Dawn of Winter (Chapter 1)

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.

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.