Dawn of Winter

Chapter 1

Trust not the gossiping and evil speaking of men.

Believe only in that which your own eyes do see.

The roads of the north are unsafe for travelers.

Beware false warnings lest you be led off your chosen path.

Only your own eyes will not lie to you.

-Ancient warning carved above the door of the Old Tallot Inn at Fleurrany.

--

-Late fall 3133, the road to Greywater Deep

Morning dawned cold and gray. Dark clouds covered the sky from horizon to horizon with a heavy blanket of oppressive gloom. A cold breeze swept in from the north, its probing, searching fingers prying their way through cloak and fur alike, driving both man and beast to seek shelter from its icy grip. Nothing moved. The trees stubbornly refused to sway even the smallest branches in the wind, not as if in defiance of the cold blasts, but in exhaustion- in surrender to the inevitability of the torment.

The muddy plain was pocked with countless pools of muddy, eddying water; the last remnants of a solid week of torrential rains that turned to ice each night. Even now, a cold mist fell that obscured vision, mottling the dark sky above.

The dark clouds cast all the lands beneath them in a gloomy, gray hue. With the falling mist and the distinct lack of sunlight, it was nearly impossible to discern where the heavy clouds ended and the weeping horizon began. There could be no doubt that the sun, wandering somewhere high above this dreary scene, would not brighten the sky this day. It was silent.

Aachem shielded his eyes from the falling mist with his hands, which were numb with the early cold. His breath came in frosty gasps as he surveyed the dreary landscape. Yet another morning of cold wet traveling. He knew no fire would catch in their kindling. No one could start a fire today, just as the day before, and the day before that. Breakfast would be dried meat, and water. The wine was gone a week ago now. Oh, how he longed for just a mouthful of wine to warm his numbed senses! Just a taste! Perhaps a fine red from the vineyards of Hebronus!

He thought of his empty wineskin. It was packed away somewhere amid his cold, wet baggage. He couldn’t say why, exactly, that he had saved it. It took up little space, to be sure, and it was not finely made or irreplaceable. But something in his mind made him stow it away for the rest of the journey long after he had drained the last precious drop from its insides. It made him think of Hebronus, his home. It reminded him somehow of the wide, rich vineyards on the southern slopes of the city’s approaches, where the Oestriam Priests worked long, satisfying days under the hot sun.

Thinking of the sun did little to warm his weary spirit. It served only to antagonize him, as a single, painful thorn lodged in his back just out of reach of both his hands- annoying and painful, but just out of reach.

He thought often of hot, balmy beaches of Hebronus these days. The last time he was there, it was high summer, nearly four- no, wait, six- years ago.

Has it been so long?

The sun had baked the hard brown stones of the city streets until he could feel the heat through his thin sandals.

Ahh, high summer in Hebronus!

It was nearing winter here in the far north of Iradar, but the Southern Shores would enjoy at least two more months of summer yet.

How he longed for the distant beaches of his home! Six years and no word from the Oestriam. He had long ago given up hope that they remembered his mission. How could they even know of it? The High Prelate sent him north in secret. The old man had died within weeks of his departure. Surely he had told no one. Aachem’s usefulness in the north had come to an end three years ago, yet he had not been recalled. He had lived among the Northmen for the entire time, all the while hoping for some word- some sign that his Church had not forgotten. Yet no sign had come.

Word now from the south was of growing tension between the different sects of Oes. There was sure to be tension when two such powerful organizations as the Istrim and the Oestriam competed for the same prize. And rumors said that the new Prelate of the Oestriam, a man Aachem had never met, was ill. Only two years since his Ascendance, and he was dying, or so the gossip claimed.

Aachem rarely put stock in rumors. By the time such news traveled so far north as to reach his ears in northern Iradar, it was usually twisted, exaggerated, or entirely fabricated. But something about the man who told him this news made him think otherwise. The man had arrived at the town gates of Highbridge in the dead of night. He sounded a long, low note on his horn to signify that he came in peace, and was admitted. There was but one inn at Highbridge, and unless a traveler was a guest of the Thane, it was the only place in the town to pass a night.

Aachem had spent many a night in that inn, as he made this annual journey from Rovane to Greywater Deep and back. The locals claimed it may once have had a name painted on its weather-worn sign that hung above the door, but any writing or pictures on it had long since worn away in the rain and wind. They simply referred to it as "The Inn," or for those from elsewhere; "The Highbridge Inn."

