VOIVOD Book Two: The Red Star by Kyle B. Stiff

Author:Kyle B. Stiff [Stiff, Kyle B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-09-27T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Six

Four Wallachians: Viorel the Hunter

Viorel crouched beneath the arms of a naked tree as snow gathered on his shoulders. He wore a wolfskin mantle and cloak over well-worn peasant whites. Though he was used to the cold, he wondered if he should soon return to his family’s village for the winter. He was a wanderer, and had never truly felt at home unless he stood in the cathedral of the wilderness under a roof of trees, wracked by storm or fed by sun. He was a young man, beardless, but he took his own counsel on where to go and how to live. He did not even remember the name of the boyar who owned the village where he’d been born. As far as he was concerned, God was his father, and all the world He had made was Viorel’s sanctuary. At the end of days, when all the world was burned with fire and the ashes of the dead were gathered in the pale valley of Safed, Viorel had no doubt that the Lord would remember him.

A deer slowly padded through the thin layer of snow, and Viorel froze as the buck looked from left to right.

He’s beautiful, he thought.

Satisfied that he was safe, the buck dipped his head and nuzzled snow away from the base of a tree. Viorel quickly notched an arrow, aimed, and released. The buck leaped oddly as the arrow flew. Viorel notched another arrow, but the buck crashed into the snow. Viorel ran to him and found him on his side, already without breath. The arrow had gone through the deer’s neck, passing through the spinal column. Death had been instantaneous.

***

Viorel trekked through the woods with the bled-out deer thrown over one shoulder, its belly warm against his cheek. He was struck by the way shafts of light were suspended among the gray tree branches, a sight he had never quite seen before in all his travels. For a moment, he wondered if he was dreaming.

Praise God, he thought. Such wonders!

He reached the top of a hill and dropped the deer so he could catch his breath. He looked out over the sweeping hills dressed all in white, gray trees standing like ancient monuments. He wondered if the Dacians, his forefathers, had seen the beauty of this very spot before they settled this land. The sun was drawing near the horizon, so he could not rest long. Looking down into the valley, he saw the pale ribbon of a frozen stream lined with dead brush. His sense of wonder turned cold.

He remembered a similar little valley, long ago. It was spring and the world was in bloom. He had been trekking through the wilderness, his satchel filled with wild berries and a fish wrapped in leaves. He had heard what he thought at first was birds, perhaps a large flock of a kind he’d never heard before. Cresting the hill, he saw a strange and nightmarish sight - children in caged wagons guarded by rough looking men on horses.

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