Ice warriors

Chapter 1

Jahan Wideleather looked at himself in his small mirror affixed to the inside door of his wardrobe. He saw what he'd expected to see, at seventeen years old he'd come to accept his puberty fat was there to stay. His mismatched eyes, left blue right brown reviewed his hawkish nose and his close cropped sandy brown hair. He did not see a soldier in training but he knew as of tomorrow that would be who he was, perhaps when he looked tomorrow he'd see himself differently. He sucked in his cheeks and put on his best serious look but all he saw was a look of a confused boy.

He closed the door and turned his attention to better things. In his lower bedside table draw he collected his sketch pad and flicked through the drawings of the village, and villagers and focused on the pictures of Marza. He never managed to capture her full beauty, her long golden hair, or sparkling blue eyes, her lips and nose, or just about anything about her, to see her for real made what he'd drawn look like primitive scratching. She'd only lived in the village, that was to say in a hut someway out of the village, for the past two years but ever since he'd laid eyes on her he'd been infatuated.

Looking at his drawings of her he made up his mind finally. He'd agonised over it since he'd signed up to join the Imperial army but he knew he had to let her know how he felt, perhaps she'd feel the same, perhaps he'd not join the army learn to hunt and marry her. Perhaps she would be kind when she rejected him, he added.

He donned his brown, knee length coat and left his room. He tried to moved silently down the stairs but his mother called out his name when he had only four steps left. He signed but entered the main room where she was busying herself in the kitchen fixing breakfast. Eggs and bacon with slices of fried bread by  the smell of it.

"Where were you trying to sneak off to?" she asked, not turning around.

How did she know?

"Nowhere," he answered lamely.

"Janan I'm your mother, you can't lie to me. Were you off to see the village for the last time? Perhaps do some drawings? Perhaps go see a certain young lady?"

Janan couldn't respond, how did she bloody well know what was in his mind?

"She'd be a fool to turn you down, especially as your now a military man,"

"Mother," he pleaded.

"I'm sorry but I'm just so proud of you and so is your father although he won't say it, you know how he is. Where he is is more the question now, go call him in tell him breakfast is on the table. It probably will be by the time you find him,"

"Yes mother," he said

His father, Murak Wideleather was the village butcher, he'd grown up and learnt his trade in the capital then decided to settle here in Littlewood, as far from any major city as possible. Janan was born here and had only known his fathers business to be a success but that didn't stop him explaining in length over every meal how he'd had to struggle to convince the villagers not to just trade meat but to go through him. Some still did of course but for the most part people purchased the meat from his butchers, he'd even trained a few apprentices meaning he didn't have to work if he didn't want to.

His day seemed to consist of his attempts at carpentry, the results making Janan thankful it wasn't his trade, or drinking at the local, the Old Orchard. He'd probably be in his shed so that's where Janan headed. The sounds of sawing wood made his guess accurate and he knocked on the shed door, his father became quite irate if he was disturbed and he didn't like another to see his next masterpiece before it was ready.

After a few more moments of rigorous sawing his father opening the shed door and looked down at him.

"Mother says to come in, breakfast is on the table,"