The traveler had been given a bed not ten feet from Aachem’s own cot in the dormitory above the common room. There were few other travelers there that night, and the others awoke when he stumbled over some object in the dark.

Aachem had wakened to see this man, dark hair, tanned skin, with dark, round eyes, as he gathered his belongings up from the floor where they had fallen when he had tripped on what he had discovered were someone else’s clothes that lay piled at the foot of his bed. There could be no doubt that this man was a southerner- from far south, possibly even the southern shores. It had been quite some time since Aachem had seen a southerner- a true southerner. In this Oes-forsaken northern province of Iradar, southerner meant anyone not of Northman blood- an Aridisian.

These people had such a narrow view of their world. They understood nothing that was not in front of their eyes. How their ancestors would be ashamed! These descendants of the great Northman explorers and colonists from far away Dÿnmar! Those great adventurers of the past sailed far over the North Sea in search of plunder, timber, and riches! They understood that their small corner was but a part of the greater world. But not these Northmen.

The traveler’s troubles had awoken all the men in the main bedchamber of the Inn, and after a few moments of general confusion and alarm, most went back to sleep. A few, like Aachem, filtered down to the common room to hear any news he might tell.

The common room had been dark at first; the fire had burned low hours ago. But a few pieces of kindling on the smoldering cinders had brought a happy little fire to light a corner of the room.

His name was Icheb. He was a trader from Cerin.

So close to Hebronus! Only a few days’ journey!

He had traveled north with his wares out of a strange wanderlust- an unexplainable and irrational need to see the far side of the continent on which he lived. He needed, for no other reason than to calm his wandering heart, to see the North Sea.

The news he brought was long and boring until he turned to matters of the church. Things were otherwise normal on the Southern Coasts. But the Oestriam was soon to lose its second Grand Prelate in less than five years. The traveler, Icheb, claimed that rumors blamed the Istrim, who were alarmed at the attempts of the Oestriam to infiltrate the North. People in the streets of Hebronus, Icheb claimed, were calling "Murder!" and "Poison!"

Aachem had no reason to believe this man in particular, but he was a southerner. There could be no doubting his features. He immediately considered returning to the south at once, to arrive at Hebronus and announce himself to the Oestriam- Ask them why, how, could they have ever forgotten him or his mission! How could they send him so far from his home, to live amongst the heathen of the north in whose veins ran blood that was as cold and foreign as this accursed weather? He wanted to make them explain to him the reasons they had wasted six years of his life! But then he would be forced to ask forgiveness for abandoning his mission without an order from the church. The very thought of his punishment drove the idea from his mind. They would send him away. He would be forced to recant his vows to the Oestriam, become as he was before he gave his oaths- no one.

Aachem had worn the robes of the Oestriam since he was a boy of only twelve high summers. For fifteen years he lived as a priest, obeying the laws and rules laid out for him, studying the knowledge they offered him. When the Grand Prelate, the Master, summoned him to the Rock of the Sun, he had never thought twice about going. When that old man, wearing those fine robes, had cleared his council chambers of everyone but Aachem and six other young priests, he felt pride that he had been singled out, hand-picked, by such an exalted man, the most exalted in the Church. And when the High Prelate told them where they were going and for what reason, he never questioned the orders, not even once. When the old man had sworn them to secrecy, Aachem had closed his lips on the matter, never once uttering a breath about it. But as the years passed, that resolve, that naïve acceptance of the infallibility of the church and its leader, had withered with each bitterly cold winter followed by each painfully short summer.

Still, he could not give up the robes. He knew nothing else. He dreamed every day of going home again, returning to the warmth of summer. If he were to return, but not to the way it was before, as a priest of the Oestriam, he cold not bear it. Yet somehow he knew that even if he were to return with the blessing of his superiors, he would not be the same. Six years in the bitter cold of the north changed a man. It had to.

So while Icheb’s news brought that longing of home back to Aachem, it did not override his senses. He lay awake long into the night trying to remember his city far away- the sun, the breeze, the bright blue of the sea, and the sound of the gulls. But he found that all he could recall were the sounds of the endlessly crashing waves of Greywater Deep and the impenetrable blackness of the North Sea.

