chapter 1

Matrim

Somehow fall in this land had no vibrancy to it; the wind carried with it the scent of rotting leaves and a chill that cut straight to the bone. Matrim Urthwride longed for home, a fire; crackling merrily in the hearth; casting a bubble of warmth throughout the small room. Scents of fresh bread and long roasting meats, marinated days before in baths of rosemary, olive oil, cilantro and other spices and seasonings Matrim would rather have not recalled. He huddled his shoulders closer under his heavy cloak, tugging with his free hand, at the cloak that flapped and waved in the wind; snapping and popping under the strength of a particularly strong gust. His other hand clutched the worn leather of his mare’s reigns.

“Even walls would be a relief,” He complained aloud, “Uncle!” He raised his voice to be heard over the roar of the wind, “How much farther until you decide this is folly and turn back!?”

His uncle was a thin, austere fellow; more inclined to grimaces than to smiles. His cloak, a thick black sable lined with what could have been a packs worth of winter fox fur. He turned to face Matrim, his cold blue-grey eyes always made him feel uncertain, “Wha?! What in saving my brothers ungrateful bastard is folly?” He reined his horse in, halting the six mounts progression up the narrow mountain road, “Pray tell, dear nephew.”

Matrims’ cheeks flushed, there was something in the way his uncle said the word nephew that built an anger in him, “Uncle, have you forgotten your own blood? Is it not just as tainted as mine? Or are you no longer an Urthwride!” It was true; his uncle shared his tragic fate, being a child of a father’s lust and the old word for fatherless hung heavy in the air. It was the bastards’ way, taking the name Urthwride to forever announce, at least in his father’s lands, as a creature of deceit, distrusts and sin.

This time it was his uncles turn to redden, “Have you forgotten?!” His uncle was renowned for his temper and his roaring voice echoed off the close walls of the canyon to surround Matrim, “It was I who plucked you from that small cottage you called a home. I, who, when learning of your father’s new wife’s plans; found you with all haste to hide you! If it were not for me, you’d be in chains in her dungeon, either headed for an execution, the deep mines or a slavers oar deck! And you dare ask me if I am Urthwride?! You dishonor the brave and true Knights around you; who threw aside lands and honors far greater than riding with a bastard prince!”

For a long while the only sounds were the whistle of the wind, the crunch of shifting hoof, and the cling and rattle of arms and armor. “Uncle Daevon,” Matrim’s voice broke the uneasy stillness, “I… I… I umm…. Well, I’m sorry.” He looked away from his uncle and those cold eyes, feeling his gaze despite his best efforts to ignore it.

He thought again of home, but this time of the mother he’d left behind. She’d been kind and warm to everyone. Never bitter that her son, born from the seed of one of the twelve kings and the womb of a peasant would never rise above the lowliest. She wasn’t much like her son; she was short, diminutive and soft spoken; and that made Matrim miss her all the more.

He had her hair, that much could be said, a coal black that shone under direct light that was a stark contrast to his father’s pale blond ringlets that curled and bobbed in humid weather. Matrim had always been glad of his own hair, although now the wispy, thin strands flew and tangled in the rushing wind.

“That’s a fine start, boy,” He uncle smiled and started his mount back up the winding road with a kick of his heels, “But you’ll have to do better than that if you’re hoping to win an ally here.”

Two of the knights chuckled as they passed him, their arms and armor still made Matrim giddy, like he had been whisked away into one of the stories, filled with heroes and grand adventures in the company of fierce warriors and courageous men as well as his noble uncle. Yet, however excited he was, he couldn’t quite get any of the men to speak with him. He knew all four by name now; Baearn, Muuldrich, Ferrion and Thed; even so as of as of yet they had referred to him only as, if they spoke at all, bastard or Urthwride, neither of which made Matrim feel welcome among them at the evening cook fire.

Each night a different knight would tell a tail from his past to help pass the time between cooking, eating and sleeping. Matrim was shocked when Baearn, a short stocky man more knotted with sinew and muscle than anyone of his stature had any right to be, laid out a raucous tail of debauchery and gore. Seemingly blending sin and honor, lust and gore; in a single story about a night spent in Ein’ Ur’ Lain the largest city this side of the Aelemon deserts.

