative voice rose over the sounds of fire and slaughter. A pair of heavy feet carrying that voice stopped behind Aerigo and put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a shake, doing the very thing he’d passed on doing.
    “Sir, you’ve got to--Aerigo!”
    Aerigo recognized Rahnjar’s tenor voice but said nothing, couldn’t bring himself to say anything about the fate of his own daughter. All he could do was cry. The feet came around to his side.
    “Beloriah’s whiskers! Is that Sandra?”
    Aerigo turned away from the hand and clenched his wife tighter, and continued crying.
    The Druid spoke in an unsteady voice. “Get up, son. We’ll have to mourn her later. We must flee south.”
    The Druid’s hand grasped his shoulders tighter. Aerigo winced; the touch agitated his burns.
    “Get up,” Rahnjar said, authority returning to his voice. “Now.”
    “No.”
    “That’s an order, Aerigo. Get up.”
    “Go away,” Aerigo said in a hollow voice. After protecting a nation for a whole century, he’d failed to protect one woman. He didn’t deserve Rahnjar’s willingness to save him.
    Suddenly his face was in the grass and his temple throbbed. He sat up, Rahnjar hovering over him with an outstretched fist, his face red.
    “Don’t make me lose a son-in-law, in addition to my daughter. Now get on your damned feet and start moving!”
    Aerigo could do nothing but stare. Why wasn’t Rahnjar furious with him? Why didn’t he hate him? Why didn’t he just leave him to die with Sandra? Maybe he didn’t want him to, for less than merciful reasons.
    “And don’t you dare tell me I allowed my daughter to marry a weakling and a coward, especially one without a drop of noble blood in his veins. It’s the Balvadiers that are attacking us, Aerigo. Now get up or I’ll punch you again!”
    Aerigo stared in disbelief. He’d expected--who else could he have expected? The Malkin kept to themselves in the Wildwood. No one lived in the Black Canyon on the other side of the mountains. The place couldn’t support whole towns. To the north lay Balvar. Any other kingdom that wanted to attack Drio had to march through Balvar. But would the Balvadiers even bother to blockade anyone from attacking the Durians? Would they join arms in hopes of taking the land they always coveted?
    “I saw their scarlet uniforms and banners,” Rahnjar said unhappily.
    Aerigo clenched his wife’s body so hard he snapped her bones. Under his grip, it felt like someone had rolled a bunch of broken sticks into burnt meat. Blood pounded in his ears, the beat pounding slower and harder, and gradually muffling out the rest of the world. With one of those beats, something inside him snapped. Revenge. His rage bubbled over his despair and shock. He stood, and the action felt as if not of his own will, as if his legs had lifted him without waiting to be told to.
    More fiery volleys rained on Drio, followed by more explosions and screaming. Men, women and children ran for the southern wheat fields as more people were