Aachem’s casual reflection was brought to a sudden end by the sounds of the other men of the caravan as they awoke and broke the early morning silence. The sudden cacophony coughs and speech snapped him out of his daydreaming at once.

With but a nod of recognition to the other men, he began packing his sodden pack and blankets. Everything was soaked through with both mud and water. Try as they might the previous night, they could find no place drier or less muddy than the small grassy hill they had camped upon. Everything he or anyone else in the caravan owned was wet and muddy. He barely noticed anymore. Every winter it was the same. He traveled each year north from Rovane to the city of Greywater Deep at the mouth of the Sÿghus River with the trading caravans. Greywater Deep would be snowed in from the south for months, while few ocean-going vessels would dare brave the waters of the North Sea until spring. Caravans traveled to the city each fall just before the freeze with countless stores and goods that would not be available to the people of the city again until spring, when the roads opened again.

This year, Aachem had waited longer than usual to book passage with one of the caravans. Perhaps he wished to stay as far south has possible in hopes of hearing more news of the southern coast. More likely, he though often to himself, it was because he had no desire to travel the same dreary route to the north again this year. The first time had been different. The looming, gray forests of numberless pine trees were awe-inspiring to him. The sheer density of the forest itself was a wonder to him. But now, six years later, it held no wonder for him at all. They were merely trees that did not grow near his home to the south.

So he had waited until fall had come and nearly gone, and freeze was upon them. For a week, he had thought he might have missed his opportunity to travel with a caravan. The city of Rovane was generally busy with traders traveling north to Greywater Deep until late in the fall. Then the caravans always stopped then altogether until spring while the roads became nearly impassable and the weather brutal. Six rain-soaked days had passed and the last of the caravans had left the city, or so he thought. Luckily- or unluckily, he could not decide himself- a train of six wagons pulled into the city of Rovane making for Greywater Deep late into the final weeks of fall. They had lost two wagons in the plains to the south, and been forced to travel slower as they had piled the two lost wagons’ goods onto the remaining six. For only a small fee, they had agreed to take Aachem with them.

In return for his payment, Aachem was entitled to eat their food, receive their protection from brigands and thieves, and ride atop one of the wagons, so long as he was willing to drive the mules for his share.

So here they were, still three days south of Greywater Deep, five days north of Highbridge, and it was still raining.

Aachem sat atop the last wagon, cloak pulled close about his shivering shoulders, drenched to the bone as the lands inched slowly by him. His hands held the reins of the two ponies that pulled the cart, but he did little actual steering. The ponies simply followed the wagon ahead of them, never wandering and rarely falling too far behind. They trudged wearily along, one hoof in front of the other, in silent misery with their drivers.

He gazed at the land around him, feeling little marvel in the sight of the looming trees. Even beneath the shelter of the gray-green needles, the ground was wet.

Aachem had never ventured into the forest. There were many strange tales of creatures and such that lived there. He believed none of them, though. More probable were the stories of villages deep in the woods that had changed little over the past centuries, still speaking the harsh guttural tongue of the north, with only distant knowledge of the king or the kingdom in which they lived.

After several hours, when the sun would have been high in the sky if it could penetrate the cloud cover, the caravan rounded a slight bend in the road and the trees to the east fell away immediately. There, not fifty feet from the road, a steep bank fell away some ten feet. The River Sÿghus, freshly swollen from the preceding weeks’ rain rushed by, its muddy-gray waters tipped with breaking foam as it rushed over hidden rocks. Here at the bend, a small, grassy clearing next to the road was occupied by a wagon. There were no oxen to be seen, and no drivers near.

The caravan stopped to search it. Aachem stepped from his wagon to stretch his legs and work some heat into his numbed limbs. His boots sank halfway to his knees in the mud of the road. His feet made a sucking sound as he walked to the edge of the highway.

The other men were standing around the front of the wagon staring dumbly at a mass of rags and cloth under the front wheels. Aachem made his way onto the grass and found his footing there to be much steadier. He made for the group of men to see what had grabbed their attention.

He stopped dead when he saw the cold white flesh of a man’s hand amid the rags.

Coming closer, he could now see that this was no bundle of cloth at all, but a man, huddled beneath his wagon for shelter from the rain, who had died there. He no doubt had frozen to death. His exposed hand was swollen and bloated from exposure to the rain and water.

