The Winter Tree: Tales of Borschland, Volume 1

By David Frauenfelder

In 1642, the great explorer of the Dutch East India Company, Abel Tasman, commissions two of his most trusted captains, Willem van Noos and Henrick Lojren van Borsch, to investigate a previously unknown land in the South India Ocean, whereon the future nation of Borschland will be located. The two adventurers separate and quest along separate coasts, coming upon two sets of indigenous peoples who tell the same tale: a tree, blooming in the dead of winter, will provide glorious treasure when found, including a pair of silver skates. But beware that which guards the tree, say the natives. When the Dutchmen arrive at the tree, uniting their separate journeys, what they find is even stranger than the legend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Frauenfelder
• Release date: Jan 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9780988565630

Book preview

The Winter Tree

Tales of Borschland, Volume 1

D. W. Frauenfelder

Published by Breakfast with Pandora Books at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 by David W. Frauenfelder

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TO WILL AND KATE

CONTENTS

The Winter Tree

About the Author

The Winter Tree

a legend of Old Borschland

Edited and translated by D.W. Frauenfelder

from the authoritative Borshic version of K.O. Kooperneeck.

Blood streaming down his weather-beaten face, Meester Willem van Noos, explorer, adventurer of the Dutch East India Company, considered whether to revive his colleague, Meester Henrick Lojren van Borsch.

The rock that had hit van Noos full in the temple lay in the crook of a gnarled root under the winter-blooming tree that he and van Borsch had discovered. Van Borsch himself was lying unconscious, nearly starved and frozen, against the miraculous trunk, silver-white, that seemed to glow like a full moon.

His temple throbbing and his vision blurred, van Noos could hardly take in the sight of the three dozen or more foxes, standing upright on skates on the marshy surface of the unnamed, frozen river, on the banks of which the tree stood, and whirling slings about their furry heads. They were all about five feet tall, and with faces that expressed equal parts hunger, murder, and curiosity.

The natives of Loflinland, who had told him about the tree, had also warned him of the foxes, bloodthirsty and doubly lethal, using both teeth and stone