Five years ago, in spring, sun wolves stalked the sun across the sky. That day events were set in motion that ought not have been. Perhaps the start was a few weeks earlier when the ground heaved and a thunderous noise was heard echoing down the dale from the Saukahandruns. While that caused a stir amongst the farmers, it was already old news, and since no one had suffered, not even by coincidences, the event was forgotten.
“Durf, let’s get a move on. We need to get this wool to the trading post and pick up supplies. Today!” Gaurn said as he tossed the last sack of wool onto the wagon.
“I’m coming. Look! There are three suns peeking over the Gaulaghast. What does it mean?” Durf pulled his woolen cloak on as he reached the wagon and his father.
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Eight years had passed since his wife die, and of course, they never talked about it. Not then, he was too busy with his own grief to be of much help to his son. And he had to leave after the funeral. When he came back from the war, the loss—along the loss of kith and kin in war—he buried; how could they talk about it? Grief wasn’t what men talked about, especially those who have been in the butcher’s shop of battle. There’s too much. You let it go—if your lucky—or pretend it’s not there, but you don’t talk about it. Everyone knows it’s there, but like sleeping dogs, it’s best left sleeping. There will be a fresh batch soon, so you keep your spirits up until then. Now, he needed to be a father.
“No reason to feel ashamed. You were young, not yet four when your mother left us,” said Gaurn.
“So, I shouldn’t still be loyal to her,” said Durf.
“I didn’t say that. Do you remember anything from then?”
“Yes, I remember the carved horse I used to play with while mother knitted.”
“Where did she sit when she knitted?”
“In the rocking chair by the fireplace, and sometimes she would tell me stories.”
“Do you remember any of the stories?”
“Yes.”
Gaurn waited for Durf to say more, but when he didn’t, Gaurn asked, “What did she wear
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“And the side of the Gaulaghast broke off dumping stone into the Isenkal.”
The people believed there were wingless dragons swimming in a sea of molten rock and fire inside Aerd. How many dragons varied between one, three, and nine depending on who told the story. Occasionally, a dragon would bump the land causing it to quake or they might push up a mountain or spit the molten rock into the air. Their breath could be poisonous and smelled like sulfur. Legend has it they became so agitated a millennium ago that they tore what was once a single continent in two. Water flooded in between the pieces. That was when the Saukahandruns and the Gaulaghast were born. The continent with Pitgorm, Goethika, was the smaller piece; the eastern continent of Mytynon was rumored to be much larger.
“That may explain the cloudy water a few weeks back,” responded Gaurn. “The whole mountainside?”
“No. Just a section near the Morgbos. He said a waterfall runs down a gully and into the Isenkal.”
“Ah, that’s why mountain rubble is coming down the brook.”
“And, the sun