The other men made no motion to inspect the man, so Aachem took it upon himself. He bent over, his face not three feet from the dead man.

"Rest with Oes." He whispered the Oestric blessing so low that the others could not hear him.

He reached for the man’s blanket that covered all but his exposed hand. Pulling it away from the corpse, Aachem almost lost his breakfast from the sight. The man’s face was round and swollen, the skin a sickly blue. Even the lips were blue. The man’s eyes were open, staring sightlessly straight into Aachem’s own face. He turned his eyes, and pulled the blanket up over the man’s face to cover those eyes. He was about to rise, when he noticed something that caught his eye. In pulling the blanket over the man’s head, Aachem had exposed the left leg of the body. It, too, was swollen and blue from the exposure, but the color was not what caught his eye. On the inside of the left ankle, barely visible from the bloating, was a faint brand- vaguely resembling a set of merchant’s scales.

Istrim!

His mind screamed. He nearly jumped to his feet and ran for the wagon- anything to be gone from this place! But reason prevailed at last, and he gathered his nerves. He looked up quickly at the men around him, hoping they had noticed little out of the ordinary. He was quite sure his face had lost any color it might have retained in the cold. Apparently, the other men did notice somewhat.

"Looks like our stone-faced companion is alive after all!" joked one, Selïe was his name, if Aachem remembered correctly. "This is the closest thing to liveliness we’ve had from him the entire trip!"

Some of the men tried to laugh, but it sounded forced. They were, no doubt, greatly disturbed by the corpse also, though for different reasons than Aachem.

"Poor fool got caught out here without enough blankets." Remarked another, staring somewhat indifferently at the body. His name was Petram, and he was the leader of the caravan. "Should have known better," he remarked. "Looks like all his provisions are still here in the back," he said wandering to the rear of the wagon and looking beneath the ragged covering. "We should see if there’s anything we can take. Looks like he can not have been here more than a few days."

"Traveling alone, Humph! What a fool!" remarked another trader, Hughlet.

Aachem, now unnoticed as the men rummaged through the items in the wagon, trudged back to his wagon and climbed to the seat. He felt inside to find his walking stick. His hand finally grasped the hard, polished wood of the shaft, and he gripped tightly without drawing the staff from the baggage. He tried to look relaxed, but kept his walking stick secured in his grip for use as a weapon if need be.

His eyes were fixed no longer on the covered corpse under the wagon, but on the trees to the west of the road. His companions might rest assured that the man had traveled alone, but the horse that had pulled the wagon was gone, and that meant someone had taken it. Since the stores of the wagon had not been plundered, it was safe to assume that no one else had found the wagon. Any intelligent traveler would not only take the horse or pony that pulled the wagon, but the stores in it as well. So whoever was with the dead man took the horse and continued on by himself. That meant there was another one out there, somewhere. Aachem said nothing of his thoughts to his fellow travelers.

After what seemed hours, the men loaded their new booty into their own wagons and started off again. Aachem spurred his poor ponies as close behind the wagon before him as they would go. He wanted nothing to do with the wagon behind him, and even less with the branded body beneath it.

They continued to travel north along the road the remainder of the day, pausing only a few times to rest and feed the ponies and themselves. They camped that evening right next to the road on the only grassy patch they could find that was not covered with six inches of mud. Aachem slept little. Each time he dozed off, he was tormented by dreams of the dead man’s eyes, and the brand that he bore. Aachem awoke with a start each time he reached for the blanket in his dreams to uncover that ankle. The night seemed to last forever, and Aachem thought it would never pass.

But pass it did. He rose the following morning to weather much like the one before, save that, at last, the falling mist had stopped. The skies were still and dark the entire day, foreboding more rain to come. The caravan inched its way north in the mud and slop. The going was painfully slow. Much to Aachem’s relief, they passed no other person that day, living or dead. He slept soundly that night, the shock from the previous day’s discovery behind him at last.

On the third day, Aachem awoke and looked north to the line of low hills. Just beyond them, he knew, lay Greywater Deep. The wide, noisy river that ran along side the road here was barreling to the sea. Patches of ice flowed past them on their way to the city. Here and there, patches of it had gathered around trees and rocks that jutted out of the water. But it mattered little to the sodden men of the caravan, the end of the journey was finally in sight! Two weeks of cold, wet, misery would be past. But half a day remained, and the rains had returned with renewed strength.

