Altarn: Chapter one, part one

Fantasy stories: Swords and magic, adventure and flight of fancy. I decided not to wait and to just go ahead and slowly post the portions of this story I've written. In time, hopefully, I'll get some comments and hopefully interest as well.

The morning sun could be seen in a single ray crossing the room. Particles of dust danced in the sunbeam as Altarn walked into the kitchen. For a moment he wondered why he had been allowed to sleep so late, normally by this time he would be up and about doing chores. Finally the thought surfaced in his sleep fogged brain, it was his birthday, his coming of age day. His father had let him sleep in to celebrate.

The argument had raged for months, Henry wanted him to stay on the farm and eventually inherit the land. Altarn was his only son and should be the one to inherit the farm. Altarn had no desire for farming, having read several books and deciding that there was far more waiting for him in the world than the farm and attached livestock. As a young child Altarn had been given some minor schooling under a traveling priest. He was taught of the gods and more importantly to him, he had been taught how to read and do basic mathematics. He was sure that he could make his way in the world. In the past few months his dreams had come to a crux. His father had talked about splitting up the farm by gifting Altarn a twenty-five acre section to start farming on. Altarn had told him straight out that he had no desire to farm or even to stay on the farm. Several months back Altarn had admitted his dreams to his mother and father and as a result had to listen to his father’s tirades about his several times removed great grandfather. This ignoble ancestor had been a common adventurer according to his father, a man of little repute and less grace.

Eventually Altarn had been able to point out that it was the profits from this ancestor’s adventuring that had purchased the farm they lived on but his father would not budge. ‘No account, good for nothing, take what they want when they want louses” he called adventurers. Altarn hadn’t really thought much about taking up adventuring until his father’s stories but as Henry told of battles, thefts, and magics; the dedication they required and the disregard for the salt of the earth that seemed to emanate from all adventurers, “save priests” quickly added his father, Altarn felt a desire to explore this new possibility. He had previously thought to travel to a large town and use his command of basic mathematics and writing to secure a position as a scribe for some large merchant company. Perhaps even get to travel with some of the caravans some day and see more of what the world offered that way.

Adventuring seemed a far better way to see the world and like most teenagers he thought that the dangers surely couldn’t apply to him. The one item of his ancestor who had provided the farm that was still about the house was a large dagger, nearly a short sword, that hung on the wall over the fireplace. Altarn had been strapped several times for playing with it when younger. He knew the dagger well, the runes and etchings inscribed on the blade, the very keen edge and the superb balance of the weapon when in his hand. His father claimed that the dagger was poor craftsmanship and would barely stay in the hand when you tried to wield it but for Altarn it felt as though the leather of the grip had adhesive on it. Having never held any other tool that was only designed as a weapon he had nothing to compare it to but felt that no other weapon would be nearly as fit for his hand. He had asked his father for it as a coming of age gift and his father had merely snorted.

It seemed now that his father had made the final fatal error, in letting Altarn sleep in he had sealed the fate of his son. Altarn was determined to never be up before dawn again. In all the arguments Altarn had never thought of the chores and work he did about the farm as a deciding factor but having slept in once, he wanted more. Altarn puttered about the house for a while then went out to do the close in work that was necessary around the farm. Cows to be milked, eggs to be gathered; all the while his father was out in the fields preparing them for the spring planting. Altarn would have been out there with him had he not been allowed to sleep in.

Several hours later his mother, Amanda, returned to the house, she had been to the small village nearby to pick up some supplies. “We’ll have a surprise for you tonight son” she said. “Now shoo, out of the house so I can get to work.” Altarn left the house and drifted about the yard. He wandered off to the small outcropping of rocks near the stream that ran through the yard. This was his private space and he had created a small tent-like structure out of leftover canvas using the rocks for one side of the structure. It was only the size of a small lean-to but in his daydreams it was far more. It was a portal to the world about him that he had never seen. He sprawled back inside and his dreams took him away to Turrin, a large town several days travel to the northwest.