Free Bloodstone by Barbara Campbell

found an arrow embedded in his bicep. He felt no pain, only a numbing cold that spread up his arm to envelop his entire body.
    Darak sat in the shallows, watching the rise and fall of the giant paddles, watching the windcloths crawl up the spars and grow big-bellied. Even when Nionik knelt beside him and repeated his name, he sat there, watching the boat that carried his son grow smaller and smaller until it entered the channel and disappeared from view.
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Chapter 6

    T HE CROWS AND RAVENS came first, soaring in patient circles over the fields. Women emerged from the forest, wary as deer, but when they saw the bodies, they started running. Some fell to their knees beside a loved one, their high-pitched keening shattering the stillness that had fallen when the raiders left. Others walked dazedly toward the village, children clinging to their legs.
    Skirting the raider’s body, Griane led the children home. She paused beside Jurl’s mother long enough to offer a prayer that Erca would continue to share gossip and advice with the other old ones whose spirits had flown to the Forever Isles. And there were many. Frustrated by the flight of the younger women, the raiders had vented their fury on the old folk, hacking the bodies so many times that they were barely recognizable. Callie buried his face in her tunic, but Faelia paused as if to burn the image of each mutilated body into her memory.
    Sanok sat outside his hut, clinging to Alada’s hand. Men staggered past carrying bodies; already, more than a dozen lay side by side in the center of the village. Gortin crawled from one to the next, his body shaking in silent sobs as he pressed the back of his left hand to a forehead, blessing each with the tattoo of the acorn. Griane scanned each face, relief mingling with guilt when she failed to find Darak or Keirith among the dead.
    When she saw Ennit walking toward her, she froze in horror. Then she realized he cradled Trian in his arms, poor Trian who would never again daydream among the flocks.
    As he passed her, she caught his sleeve. “Is Lisula safe?” Ennit just stared at her. “Ennit, what’s happened to Lisula? And the children?”
    “Conn took the girls. I stayed with Lisula and the babe.” His face crumpled as he stared into his brother’s face. “They cut him to pieces. He couldn’t even bring himself to castrate a lamb, and they cut him to pieces.”
    “Griane!”
    She tore her attention from Ennit to discover Nionik staggering toward her, carrying his son. Nemek’s moan assured her he was alive, but the wounds to his shoulder and leg bled profusely.
    “Thank the gods you’re all right,” Nionik said. “We’re taking the wounded to the longhut. Bring your medicine bag and—”
    “Darak? Where’s Darak?”
    Before he could answer, Callie screamed, “Fa!”
    He tottered toward them, moving like a man in a dream. An arrow protruded from his left arm, but he was alive, Merciful Maker, alive. He fell to his knees, burying his face in Callie’s neck, pulling a sobbing Faelia into the curve of his good arm. Then he looked up at her, his face empty of all expression.
    “They took him. They took Keirith.”

    The morning passed in a daze of shock and numbed grief. She couldn’t mourn her lost son. She could scarcely spare the time to comfort her remaining children. Too many others needed her.
    She sent Faelia and Callie to Sanok’s hut where Alada was caring for some of the little ones. Outside the longhut, women were cutting up nettle-cloth and doeskin to use as bandages and slings.
    Mirili entered the longhut with her and began feeding the fire. “I thought of keeping the men outside where there’s more light, but they’ll be better here, I think, than lying in the open.”
    Griane nodded; after all the horror their families had witnessed, they didn’t need to watch her sew their loved ones back together.
    Sali was waiting for her, bless the child, her healing bag clutched