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    Deep Winter Tales from The Five Sides: The Mapweaver Chronicles, #0
    Deep Winter Tales from The Five Sides: The Mapweaver Chronicles, #0
    Deep Winter Tales from The Five Sides: The Mapweaver Chronicles, #0
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    Deep Winter Tales from The Five Sides: The Mapweaver Chronicles, #0

    By Kaitlin Bellamy

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    About this ebook

    In the days before Fox's adventure properly begins, storytelling is thick on the air in Thicca Valley.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKaitlin Bellamy
    Release dateOct 27, 2020
    ISBN9781393373483
    Deep Winter Tales from The Five Sides: The Mapweaver Chronicles, #0
    Author

    Kaitlin Bellamy

    Kaitlin Bellamy is a storyteller, actor, and performer living in Orlando, Florida. In between book releases, you can find her performing in local theme parks, narrating audiobooks from her home studio, and playing Dungeons and Dragons with her closest friends. To keep up with all her adventures, feel free to join Kaitlin on any one of her social media platforms, or her website. You can find her on every platform as @ChaosPixieMagic

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      Book preview

      Deep Winter Tales from The Five Sides - Kaitlin Bellamy

      Chapter One

      When The Stories Began

      The snows were falling in Thicca Valley. Whispers of a bone-deep chill were creeping into every cabin, slipping beneath the doors and forcing their way through the smallest cracks around the window frames. Wind howled its way through the mountain roads and echoed in the mines like the ghosts of long-dead wolves, filling the air with a bite of ice and foreboding that only Deep Winter could conjure. It shook every pane of glass and battered at every wall, begging to be let inside. Demanding it. Trees and rooftops alike creaked under the weight of the snow, and moaned in harmony with every fresh blizzard that raged through the Highborn Mountains. The sun had disappeared completely, hidden behind a thick blanket of snow clouds, making the days often just as deathly cold as the night. A cold that seeped its way beneath fur cloaks and thick leathers, and infected the dreams of the valley folk.

      But in The Five Sides Inn and Tavern, the darkness and the chill were kept actively at bay by the beating heart of community pulsing within its many rooms. It was light and cheerful inside, with hot and blazing fires set in both the massive fire pit in the center of the common room, and the smaller fireplaces set into the stone along one wall or else burning merrily in the kitchen. Even the lanterns hanging overhead and the candles adorning many of the tables did their best to add to the flickering warmth and comfort.

      What the fire could not warm, the food and drink could. There was piping hot stew, laden with potatoes and rabbit, poured into tankards like ale and gulped down with an eager joy. There was fresh bread right from the kitchens, brought out steaming on massive wooden boards, butter and jams melting on its crust as easily as ice on a summer’s day. There were hot ciders, spiced and tingling, and sipping broth that tasted of vegetables and the last remnants of the summer harvest. And where the hot drinks could not reach, the flowing wine and fresh ale warmed the souls of the Thiccans, loosening their tongues and bodies and encouraging all manner of dance and song.

      Forric Foxglove – called Fox by everyone who knew him – watched it all happen like a ripple in a lake, from the moment the first miners came in before sundown until well into the night when the tavern was filled with music and comradery. He slipped in and out of the crowds with Lai, delivering plates of hot lamb and warm goat milk. Scooping up empty flagons of ale and refilling them before the patrons even noticed they were missing. Dodging in and out of half-drunken singers clambering up on the tables, and barely avoiding getting swept up in a fast-paced country jig that broke out just before midnight. Fox didn’t need to participate in such things himself – watching them was more than enough. And traversing the crowded and chaotic inn without spilling a drop? That was a dance in and of itself, and far more complicated than anything the Thiccans could manage.

      Finally, he and his best friend Lai collapsed on opposite benches at an empty table in the corner, their jobs done for a moment as every patron was fed and every cup full to the brim. The two grinned at each other, exhausted but exhilarated.

      Nothing like Deep Winter, is there? said Lai breathlessly, tucking behind her ear a strand of thick, black curls that had come loose from her braids. When you could die if you stay outside too long, but we celebrate all night at the tavern.

      Maybe, said Fox, we all just treat every night here like it could be our last.

      Lai raised her own mug of hot cider in a mock toast, and Fox clanged his tankard against hers. Cheers to danger and Deep Winter, then, she said, and the pair drank.

      Not for the first time, Fox wondered if other fourteen-year-olds were quite so casual about their chances of surviving any one season. Then again, he often wondered if other nations were so aware of their own mortality as Sovesta was, isolated and frozen in the northernmost reaches of the Central Kingdoms. Here, the winter cold dominated the year, and harvest times were sacred. Farmers and miners alike pushed themselves to the brink of exhaustion every day during the working months, taking advantage of springtime thaw and summer sun. But when the brutality of winter finally struck, there was often nothing left to do but wait. Wait for the sun to emerge and melt the ice. Wait for the calves to be born, or the ground to be soft enough to plough once more. Wait for the mountain roads to be safe, and the yearly trading caravan that took all their waresmen and merchants south every winter to return.

      And that was when the stories began.

      Do you have anything planned for tonight? asked Fox, his cider now finished and warming his throat and belly comfortably.

      Lai was still sipping her drink, and smirked over the rim of her cup. "Oh I dunno ... seems a bit unfair to the rest of the storytellers, don’t you think? Might take a pass tonight, and let the others have a go."

      Oh don’t feign modesty now, said a gangly, wild-haired young man as he brushed past her and squeezed onto the bench beside Fox. Lai’s cousin Picck grinned at her, and elbowed Fox playfully as he teased, "You couldn’t stay away from the chance to be the center of attention any more than Fox here would choose to be."

      Lai snorted into her cider, choking back a laugh as Fox chuckled.

      "He’s not wrong," said Fox, and Picck ruffled his hair affectionately.

      It was true: just as much as Fox enjoyed bathing in the atmosphere as only an audience member, Lai loved telling her own stories. Or re-telling those that had been played out a hundred times before. Growing up in the tavern, Lai had heard them all. She knew every song before it was finished being written, and caught tales from travelers just passing through town, even if no one else had a chance to meet them. Her father, Borric Blackroot, owned the Five Sides Inn and Tavern, and had always encouraged Lai to participate in the day-to-day of the business. And during Deep Winter, that business was stories.

      Now, Lai stretched out her legs along the bench and pressed her back against the stone tavern wall, shivering for a moment before settling in with her warm cider once more. The crowd seems particularly lively tonight, she said, gazing out on the joyous patrons. Their laughter filled the air, mingling with the pipe smoke and fire pit haze, and the thick scent of meat and mead. Not the right sort of evening for a love story.

      Maybe the Wolves of Thunder? Picck suggested. Or one of the old hero tales!

      Fox perked up at this,

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