Hail to the King

Prologue

The promise of Spring was heavy in the air one Winter's morning. It was unusually warm despite the snow still blanketing the ground, but still considered cold enough to don the thick furs and heavy material they called clothing in their time. New grass and budding flowers were just beginning to peek out from under the seemingly endless white, the sky a stunning blue in contrast to the colors below. Trees, though bare of bark from the foraging creatures nearly starved in the cold weather, grew high and tall in the air, awakening from their slumber and soaking in the new rays of light just starting to heat the earth. Now was the time for birds and bears alike, still fat and plumb from their slumber, emerged to find the world once again new. Small houses, carved from wood and packed with long since hardened clay, stood slightly slanted and held up with stilts carefully placed against their foundations that had held strong and true in the bitter winds. Winter had come and gone, taking with it the lives of both young and old who would never again step out of their homes and bask in the sun, such was the way of nature.

With death, however, came new life in these wood and clay homes. As was tradition, men and women conceived their newborns long before the cold came and birthed their offspring well into the Winter, their survival a testament of their strength and their death a display of the weak. New mothers left the warmth of their beds and the comfort of their drowsy husbands to tend to their squalling babes, their stomachs lighter without the added weight inside of them. After the young were fed and quieted, the older children were awoken from their lazy dreams and given their own meals before being sent out to attend to their chores. The young lads were sent to work with their fathers, collecting wood for the hearth and hunting for supper, while the lasses stayed home with their mothers to see that the laundry and other such housework was tended to.

One such house, which stood slightly straighter than the others due to careful framework and diligent care, was no such exception. The mother threw aside her warm blankets, woke her children and husband, and set first to heat water for the laundry after dressing in her furs and thick clothing. As she lugged the water inside from the well not too far from where they lived, she found another woman standing by the hearth where her children and husband sat warming their skin before going out into the cold themselves, using the last of their wood before more was collected to create a well burning fire. The two women smiled pleasantly at each other, glad to be in each others presence and out of the threat of Winter; a great resemblance was held in the faces of these two sisters, both with hair like the earth trailing down their backs in long braids.

"Did you happen to check the sheep while you were out, Ingrid?" her husband asked as he and his two sons pulled on their thick skinned boots and tucked their pant legs in to keep the snow out.

"Yes. They seem to be fairing well," Ingrid replied as she hoisted the water pails up onto the stones of the hearth where she left them to warm, moving a piece of her earth brown hair out of her equally brown eyes. "The Spring lambs should be coming soon, as well. The ewes are looking particularly fat this year."

"Good. At least one of them should serve as a fitting offering to the Gods," Ingrid's husband, Davin, said as he stood from his stool. "Erland," he called to their eldest, "Magnus," to their youngest, "time to be on our way. The hares and squirrels will be out before long and hard to spot come the time the sun has half risen." Erland and Magnus, dead ringers for their mother, hopped down from their stools and raced to the door, Magnus excited to experience his first hunt.

"Be careful with them, Davin. Erlands first hunt, you brought him back bruised and dirt ridden," Ingrid pleaded as she stepped to send off her husband on their departure.

"The boy followed a hare down its hole. Far be it from to tell him to give up so easily," Davin laughed. Ingrid gave him a look. "Fine, fine. I will personally see to it our son stays out of hare holes and the like." He raised his right hand in promise.