At any rate, here is an excerpt from my (neverending) novel Vendave. Set in the medieval times, it is a non-fantasy set in a fictional word, and follows a set of characters including the one below. I love this piece, but it is a monster that I've been working on for years and still is not done. One day, Vendave. One day.
The last shovel of
dirt fell short of the mound, earth trickling down the side of the
fresh grave, rolling back to the toes of his muddied boots. Wolfgang
Medvetis sank to his knees in front of it, leaning against the spade
with one hand. A simple wooden cross was the only marker, his
father’s name meticulously carved into it on the side. Rows and
rows of crosses surrounded him, closing in tighter and tighter—and
that was only from those who didn’t merely throw the bodies into
the woods for the wolves.
Somehow, Cohen
Medvetis on the side of a plank of wood seemed only to reflect
the fading soldier taken by plague. The man that sat in front of the
fire wrapped in a blanket and hiding himself from his last of kin.
“Wolf…” He
held up his gloved hand, determined to hide the marks of his dying
skin, rotting away beneath the cloth. He didn’t turn to face his
son. “When you go, burn this place. Don’t let anyone else step
foot in.”
“Who said I was
leaving?” he defended, standing just behind his father’s chair,
staring down at the thin black hair that barely covered a scar on the
back of his head. Battle wounds.
The chuckle in
response came dry and weak. “I know you. You’re too restless for
the crumbling world.” That hand dropped, gesturing vaguely towards
the sword in the corner of the room, sheathed in a black leather
scabbard and resting on top of an old chest. Memoirs from a
half-forgotten war. “Take what you need, and burn everything else.
These are memories only for us.”
Medvetis’ eyes
started to water from staring at the simple marker. Splinters had
worked their way into his palms, hands still gripping the shovel with
white knuckles. He didn’t cry, the dampness blinked away. After
all, the man that had died was little like the man that had raised
him, or attempted to, after his wife had succumbed to fever when the
boy was five. More dirt shifted, easing the mound closer to the
earth, as if threatening to uncover the swathed and wilted body
beneath, muscles sapped and atrophied. A shell, and nothing more.
“Everything is
yours, now, Wolf.” A voice came from behind him, a hand falling on
his tense shoulder. “Miller’s daughter had finally gotten her
dowry together. Now that the house is yours, you can take her. Settle
down. Right?”
With a heavy sigh,
Medvetis pushed himself to his feet with the help of the spade. His
eyes never left the crooked cross. His fingers had been shaking when
he tied the wood together, and now the left edge drooped lower than
the right. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
“What?” The
other man frowned, looking him over as if he must have been
catching some mad sickness next. “Where is it you plan to go? Land
is scarce, there won’t be getting any of your own outside of your
father’s. Hell, you’re lucky that you even own it. Lord
Saddler has everything else in town.”
Medvetis set the
shovel over his shoulder, heading back towards the small cottage, a
thin trail of smoke still rising from the fire dying in the hearth.
“I don’t plan on finding somewhere else to settle.”
“What are you
going to do, then? Just wander? You’ll be killed, Wolf. The roads
have gone to hell lately with thieves and vagabonds. Your father
might have taught you to use a sword, but that doesn’t do any good
against gangs and arrows.”
He set the shovel
down outside the house, not inviting his companion in, though the
other followed him inside anyway. Medvetis didn’t answer, instead
shaking the dirt from his boots as he paced across the wooden floor.
A traveling pack already waited for him, along with a bow and a full
quiver. He picked up his father’s sword and scabbard, looping it
onto his belt. Nothing else in the single-room house had been
touched, dust settling on the mantle, filtering across the empty
windows in the slanted sunlight.
“You’re really
leaving.” His voice trailed off, watching the young man shoulder
the bag and weaponry.
“You should
leave, and move downwind.” Medvetis suggested flatly, taking a long
piece of wood from the tabletop—a piece of the cross he had cut too
crookedly to use. Placing the end into the hearth, he waited for it
to catch fire, watching the yellow flames.
“Wolf…you can’t
be serious…”
He didn’t answer,
aside from touching the makeshift torch to the table until it lit,
then the chair his father had died in. He stepped to the curtains, to
the bed, to the scrolls of their records in the open chest, to the
wooden walls that still smelled of decay. His companion ran out
coughing by the time he dropped the flaming stick onto the floor and
closed the door. Smoke billowed out of the windows, and belched from
the chimney, painting ghosts above the house. Standing back, Medvetis
didn’t move until dusk, when all that was left was still
smoldering, piles of ash marking the square plot of land he had
always known. By then, he had retrieved his horse from the stables, a
proud black Friesian stallion, saddlebags packed, the animal waiting
less than patiently.
“You don’t have
to do this.”
Medvetis pulled
himself up on the horse’s back, looking down at the other man. He
smiled, reaching down to clasp his hand. “It’s a bit too late for
that, isn’t it?”
Surprised, he
gripped the other’s calloused hand tightly, driving the splinters
in a bit deeper. “That’s the first I’ve seen you smile in
months, Wolf.”
“Take it as a
good omen, then.” He shifted the bow on his back, then let him go,
ignoring the stinging in his hands. “And wish me a good journey.”
Belatedly, he
smiled in return, reaching over and slapping the horse’s rump. The
animal whinnied, then jumped forward, reigned in for an easy canter
down the trail.
“Safe journey,
Wolf.”
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