Winterbirth
Chapter One
Winterbirth
The Third Age: Year 1102
There are rites and rituals sunk so deeply into the fabric of a race
that their roots are long forgotten. In the northern lands, where
the fierce cycle of the seasons rules life with a snow-bound fist,
the Huanin have marked the arrival of winter since before there was
a written medium to record the means of that marking. Across
countless centuries the ceremonies have changed, remaking themselves
according to the temper of the peoples who performed them, and the
thread linking each to its predecessors has been forgotten. But the
ancient theme lives on.
Before there were kingships, the cruel tribes of the Tan Dihrin
practiced bloody rites to win the protection of the Gods against ice
and storm. When the Kings rose in Dun Aygll, their subjects in the
north kept to the old ways though they forgot what they meant, and
though there were no Gods left to witness their rituals. The kingdom
fell, as the works of mortals do, but through all the chaos that
came after, through the turbulent birthing of the Bl ... read full excerpt from: Winterbirth ebook
