I was born in Aldburg, in 2990. I was a boy when my father died.
That morning, which initiated my destiny, came about because of ptarmigan eggs.
Among my father's many talents, foremost was his skill with birds. He was a master of the snare. He constructed his traps of the very branches his prey favored to roost upon. With a pop! so delicate you could hardly hear it, his clever snares would fire, imprisoning their mark by the "boot" as he called it, and always gently.
One evening, my father summoned me in secrecy behind the cote. With great drama he lifted his cloak, revealing his latest prize, a wild ptarmigan cock, full of fight and fire. I was beside myself with excitement. We had six tame hens in the coop. A cock meant one thing -eggs! And eggs were a supreme delicacy, worth a boy's fortune at the city market.
Sure enough, within a week our little banty had become the strutting lord of the walk, and not long thereafter I cradled in my palms a clutch of precious ptarmigan eggs.
We were going to Edoras! To market. I woke my sister, Halvadyr, before the middle watch was over, so eager was I to get to our farm's stall and put my clutch up for sale. There was a flute I wanted, a flute that my father had promised to teach me coot and grouse calls on. The proceeds from the eggs would be my bankroll. That flute would be my prize.
We set out two hours before dawn, Halvadyr and I, with two heavy sacks of spring onions and three cheese wheels in cloth.
This was the first time I had ever been to market without a grown–up and the first with a prize of my own to sell.
After a while, we saw the sun. It was bright flaring yellow, still below the horizon against the purple sky. There was only one problem: it was rising in the north. "That's not the sun", Halvadyr said, stopping abruptly. "That's fire".
It was one of my father's friends farm. It was burning. "We've got to help them", Halvadyr announced in a voice that brooked no protest, and, clutching my cloth of eggs in one hand, I started after her at a fast trot. How can this happen at winter, Halvadyr was calling as we ran, look at the flames, they shouldn't be that big.
We saw a second fire. To the east. Another farm. We pulled up, Halvadyr and I, in the middle of the road.
The ground beneath our bare feet began to rumble as if from an earthquake. We saw the flare of torches...
