Free Firemoon by Elí Freysson

up but not enough for it to be heard well outside.
    Patrekur and two other men had been given the task of standing watch at night after Serdra’s warning two days earlier. It was Patrekur who came running to them with an axe in his hands.
    “What is going on?” he asked, rather too loudly in Katja’s opinion.
    “Something,” Katja said and knocked on a bedroom door in passing. She hurriedly slid into the jacket’s sleeves.
    Someone groaned behind the door and one could hear the voices of the household from various directions.
    “Wake everyone and tell them to be prepared for anything,” Serdra said, and she and Katja walked to the front door.They locked gazes a moment to establish that they were both ready. Then Katja slid the bar away and Serdra opened.
    They were greeted by the thickest fog Katja had ever seen. She walked out with fast, soft steps. Serdra followed close behind and they took up position side by side, so they could defend one another with the wall to their backs.
    The fog swallowed everything. Trees and buildings a few steps away were little more than vague phantoms, and only familiarity enabled Katja to figure out her surroundings. The air was utterly still and the fog just hung over everything like a blanket, without budging.
    Nothing happened.
    Always these damned hiding games! Katja thought and clenched her teeth. She could take the terror that came with combat. She yearned for that terror. But this uncertainty, this sneakiness that came with it all, that mercilessly stretched out the nerves without providing release, was a different matter.
    She heard something. The fog smothered the sound and all its features but something made her look north.
    Finally she saw something in the blackness. It was a yellow light, as if someone had taken a lamp up on a roof. The light grew in a few moments and a short cry carried to them from that direction. A roof was on fire.
    Serdra began to walk towards the flame, but Katja looked over her shoulder after hearing something.
    Njall stood in the doorway with an axe in his right hand and a candle in his left. He opened his mouth to say something, but caught himself and settled for looking at her with a fearful questioning look.
    Serdra signalled for him to go back inside and used the stealth language to tell him to prepare a defence.
    They walked north together. The visibility did not allow them to move faster. Katja wanted to run, people were probably dying a stone’s throw away, but they could run straight into an overwhelming force or pass an enemy without seeing him. They had to move carefully.
    The Brotherhood , Katja thought as they passed through a small vegetable garden. It has to be. Or what? No Shades live there.
    They heard footsteps ahead and another cry. It issued from a man’s throat and lasted a few moments before suddenly ceasing.
    Just then they heard hoofbeats from the south-east. They turned and glimpsed another fire in another part of the village. More screams penetrated through the darkness and the fog.
    This wasn’t an assassination. Blossoms itself was being attacked from all directions.
    Serdra pointed south with a quick gesture and then immediately headed north herself.
    Katja obeyed and took to her feet. She allowed herself to run now that she had passed through blindly. And she wanted to convert the tension into action.
    She arrived back at the door and banged her fist on it once.
    “It’s an attack!” she said sharply. “An attack on the village!”
    She did not wait for an answer. The hoofbeats approached the south of the house and she ran around the west corner with sword at the ready.
    The riders had vanished into the fog as she made it to the central street, but she saw yet another flame over the roofs to the south. Several more houses seemed to be on fire by the river. Perhaps the attackers had come over the south bridge.
    Again she heard a cry and noise and tried to follow the sounds. She ignored the discomfort of r unning in