Devil's Night Dawning

CHAPTER II: Of Humble Beginnings

Memories of home stayed with him on the trail out of Rykken. As dusk deepened into night, they found a tree-lined dell in which to make camp and bed down.

Sat on a rock idly poking at the fire he had built, Adelko glanced at his mentor sitting on another rock next to him. He was staring into the flames, lost in his own thoughts. The old monk had barely said a word since they left the village, but for once the silence suited Adelko. Poking the burning branches again, he let his mind drift back into his childhood.

Narvik was a day's ride from Rykken. Several times larger, its people were no less tightly knit, and few strangers ever passed between its crooked wattle huts.

That suited most of its inhabitants well enough, including Arun the blacksmith, Adelko's father; but from an early age his youngest son had nurtured a deep yearning to expand his limited horizons.

On summer afternoons he would climb the slopes overlooking his village and listen to the far-off cries of the last Gigants, as they mourned the passing of their gargantuan race from the loftiest peaks of the Hyrkrainians.

His mother Lettie – before the ague took her – would admonish her reckless youngest son. If he strayed too far, she warned, the spirits of the North Wind would carry him off to their airy palaces on the Other Side, never to return.

To no avail. Adelko was steadfastly in a world of his own most of the time, and before long the other villagers began to nickname him 'the dreaming wanderer' in gentle mockery of his fanciful excursions through the valleys around Narvik. His father Arun was exasperated – after all, his two elder sons, Arik and Malrok, were sturdy, dependable lads more than happy to learn the family trade. But his youngest could not have been more different.

When the Archangel Morphonus refused to bestow the gift of sleep on him Adelko would lie awake at night, dreaming of what he would become. A swordsman perhaps, or an archer. Or maybe an outrider, scouting for armies – he wasn't all that nimble if the truth be told but he certainly liked to roam.

Well, he was the dreaming wanderer after all.

He went about his chores at the smithy with a sullen reluctance, and neither scolding nor belt across the backside could put a spring in his step. Reus knew, his parents tried both more than once, but somehow the message never sank in.

Simply put, horseshoes just weren't for him.

In his ninth year Adelko's mother passed away. A bad harvest and harsh winter robbed her of her strength, and several other villagers shared her fate that year.

As they had done for generations, the inhabitants of Narvik pulled together in times of strife. Food was rationed and shared, and the young and strong lent a hand to help the weak and ailing. Arun's sister Madrice came to stay with them and help keep house now that Lettie was gone.

Little by little, the villagers' tolerance of hardship paid off, and as the long winter thawed into spring they began once more to graze their goats and sow crops.

'Well, it could be worse – at least we don't have it so bad with the highland chieftains,' Arun would say over his stoop of ale in the evenings. 'Not compared to some o' the lowlanders anyway.'

Most of the blacksmith's friends agreed. Down south, the Highlands gradually gave way to the Brenning Wold, a rugged expanse of rolling hills that ended with the River Warryn and the Brekawood to the south-west. There the lowland Wolding barons held sway, unchecked by royal law, squeezing their common folk with harsh taxes and unfair tithes. Arun and the other grown-ups in Narvik would shake their heads disapprovingly whenever they spoke of them.