Free Shield of Lies by Jerry Autieri

ached with the weight, but his sons were lost in these woods and the urgency to find them drove his feet forward. The dark trees echoed with calls of his boys' names, and nothing but a thick blackness remained when voices fell silent.
    By midnight he was staggering and had fallen too many times to count. Runa pushed on with her group, but he had to rest as did many of the others. Exhaustion claimed the searchers one by one, and the search succumbed to it in the cold hours of the morning. Ulfrik insisted Einar take Runa and Snorri back to Ravndal, and he would sleep in the forest to resume the search the next morning.
    His stomach growled, arms trembled, and feet throbbed as he slipped into the bole of a tree with only his cloak to protect him from the cold night. He drew his sword and laid it across his legs, and promised himself he would only sleep a few hours. As he drifted into sleep, he imagined he heard both his boys speaking to him, but it was merely the taunt of his imagination and he finally slept knowing his sons were lost in the forest.

Chapter 11
    Throst's belly grumbled and his arms trembled, but purpose drove him forward. He had eaten nothing better than stale bread in days. He had tried to catch fish or wild game, and realized it was much harder to do than it seemed. The constant whining from his mother and sister had grown from a distraction to a consuming fixation for him. Even one complaint from them drew his ire.
    The three of them stumbled along the trail in the woods, rocks and roots battering their feet as they went. Leaves and debris hid depressions and his mother fell on her face at least seven times since setting out that morning. Throst did not wait for her. She was a burden more than anything else, and her only use was in keeping his young sister in conformity with Throst's plans. He heard her curse as she again crunch down into the dry leaves. This time he stopped and turned, dropping a hand to his sword. His mother was on her face, and his sister dragging her up by the arm. Her head cover had long been lost, and her tousled gray hair caught a rim of yellow light falling through the autumn canopy above.
    "All right, you two are stopping here. No more following me." Throst glared at his sister, expecting her to release his mother back to the ground, but she continued to pull her up. She staggered to her feet, and brushed down her tattered skirt.
    "I'm not born for living in the forests. I was always a village girl. And I'm starving. Will these men have food?" She gave Throst the same pathetic pout she used to give to his father, which aggravated him in the same way.
    "Now you belong to no one," Throst said. "Thanks to the great Lord Ulfrik Ormsson, you are a widowed outlaw. So get used to starving."
    "I asked about food. You said you could hunt and that's a lie. What am I going to eat?" She folded her arm and lined up with his sister, as if the ten-year-old girl were an enforcer in her employ.
    "Listen, Mother," he spit the words like chewed gristle, "I'm the man of this family now that Father is gone. You'll eat after I eat, unless you can get your own food and then you owe me a share."
    "I want to eat too," his sister said, sliding closer to their mother as she did.
    Throst rubbed his face, trying to force patience he did not feel. "I've got a plan, and I'm going to make it work. After this morning, I will have us a home and men to serve me. But not if you two fools drive me mad first. Just shut up."
    His mother drew herself up straight, puffing out her chest and cheeks like she always did when she presumed to have authority over Throst. "How dare you threaten your mother like that!"
    Throst's slap sent her reeling back and she tripped over a root, sprawling on the ground. He would have laughed were he not about to risk his life. His sister rushed to their mother's side, but she recoiled when he yelled at her to stay away. He hovered over his mother. "I'll speak to you anyway I like. Father always