“So, I pulled me axe free with a savage effort, spraying the common room with Ser Andrehw Talbaryl’s life blood and virtually soaking the Eurinsi carpet he’d stood on before I slew him,” Baearn’s barking heavy laughter echoed in the narrowness of the gorge before he quaffed that last of his ale, “The whores all begged me to drop trousers right then and there to accept their gratitude.,” this time the short knight didn’t laugh alone, as most of the knights congratulated him on his gallantry at his uncle chuckled at the bluntness that was Baearn’s charm. Matrim felt alone in his silence, murder wasn’t funny and begging whores he found to be too easy of game to include in a real jest. He decided the knights in the tails were much better than any of the real ones, at least the few he’d met.

Morning of the next day brought with it a thin layer of frost that clung to the blades of high mountain grass as well as the scraggle on the knights and in his uncles close trimmed beard. The night before had been too cold for Matrim’s liking, and this morning was little better. The sun brought with it little warmth this high in the peaks, Ferrion told him as he worked to pack away the camp.

“Something about the thinness of the air, warmth just slides right out of it.” Ferrion had a habit about talking about everything like he knew it, and more often than not; no one argued with him. Matrim hadn’t yet decided if this was because of the man’s size, or the size and suddenness with which his anger took him; but he had decided it was better to wonder than to find out.

They ate little each morning; Daevon woke them early and pushed them hard for the pass. No one asked and it seemed no one was certain but it felt to Matrim like they raced, but whether it was the snow or pursuers they hoped to outrun he didn’t know. He knew the look in his Uncle’s eyes that meant no questions, not now, not until we reach Castle Ulmarr and make it though the pass, so Matrim held his tongue in cheek and kept quite.

By the morning of the fourth day Matrim was saddle sore and tired. Even his mare, Pearl, an old plow horse seemed to put her hooves down faster and pick them up slower. The day’s journeys grew more and more silent; sometimes the only sound Matrim would hear all day was the whicker of the horses and the steady clip clop of their hooves on the hard packed earth. By night of the sixth day, it was all he could to stay alert and mounted. More than once he felt his eyes drifting closed and had to shake his head to keep from sleeps ever beckoning embrace.

His mind wandered, retelling old stories, marveling at the road; a track barley wide enough for Pearl; carved from the granite of the mountain. How the ancient Ulmarr family had managed to reach the pass, much less build the castle that now stood watch there, was still a closely guarded secret. Matrim could’ve cared less. The grey lifelessness that surrounded him weighed on his soul; a soul used to the rolling green hills and farms far below on the banks of the Great Vuldrate River. He urned for his mother, who’s voice he heard on the wind, for an embrace to warm him, or for a dozen of her biscuits fresh from the oven drowning amid honey’s and jams. He wanted to turn Pearl around, put his heels to horseflesh and fly down the winding road to his mothers farm, but something in the way his uncle looked at him each morning and evening made him regret thinking so.

The day his uncle had come for him, Matrim had been at work in the fields, plowing with Pearl to break up the earth and soften the field before winter. When five men had ridden past the windmill, four of which were armed, Matrim had left Pearl lashed to the plow and rushed back to the cottage he and his mother shared. He arrived as the men did, and rushed passed them into the house as they dismounted. Having never met his uncle before, Matrim was wary, warning his mother of the strangers as he fought to regain his breath.

When she smiled at him, placing a hand on his shoulder, he knew something was amiss. She’d never smiled like THAT for a stranger. She walked past him, leaving behind a bubbling and hissing stew pot, her fingers lingering on his shoulder longer than was normal. He realized that he was trembling when she removed her hand to open the door.

“Murriam?” The voice was hesitant in the assumption, but firm and deep in sound.

“Daevon?”

“Hurry, send your boy for a horse!”

“Bu-“ His mother began before catching and holding his uncles cool gaze. “Mat!” she was shouting even though he stood at her side, “Saddle Pearl, and be quick about it!” He squeezed past her and through the door, mouth open and eyes staring at the armored behemoths that stood outside.

One, he would latter learn to be Muuldrich snorted back laughter, “So this is the prince…looks more like a country lout.” Matrim shot him a glance and descended the short hill to the field at a brusque pace straining to hear the whispered conversation between his mother and uncle; “We must away. The scribe, if he truly had the gift, wrote it so. The new lady Axthelm will hunt him to the ends of the earth to prevent it.”

“Are you absolutely certain?”

“Yes. You’re son will be-“

Pearls impatient whicker drowned out the conversation and Matrim set to work freeing her from the plow with cold and clumsy hands. Finally, he led her to the tack shed for a saddle. By the time he’d saddled the mare a silence had fallen over the farm, even the Great Vuldrate was becalmed for once. His mother avoided meeting his eye as he pulled Pearl up the hillock to join the circle.

