Gregor, son of Leon, was a good man. He woke up before dawn most days to trek down the hill and fetch water for the morning meal, chores, and prayer. His sons would find him at the family shrine, where he would declare his oaths. First, to his wife, to always speak truly with her. Second, to his brother, to treat his son as his own in all things. He was not a man with many oaths, but he gave them the respect he believed knights and priests gave theirs. He lived in a small farming village between the mountains and the coast. He missed the taste of the sea, but his wife wanted a life that didn’t involve him coming home smelling like fish and gone for days at a time.

  On a normal day, Gregor would work until evening, much of that time spent learning and adjusting to life as a farmer. His brother’s son knew much of this and could do most of the work for their small field on his own. But to expand their field would need extra hands, and Gregor’s wife was with child. As a proper man, Gregor would provide for his family, even if farming was aggravating work, and that wolf they kept seeing was the spawn of Kelsai. Dammed thing was too cunning to be a simple wolf.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  Luckily, today was not a normal day; it was market day. Gregor and one of his sons had traveled two days east to the town of Tosca. Barley, Goat’s Milk, and a few fox pelts would hopefully be enough to trade for some new tools, salt, and a shoddy cleaning wand if they were lucky. Tosca was a bit odd compared to most Milanese towns. The climate and soil weren’t right for rice fields, and being so close to the foothills made many in town a bit more wary. Most in town had at least a dagger, if not an axe or hammer, on them in case something came down from the mountains or in from the sea. Be in Chirath raiders, the magic-cursed spawn of Kelsai, or simple bandits and pirates.

  Gregor’s son had noticed an old crone selling a few trinkets, and they had found a very limited cleaning wand; it could only handle cloth and even then only once a day, but it had a decent duration, and the old lady said it had never failed to remove a stain. Worth the price of a bag of barley for sure, and the two were enjoying a bit of salted fish when the inn next to them erupted in black flames.