[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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Drums rattled HuntLoch village.
I stood at the base of the Temple of Harr, gazing upon the steps that led to the temple and my ceremony. Many had made the ascent, but not all had come back. It was said that those who were too weak to shape, or did not accept it, were met with failed hearts from the strain of transformation. I was young, and my heart was strong, but fear still lingered. I kept my shoulders back, chin upward, and eyes forward.
When father took the first step, I took the second.
Together our boots batted against the stone. We ascended higher and higher towards the melodic rhythm that the drums echoed. Dum. Dum. Dum. They hammered. Dum. Dum. Dum. A song that kept beat with our strides.
Torches sat deep into stone on both sides of the steps. Spaced evenly apart. Their flames cast orangish-red light upon the tribesmen and women. They sat upon forms that rowed to the top of the hill where the temple resided, wearing leather-horned helms, brown deer-hide robes, and the somber looks only the ceremony could bring.
I found Nhedri staring at me. A single horn swirled and protruded out of the front of her leather helm. Even in the shadow, she was as beautiful as the first day I saw her. I tried not to allow my mind to wander. To think of our first kiss. Or the words she said to me. Did she even mean it? Did she really love me? I shook my head to keep my mind clear, and to calm my nerves rattling under my skinny frame. I counted each step, fearing I may trip on the narrow staircase. I fought my muscles, causing them to rattle more intensely. I eye'd those watching, their faces appearing as one enormous blur. My stomach to churn.
At that moment, I wondered if father feared his horn ceremony. I peaked over at him. Father too wore a great leathered helm, with horns that arched to long, devilish points high above his head. His deer-hide robes hung off his body, lined with the dark brown furs of the northern wolves, attached at the collar of his neck and around his sleeves. On his chest stood a minotaur with his arms raised; the sigil of our tribe.
I wore my own freshly made deer hide robe to match my fathers. It was a heavy thing. It made me work hard for each step. But it was comfortable, keeping my flesh warm and allowing my legs to feel unconstricted.
I drew my eyes away and brought them to the peak of the hill. Two large, rounded instruments rested on each side of the steps; hollow in the center and made of birch wood. On the face was a taut white hide. It rattled with each pound from the drummers' mallets. Dum. Dum. Dum. It boomed. Their bodies glistened of sweat in the firelight while they stood hunched, swinging from hip to hip in rhythmic timing.
I swallowed, no longer needing to count steps. I looked upon the crowd, uninterested in their somber expressions, my eyes gleaming of orangish-red flames, drawn to the endless sea of horns; made of bone and colored with dull to bright whites. As my eyes flicked between them, I noticed that some were large and weighted while others were short and delicate: curved, pointed horns; long twisted, skinny horns; looped horns; wavy, curvy, and snaked horns; racked horns with several points; young horns and old horns; new, freshly sprouted horns and used, weathered horns; chipped, sharpened, and broken horns. No one alike. Each fitting to the heads and leather helms they were attached to.