“Mat. This man is your uncle, and…well, he’s come for you and that’s that.” He could see tear streaked cheeks hidden behind coal black hair, and he hated his uncle for it.

“There’s no time to explain, boy, asides from saying sit your horse well and do try to keep up.” The blonde man with piercing eyes and few gestures he assumed was his uncle, pulled his horse around in a tight circle, putting his heels to its flank as he did so. The four knights followed suit, razing a tail of dust as they raced down the lonely farm road.

Matrim put a food in the stirrup, searching his mothers face for a clue, or even her eyes. Pearl was following the other horses before Matrim was fully ahorse. The wind whistled in his hair and ears, carrying away with it whatever his mother had said as her farewell.

It was well past sun down when Matrim gave up on looking back.

His uncle explained to him the jist of everything after they had resumed their riding the next morn. “So, you are a bastard, yes. But you have a kings blood in your veins, and that worries the new lady Axthelm. You have a line to the Axthelm throne, and could threaten her children’s claims, if that frigid woman has enough warmth in her to carry one into this world alive,” his uncle concluded with a bark of laughter that startled Pearl into a canter.

It had been a full week since that first meeting, and still Daemon pushed them. Snow had come with the evening, laying a thin blanket across the land around them and sticking to the few crags of rock that rose above them. Every breath filled Matrim’s chest with ice, and the air around them was thick with the steam of exhaled vapor.

“We must make Castle Ulmarr by nightfall. Should another storm bring snow with it we’re likely to be trapped, with no way forward or back,” His uncles eyes had lost a little of the energy that made them piercing, and his voice was thick with worry and strain.

So, the small party pushed hard. The horses glistened with perspiration despite the mountains chilly air. Clouds, dark and angry hung low over head, draped across the high peaks, whisps tearing off every now and again to obscure the narrow road ahead and behind. By mid day fine flacks of snow drifted lazily down on them, catching in their hair and sticking to their horses manes before losing shape and slowly, melting and dripping down.

They moved as fast as they dare, the granite was slick with snow and the ever present wind ripped and tore at the exposed flesh cutting away any warmth movement provided. Matrim had seen the effects of the mountain blizzards from the farm in the valley, the mountains would stand one day, grey and ominous, and then the clouds would cover them, hide them, and when they finally drifted away the grey mounds were gone, replaced instead by towering pristine white peaks that would last through the year until spring. He’d never have guessed how cold and supremely loud it was to travel through.

By mid afternoon, or as near as he could guess in the swirling white, his hair was frozen and his face burned. He held the reigns in one aching, frozen hand, and held his cloak closed and across his face with the other. The knights, having removed their armor; now too cold to even touch, trudged on beside him silently, looking like ghastly abominations of snow and man in their frozen leathers and furs. Even Thed, whose face was often lit with a smile none could explain frowned under his frozen mass of strawberry colored hair, his cheeks red, his large, hooked and crooked nose bedecked in frozen snot and melted snow.

His uncle seemed to be the only man unaffected by the cold. He rode head down, at the front of the pack; his cloak swirling and dancing in the heavy and constant wind, always a head of them. When he did raise his head his eyes matched the cold air, and he would smile, and Matrim found relief in that.

Suddenly his Uncle put his heels into his horse, vaulting ahead on the road, stopping just as he reached the crest of another switchback. He turned his horse to face them, eyes lightly falling on all in the party before resting firmly on Matrim. As Matrim crested the hill his jaw fell slowly open, before him rose twin peaks, one to either side, forming a head mountain vale, floored by an open spaced meadow now feet deep in snow. Nestled against the northern most peak stood a stone structure larger than anything he’d seen before. The walls facing them were plastered with snow, thrown at them by powerful winds, but the flickering of torches on the battlements and the winking yellow lights in the keep radiated warmth and safety.

His uncle raised his hand in a wind and grand gesture that didn’t fit his person, “The High Pass and Castle Ulmarr. We may not be out of the cold yet, but you can taste the heat from here.”

Matrim came to the conclusion that, despite himself, he liked his uncle a lot more than he had dared to hope. He just hoped Castle Ulmarr was as warm as promised.

The travelers put heel to horseflesh and trudged through the deep snow of the meadow towards the front gate, calling to the men on the wall to open up.