In the borderlands of Alder Vale, where low stone cottages clung to the earth and lantern light surrendered early to the press of forest, halfling villages kept to themselves. Their fields were neat, their doors round, their lives measured in harvests and hearthfire. Beyond the tilled earth rose the Blackroot Wood, old as memory and seldom kind. Traders spoke in lowered voices of orc warbands moving through its depths, iron-shod and ash-marked, raiding where the king’s banners did not reach. In these small settlements, folk trusted in quiet routines and the comfort of full cellars, hoping the wider cruelties of the realm would pass them by.
The raid came with smoke before it came with sound. By the time he opened the door, the sky was already bruised with ash. The orcs moved through the village like a verdict, blunt and unquestioning. By nightfall, it was over.
He found them where he had left them that morning. His wife near the hearth. His children close together, as if they had believed proximity might bargain with steel. The room was quiet in a way that felt deliberate. He stood in the doorway, hat in hand, as though arriving late to supper.
He cried then. Not loudly. Not for long. The sound seemed too large for his small frame, as though grief required a taller body. It passed through him quickly, like wind through thin branches. In its place something colder settled. Hatred, yes, but not the blazing sort sung about in ballads. This was a narrow, precise hatred. Clean. It left no room for anything else.
He was a halfling. His hands were made for picking locks, detecting traps and the careful tying of fishing line. He imagined himself charging into the dark after the orcs, blade raised. The image collapsed at once under its own absurdity. He would not reach their knees before he was cut down. The hatred did not diminish at this thought. It merely turned inward, searching for a direction.
He sat at the table beside the bodies and considered his options as one might consider routes to market. Vengeance was impractical. Flight was meaningless. Survival felt like an insult. The night pressed against the windows, patient and unhelpful.
At length he rose, stepped over the broken threshold, and walked to the tavern at the edge of the lane. It still stood. A few villagers huddled within, speaking in the hushed tones of those who have seen too much. He ordered a pint of ale. His voice did not tremble.
He drank it slowly. The ale tasted as it always had. Bitter. Honest. Entirely indifferent to catastrophe. He found this reassuring. When the cup was empty, he wiped the foam from his mouth and thanked the innkeeper.
He returned home under a sky that had resumed its ordinary arrangement of stars. Inside, nothing had changed. The hatred remained, but it had nowhere to go. It filled him completely, leaving no space for fear, or doubt, or even sorrow.
He fetched a length of rope from the shed. He worked with care, testing the beam above the hearth as he might once have tested a ladder before harvest. He positioned himself above his wife and children, as though keeping watch.
For a moment he looked down at them. He tried to summon their names in his chest, but the hatred had sealed that chamber shut. There was only a vast and featureless quiet.
Then, in the same night that had taken everything from him, he took everything left his, himself.