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History

EVER WINTER : Introduction

The northwest wind cut cruelly into Tarik’s face. His woolen scarf was caked with ice crystals, each exhalation adding to their number. The snow blowing off the drifts that covered his uncle’s pasture slashed his eyes like tiny frozen axes causing them to tear.

Tarik grimaced; cursing his ill luck. Cousin Magda would not be pleased. Ahead he could see that which brought him out so close to the onset of another killer storm. It was difficult to overlook: a scarlet stain some eight paces across in the northeast corner of the pasture. In the center of the stain lay the remains of Magda’s prize rho-zebu bull. Rho-zebu were hardy beasts: dangerous and volatile; barely half a step removed from the wild aurouchs beyond the Greywall. This one had been aptly named “Snowbell”; he had a shaggy hide the color of an old moon or dirty snow. Six feet at the shoulder and weighing some 160 stone and topped with a pair of wicked horns that spread nearly ten feet from tip to tip, Snowbell was prime breeding stock. The rho-zebu were northern-bred, preferring to spend the winter pawing through the snow looking for fodder: though they would eat damn near anything. Few things would tangle with a rho-zebu bull, but something had.

Tarik wasn’t much of a tracker; though he fancied that someday, if his uncle allowed, he might run off to join the Black Hunt. But clearly several somethings had cornered the bull, slain it, and crudely butchered it. The bull’s skull was split open and empty, the tongue and eyes were absent as it appeared were most of the intestines, liver, and organs. It was an icy bloody mess. There were tracks everywhere, though the wind was attempting to erase them. The tracks led over the stone wall of the pasture and out into the wild wooded slopes of the Little Hammerfalls. That was no man’s land; even Baroness’s men wouldn’t chase something into there. The An’orheen said it was witchy country. The Little Hammerfalls were full of hidden valleys and glens, avalanches, and probably rock trolls. Maybe even things worse than rock trolls folk said. Though what could be worse than a rock troll Tarik couldn’t imagine. This business with Snowbell wasn’t the work of rock trolls though: they wouldn’t have stopped to climb the wall and they wouldn’t have left anything behind. He couldn’t fathom what could have done such violence. Despite the freezing temperatures Tarik started to sweat: suppose whatever it was hadn’t gone far.

Damn but this was awful luck. Tarik quickly stumbled back toward the stead. Damn snows. Damn Snowbell getting himself killed and probably eaten. Things shouldn’t be like this. Would this winter never end? It was Thirdmonth, the snows should be gone by now. But the oncoming storm was liable to bring more bitter cold and snow with it. Folks said it was unnatural; a curse brought on by the Earl taking a Dari wife. Sparing one last glance toward the Little Hammerfalls and beyond them the Great Hammerfalls and the Greywall itself, Tarik shuddered: witchy country indeed. 

Welcome to County Maldan and the Ever Winter. It is Thirdmonth of the year 474 in the Pendari Reckoning. (The new year begins with the end of the Feast of End-Winter on the last night of Twelthmonth.)

The portents and auguries of last autumn had foretold that End Year and the winter ahead would be cold and bitter. Earl Theron had bid his barons and landholders lay in extra stores. Many who normally allowed their animals to weather the snows in secluded valleys and pastures drove their stock southward to pastures along the Silver River or markets in County Haviel. But few seers could have predicted a winter like this, or that snow would still blanket the Marches in Thirdmonth. Many died over the course of the winter: freezing rains, blinding snow storms, ice, and bitterest wind, hungry wolves and worse. Careful shepherding of winter stores and foodstuffs brought by relief caravans sent by Duke Hiro of Ameryss have staved-off famine in most communities, but little word comes from the remote reaches of the County. Current portents and auguries are inconclusive, but winter’s end does not appear to be in sight.

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