Chapter I: Introduction
The omens have been bad this year, really bad. When the snow started to fall, we were not prepared. The harvest had been poor for several years but we had managed, barely, but we were always alive to see the grass return. We are starving.
Our holymen claimed the gods demanded several slaves as sacrifice, but as we drowned our own slaves to please the gods, the starvation got worse. The farmers barely had the strength to reap their crops, the lumberjacks the strength to cut down trees, and the children the strength to eat. Needless to say, the old, weak and children died by the hundreds.
Stories began circulating, our allies were not faring as well either and it was depressing to listen to the bards from the west, how famine and plauge has swept across the lands, leaving several villages empty. Although I don't understand all the words of the bards, it was not just harvest that was poor. The political relations with our allies had started to fail, and there was talks of oncoming war. We share the same gods, but they have always been after the throne, the throne that is rightfully ours by divine right. I guess the hard times creates desperate men.
The snow stood half a spear when the cold grasp took my two sisters away. My older brother had passed away just before the snow, attacked by wild dogs when he was out hunting with the men of the village. Father could only carry his mauled body back to camp, our healers could do nothing to save him. Without their oldest son to help us in the hunt, as I'm still young, food became even scarse and my sisters died.
My mother and father were in a dreadful state, and the grief from the loss of both my older brother and younger sisters became too heavy for me...
...So I left home to wander the roads, to beg, to steal, to survive. I followed the roads southwest, through the lands of our so-called "friends" and they were sure not friendly anymore. As the snow started to melt, I found the roads leading south, to our largest city. There, I was going to find what I was meant for...
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