Thor’s father, of course, had never considered him seriously as a candidate for the Legion – in fact, he had never considered him as a candidate for anything. Instead, his father devoted his love and attention to Thor’s three older brothers. The oldest was nineteen and the others but a year behind each other, leaving Thor a good three years younger than any of them. Perhaps because they were closer in age, or perhaps because they looked alike and looked nothing like Thor, the three of them stuck together, barely acknowledging Thor’s existence.
Worse, they were taller and broader and stronger than he, and Thor, who knew he was not short, nonetheless felt small beside them, felt his muscular legs frail compared to their barrels of oak. His father made no move to rectify any of this – and in fact seemed to relish it – leaving Thor to attend the sheep and sharpen weapons while his brothers were left to train. It was never spoken, but always understood, that Thor would spend his life in the wings, be forced to watch his brothers achieve great things. His destiny, if his father and brothers had their way, would be to stay here, swallowed by this village, and give his family the support they demanded.
Worse still was that Thor sensed his brothers, paradoxically, were threatened by him, maybe even hated him. Thor could see it in their every glance, their every gesture. He didn’t understand how, but he aroused something, like fear, or jealousy, in them. Perhaps it was because he was different from them, didn’t look like them or speak with their mannerisms; he didn’t even dress like them, his father reserving the best – the purple and scarlet robes, the gilded weapons – for his brothers, while Thor was left wearing the coarsest of rags.
Nonetheless, Thor made the best of what he had, finding a way to make his clothes fit, tying the frock with a sash around his waist, and, now that summer was here, cutting off the sleeves to allow his toned arms to be caressed by the breezes. His shirt was matched by coarse linen pants – his only pair – and boots made of the poorest leather, laced up his shins. They were hardly the leather of his brothers’ shoes, but he made them work. His was the typical uniform of a herder.
But he hardly had the typical demeanor. Thor stood tall and lean, with a proud jaw, noble chin, high cheekbones, and gray eyes, looking like a displaced warrior. His straight, brown hair fell back in waves on his head, just past his ears, and behind the locks, his eyes glistened like minnows in the light.
Thor’s brothers would be allowed to sleep in this morning, given a hearty meal, and sent off for the Selection with the finest weapons and his father’s blessing – while he would not even be allowed to attend. He had tried to raise the issue with his father once. It had not gone well. His father had summarily ended the conversation, and he had not tried again. It just wasn’t fair.
Thor was determined to reject the fate his father had planned for him. At the first sign of the royal caravan, he would race back to the house, confront his father, and, like it or not, make himself known to the King’s men. He would stand for selection with the others. His father could not stop him. He felt a knot in his stomach at the thought of it.
The first sun rose higher, and when the second sun, mint green, began to rise, adding a layer of light to the purple sky, Thor spotted them.
He stood upright, hairs on end, electrified. There, on the horizon, came the faintest outline of a horse-drawn carriage, its wheels kicking dust into the sky. His heart beat faster as another came into view; then another. Even from here the golden carriages gleamed in the suns, like silver-backed fish leaping from the water.
By the time he counted twelve of them, he could wait no longer. Heart pounding in his chest, forgetting his flock for the first time in his life, Thor turned and stumbled down the hill, determined to stop at nothing until he made himself known.
* * *
Thor barely paused to catch his breath as he sped down the hills, through the trees, scratched by branches and not caring. He reached a clearing and saw his village spread out below: a sleepy country town packed with one-story, white clay homes with thatched roofs. There were but several dozen families amongst them. Smoke rose from chimneys as most were up early preparing their morning meal. It was an idyllic place, just far enough – a full day’s ride – from King’s Court to deter passersby. Just another farming village on the edge of the Ring, another cog in the wheel of the Western Kingdom.
Thor burst down the final stretch, into the village square, kicking up dirt as he went. Chickens and dogs ran out of his way, and an old woman, squatting outside her home before a cauldron of bubbling water, hissed at him.
“Slow down, boy!” she screeched as he raced past, stirring dust into her fire.
But Thor would not slow – not for her, not for anybody. He turned down one side street, then another, twisting and turning the way he knew by heart, until he reached home.
It was a small, nondescript dwelling like all the others, with its white clay walls and angular, thatched roof. Like most, its single room was divided, his father sleeping on one side and his three brothers on the other; unlike most, it had a small chicken coop in the back, and it was here that Thor was exiled to sleep. At first he’d bunked with his brothers; but over time they had grown bigger and meaner and more exclusive, and made a show of not leaving him room. Thor had been hurt, but now he relished his own space, preferring to be away from their presence. It just confirmed for him that he was the exile in his family that he already knew he was.
Thor ran to his front door and burst through it without stopping.
“Father!” he yelled, gasping for breath. “The Silver! They’re coming!”
His father and three brothers sat hunched over the breakfast table, already dressed in their finest. At his words they jumped up and darted past him, bumping his shoulders as they ran out of the house and into the road.
Thor followed them out, and they all stood watching the horizon.
“I see no one,” Drake, the oldest, answered in his deep voice. With the broadest shoulders, hair cropped short like his brothers’, brown eyes, and thin, disapproving lips, he scowled down at Thor, as usual.
“Nor do I,” echoed Dross, just a year below Drake, always taking his side.
“They’re coming!” Thor shot back. “I swear!”
His father turned to him and grabbed his shoulders sternly.
“And how would you know?” he demanded.
“I saw them.”
“How? From where?”
Thor hesitated; his father had him. He of course knew the only place Thor could have spotted them was from the top of that knoll. Now Thor was unsure how to respond.
“I… climbed the knoll – ”
“With the flock? You know they are not to go that far.”
“But today was different. I had to see.”
His father glowered down.
“Go inside at once and fetch your brothers’ swords and polish their scabbards, so they look their best before the King’s men arrive.”
His father, done with him, turned back to his brothers, who all stood in the road looking out.
“Do you think they’ll choose us?” asked Durs, the youngest of the three, a full three years ahead of Thor.
“They’d be foolish not to,” his father said. “They are short on men this year. It has been a slim cropping – or else they wouldn’t bother coming. Just stand straight, the three of you, keep your chins up and chests out. Do not look them directly in the eye, but do not look away, either. Be strong and confident. Show no weakness. If you want to be in the King’s Legion, you must act as if you’re already in it.”
“Yes, Father,” his three boys answered at once, getting into position.