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same as him. He could not let that happen.
     
    Halldora held her husband and could not stop crying. She had seen him gallantly lead armies to war time and again, and she had never cried. She had seen him brought home, wounded, near to death, and she had never cried. Something at the very core of her soul knew this was different.
    She was the daughter of Nanmund of Fjindel, a high atheling, a lord of the province of the Northern Kingdom of Man. Halldora had never let her noble birth and marriage to the throne let her become a disdainful person. Although proud of her own strength and that of her husband and daughter, she had always been fascinated and joyful in the accomplishments of others.
    Her beautiful and handsome husband filled her with a warm peacefulness. His strength flowed into her and made her a queen admired and respected. The birth of their radiant daughter only made their happiness more complete.
    Halldora stared into the fading light of Haergill’s eyes. Her Frea had been taken by the horse garonds. Her world was crumbling around her. Now the sobs came out of her vocally with each breath, as though every breath was pain itself.
    Kellabald leaned in close to Haergill. Halldora tried her best to quiet herself so Kellabald could hear her beloved’s last words. The whole world was falling to pieces and Halldora could not stop crying.
     
    Yulenth was filled with despair. He was the sole survivor of his people, the Glafs. His people had warred with the Northern Kingdom for centuries, and now they were all gone but him. He stared down at Haergill of the Northern Kingdom, from a race that had caused his people so much misery, but felt no happiness at his passing.
    Yulenth had been wary of this red haired family when they had first asked to live in Bittel. He knew who Haergill was. But, Kellabald welcomed them with open arms, so Yulenth had welcomed them, too. He had not regretted it. Surprisingly, Haergill proved to be a humble man willing to work for the good of all in the village.
    Yulenth remembered how, earlier, he had found the Bittel, a lost man wandering the earth, hungry and broken hearted, not unlike Haergill and his family, who would arrive a year later on the day he was to marry his great friend Alrhett from the Weald, who had lost her husband, who became his wife.
    His age tired him, and he felt only loss and pain.
    Yulenth thought back to the last time he had felt happiness. He was in his early thirties, nearly half his life ago, and a herder of aurochs, the large horned cattle roaming the high wasteland, plains of long grasses and heather. His home was in the city of Glafemen, now a burnt and crumbled ruin. The Glafs also fished in the Great Lake of Ettonne, Northern men knowing them by this name. There had been no happier race when not at war.
    The Glafs had commerce and friendly relations with the good people of the Weald to the South. As a boy, Yulenth would often travel with his father to trade cured beef and dried fish for carved wooden chairs and tables made in curious and artful designs by the men of the Weald. No Glaf would venture too far into the forests of the Weald, for the woods seemed close and labyrinthine to men who preferred the wide-open spaces of the Northern Wastelands and the Great Lake.
    It seemed so perfect for Yulenth to marry Alrhett. They were close in age, in their older years. And, her husband had died long ago in the human civil wars, so they happily looked after each other.
    Time seemed a long ribbon of happiness punctuated by heart wrenching loss to Yulenth. He tried to hold tightly to the happy moments he could remember, but despair always seemed to be the end.
     
    Wynnfrith felt a drop of rain on her arm. The world seemed to stop, as her husband, Kellabald, moved close to Haergill, who was so pale and quiet. The entire world was motion and hurry, but to Wynnfrith it became a perfect stillness.
    She saw Yulenth, filled with sadness, unaware of the great power inside him,