The Svarthammar Brothers
"Ken ye valk?"
"No brother, I can barely breathe, what is it, can you tell me?"
"Leh me teek a look"
Young man looked at the bruise on his brother’s chest and shaked his head.
"Ya ‘ve four ribs brohkn, ‘re’s na wai ye kan travl."
Gunwald looked around and drew his blade silently out of the scabbard.
"They’r ‘ere. Nah ordnry sohlders…"
Their paths crossed on a small clearing. Carrying his brother on his shoulder and desperately trying to fend off the attackers with his battered and rusty blade, Gunvald was desperately trying to make a run for it.
Suddenly he noticed a two-headed Griffon swooping over their heads, carrying a black-robed figure. Long lost word of magic were uttered and out of thin air, a red portal emerged. Gunvald jumped in.
There was music and a smell of freshly baked apple pie in the air.
"’eer are ve?" asked the younger of the two. "The sign says ‘Narrowhaven’, brother"
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Kurt Svarthammar was born on the day of midwinter, 46 years ago in a peaceful faraway land called Kungsriket to Jacob "Cobber" Svarthammar, a renowned shipwright and Malin Svarthammar, a tailor extraordinaire. They were dancing through times of wealth, peace and prosperity and every single blue and yellow rose in their garden was in full bloom on the first 21 midsummers of Kurt’s life.
Kurt, being physically quite well suited for heavy labour, became a respected lumberjack and eventually started an apprenticeship in his father’s workshop. Whistling a melody called "The Lumberjack Song" he smiled, nailed the nails and cut the boards.
On midsummer day, the twenty-second one in Kurt’s perspective, his evening-star brother, to be known as Gunvald "Gune Dimvald" Svarthammar was born.
Gunvald did not (and still won’t) understand why the other kids would pick on him calling him "Dimvald" or other less appropriate names. It was neither his purple eyes, nor his golden hair. He did not play pranks to the local fishmonger, nor did he try to catch rank-smelling gremlins in the woods. Gunvald read. Before his 15th birthday he knew "the apprentice physician" by heart and could bind most wounds and set most fractures.
They could have seen it coming, but four centuries of peace had not sharpened the wit of Kungsriket’s military. The first strike was swift. Their capital was taken by eastern archwizard Duptin’s forces in a couple of days, and the terrified folk tried to hide themselves from seemingly senseless genocide the conqueror had machined.