[Complete] Eroh has reached his seventeenth spring and has finally become a man. With manhood comes a gift: marriage to the woman he loves. But when a strange new woman from another world enters his life, he is stuck with the decision to honor his...
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The weighted ball troubled the head of my father, so we made a stop at the bowyer's hut before heading home.
I pushed aside the deer hide curtain that kept the flies and mosquitos from finding their way inside. I first felt the heat, then caught the smell of burnt stone and wood chippings that made my nostrils itch. I rubbed until it reseeded, then looked around the hut at the many bows and arrows that hung on the wall. Two large, sweaty bodies, built of muscle, fat, and black hair, shaped wood and chipped stone at two workstations. They wore exhausted expressions and leathered skirts. Both men looked up from their duties, eyeing her father as he stepped inside.
"Reigrum, what do we owe the pleasure?" Burnn asked in his dreary tone. "What you've got there?"
Father stepped around me and tossed the weighted ball to the man. Burnn was slower than he looked and more clumsy, bobbing the iron from one hand to the other until it took flight out of reach, being snatched by the second man ... or boy ... who was as large and stout as Burnn was.
"Father, you've grown slow in your old age," Warii chuckled loud enough to make my ears drum.
"What is that?" Father asked, finding a spot in their circle. I snuck in beside him.
Burnn brushed a finger down his broad chin, rolling the stone between two fingers. "Eastern sorcery."
I felt a chill slip down my back, and I hoped they hadn't seen me shiver. They stayed fixated on the circular silverish-gray stone.
"Where'd you find this?"
"Alongside the River. It killed a Centaur."
Both Burnn and Warii gave her father a long, disturbed glance. "We've seen these before. Iron." He turned towards his son and nodded.
Warii disappeared behind another hide curtain that concealed the rear end of the hut. He reappeared carrying a rattling clay pot. He handed it to my father. He glared between both men, gave a cruel shake of the pot, then brought his eyes down. I didn't have to see what was inside; my father's twisted face told me it was not good.
"How long have they been here?"
Burnn held his tongue.
Warri admitted, "A season," Warii admitted, lowering his head to keep from father's glare. "That's not all. These invaders have built a strange camp."
Father used his Lords' tone. "What kind of camp?"
"We're uncertain. They're hunting in mass and driving away the herds." Brunn caught his breath. "But that's not the worst of it. They're expanding north up the canary fields."
"Wings?"
Burnn shook his head. "No ... I believe Tardakk's victory over the wings has kept them slothing away in the south."
Father looked around the room, while a sliver of light brightened his eyes, and they brightened.. "You said this was eastern sorcery?"
"Yornmen. They seek vengeance and to spoil our lands ..."
