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Back Biding Time
Chapters (68)
  1. Biding Time
  2. Dedication
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Prologue
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-One
  27. Chapter Twenty-Two
  28. Chapter Twenty-Three
  29. Chapter Twenty-Four
  30. Chapter Twenty-Five
  31. Chapter Twenty-Six
  32. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  33. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  34. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  35. Chapter Thirty
  36. Chapter Thirty-One
  37. Chapter Thirty-Two
  38. Chapter Thirty-Three
  39. Chapter Thirty-Four
  40. Chapter Thirty-Five
  41. Chapter Thirty-Six
  42. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  43. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  44. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  45. Chapter Forty
  46. Chapter Forty-One
  47. Chapter Forty-Two
  48. Chapter Forty-Three
  49. Chapter Forty-Four
  50. Chapter Forty-Five
  51. Chapter Forty-Six
  52. Chapter Forty-Seven
  53. Chapter Forty-Eight
  54. Chapter Forty-Nine
  55. Chapter Fifty
  56. Chapter Fifty-One
  57. Chapter Fifty-Two
  58. Chapter Fifty-Three
  59. Chapter Fifty-Four
  60. Chapter Fifty-Five
  61. Chapter Fifty-Six
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. Other Titles by Lyn Gardner
  64. Going on Red
  65. Choices
  66. Born Out of Wedlock
  67. Give Me A Reason
  68. Mistletoe

She took a ragged breath, and smiling through her agony, she kissed their faces, wiped away their tears, and led them outside. Her breath steamed in the air as she herded her children to the far side of the building, the familiar smell of farm animals now secondary to that of horses and billowing smoke. Behind her, her husband called out for others to band together to fight, but how could they against beings like these?

She scooped up her youngest, ordering her to hold on tightly, and taking her other two children by the hand, she sprinted toward the forest. The moon was full, the golden glow from the heavens lighting her way as she dashed across the meadow. She was tall, her strides easily three times the length of her children’s, so they stumbled and groused, and while they begged her to slow down, she was relentless as she tugged them toward what she prayed would be their salvation.

The tree line was her goal, and when she reached it, she fell to her knees, listening as her children gasped for air. There was no time to hug or nurture, kiss or console, so she did the only thing she could. She told them to run. They weren’t to look back, and they weren’t to stop. They needed to hide, to go deep into the forest where the trees were towering, and the thicket was dense, and until the sun came up, until the dawn broke through the sky, they were not to return home.

She didn’t know what they would face in the morning or who would be left to care for them, but that wasn’t important. All that mattered was they would survive. With or without her, they would survive.

She watched as her children dissolved into the darkness. The sounds of her littlest’s sniffles fading as her offspring moved further into the forest, and then she rushed back to the village in search of her husband.

Some cruck houses were on fire now, cinders scattered in the commotion finding their way to thatched mattresses and straw-covered floors, and as animals fought to escape their fate, the air thickened with smoke. Like a fog, it surrounded her and amidst the gray and white, was red. Men, protecting their families with shovels and staffs, were strewn about like rag dolls, their eyes empty and their tunics soaked with blood.