Over the next hours, the miles passed so slowly that Aachem thought they were not moving at all. The constant trudging of the ponies was all that kept Aachem aware that they were, in fact, moving slowly towards the city. Yet after long last, the hills fell away before them, and the caravan looked at the walls of Greywater Deep from afar.

Greywater Deep; ancient city at the mouth of the Sÿghus River in the farthest north of Iradar, northernmost kingdom on the Aridisian Continent. It was large, as far as cities in the North went. They were small compared to the sprawling metropolises in the south, but, then, there was far more arable land to the south also. Greywater Deep was one of the first places colonized by ancient Northman sailors who ventured far and wide over the seas searching for riches and plunder. It sat perched atop the high, sheer cliffs that marked the western banks of the river, overlooking a large, natural harbor. Even from this distance, Greywater Keep, the seat of the Gendry Duchy was visible, sitting solidly atop the highest spot of land in the city, its massive walls meeting the cliff-face that overlooked the Deep. Aachem had never been inside the keep, but from the harbor, he had noticed before that the walls met the cliff-face perfectly, forming one large, flat, gray edifice overlooking the ships that lay anchored there. It was truly a marvel of engineering. He thought it strange that it should be located here, in this land far away from the great cities of the south with their wondrous works of beauty and strength.

The nearest of the city gates were still miles ahead, but the road ran straight and true towards them, clearly in much better condition than in the wilderness to the south. As if they could sense a warm stable ahead, the ponies picked up their pace, and the road, now paved with heavy gray stones, was easier to travel. The miles seemed to fly by them, and at last they passed through the city gates with hardly a word to the wardens who sat wrapped in cloaks against the cold beneath the shadows of the city.

The first inn they passed was the Broken Barrel, a large and well-built inn just inside the city gates. The caravan was traveling to another establishment farther inside the city, but it was here that Aachem said his curt good-byes to the men with whom he had traveled so long, but barely spoken to. He paid them the remainder of their fee that he had promised for delivering him safely to the city. He stepped up to the gate of the inn’s courtyard and rang the small copper bell. After what seemed an eternity, footsteps from the courtyard could be heard as someone approached.

"Traveler?" a faceless voice asked from behind the wall, "You’re lucky, we’ve a bed or two to spare tonight."

--

A bright, warm fire greeted him as he stepped in from the cold. His wet, tangled hair lay against the back of his neck as he shook off his drenched cloak and handed it to the man who had taken his pack. He walked numbly to the table nearest the fire and took a seat. He propped his feet up on the broad stone hearth before the crackling blaze and warmed his numbed limbs.

He nearly dozed off when a voice interrupted his relaxation.

"Aachem," The voice said, "I have been awaiting you for a month. I have a message for you."

Aachem turned rather quickly. A tall, lean man had sat silently down in the chair next to him. His long, angular face was framed by light brown hair common to men of Horwald here in northern Iradar. But his eyes were brown. And that spoke of southern blood.

The man looked at him under heavy eyebrows that left his dark eyes nearly hidden by shadows in the half-light of the common room. He spoke in a low voice, so that none by Aachem could hear.

"There are Istrim in the city."

"What has that to do with me?" He feigned disinterest. "I care little for the southern churches and their priests."

The stranger laughed quietly.

"I think, Urümael, that they care a great deal about your presence." He said menacingly.

Aachem held his breath at the use of his true name. "No one in the north knows my name!" His mind screamed silently in alarm.

"Who are you?" he demanded, turning quickly to the stranger and grabbing him by the shoulder. The Man backed away from him, tearing his shoulder from Aachem’s grasp.

"Beware, Urümael!" the stranger hissed to avoid drawing any more attention. "You are touching a Stone of the Rock!"

Aachem retracted his hand as quickly as he could. He must be lying!

"You lie! Who are you?" he asked the stranger

"I am the stone upon which the Rock is founded. I am the foundation, the base." Was the almost inaudible reply.

Aachem made no reply. He stared dumbly at this dark, shadowed figure before him.

After a brief pause, the stranger finally spoke again. "Urümael, my brother, the Rock of the Sun has called for you."

Aachem’s heart nearly skipped a beat.

At last!

More of Dawn of Winter can be found at:

http://www.oocities.org/wastra/DoW.html