About Servant of the Seasons: Spring
by Lee Benoit
59 pages
/ 19000 words
978-1-60370-439-7, 1-60370-439-6
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc
Edor, Lys and Tywyll continue to work hard to make their land and home better as winter turns to spring. They're focused on keeping the spring floods their home, building channels so the water reaches their fields instead. They also continue to learn more about Cynar, the Novigi they found during the winter, who comes in very useful for keeping their farm secret from passerby.
Varas has not forgotten Edor and his two helpers though and he shows up, making demands in return for not giving away the secret of their existence to the Salters. Edor and Cynar refuse to give Varas what he wants, fighting against the Salters who come to take their land, which helps the two grow closer every day. Can they keep their little farm, and family, afloat?
Sample
The floods came with no warning save Lys’ aggrieved shout right into my ear. The fuss and muddle as Lys and Tywyll tumbled out of bed would have been comical, but for my fear that however solid it was, our sod house wouldn’t survive if the river were to misbehave and overflow the two channels we had dug around our home.
I scrambled from bed as soon as my bedfellows righted themselves and we dashed for the door, pausing only to snatch up our clothes and the packs we had prepared days ago. We made our way quickly to the temporary shelter we’d built in anticipation of the flood, and to which we’d moved those things we couldn’t readily replace, like my precious supply of metal, or that we couldn’t bear to lose, like Lys’ loom. The shelter was cramped and cold in the darkness of the early morning.
Lys curled at my side and Tywyll sat between my outstretched legs. We listened tensely and strained our eyes in the direction of the river, though in the pre-dawn gloom we could see nothing. Truth be told, the swollen river was more sound than fury, at least from our side of the berm.
“Shall I make some tea?” I asked, more interested in breaking our silence than in breaking our fast.
Lys nodded against my shoulder but didn’t move away. “What if our home is destroyed?”
“Then we will build another,” Tywyll said. We had been over and over various contingencies during the last half moon.
“We will stay here, no matter what the floods wreak,” I added. “Wish I could see, though.”
We wouldn’t know if our irrigation pond was a success until after the flood waters receded. That wasn’t Lys’ chief worry, however. I stroked his green hair, grown out into ferny softness. “The trenches should guide the river away from our house.” He had worked hard through autumn to improve our dwelling; it was very much his.
“It will be good if the floodwaters reach the fields, vjellja,” Tywyll reminded him.