A Painful Blessing

By L Frank Turovich

Young Bergulf is running for his life.

Pursued by vengeful Veritoori knights, he's forced to flee into the forbidden Oolinor forest, an enclave controlled by Alfr, a race known to kill intruders on sight. Berguld is soon captured by a young Alfr with plans for his eventual fate. But his determined pursuers have plans for both of them.

A Skar Doorishmurk Adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L Frank Turovich
• Release date: Jul 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781940246031

L Frank Turovich

L Frank Turovich (1956- ) was born and raised in Flint, Michigan where he became a rabid reader of science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, comics and everything else not nailed down. He’s spent time in the Marine Corp before breaking into writing via articles in Nibble Mac and Inside BASIC magazines, then graduated to technical writing, training, and managing teams for companies like Zedcor, Metrowerks, Motorola, Freescale Semiconductor, and Nokia, before leaving to pursue his fiction writing ambition. He currently resides in Michigan in a home filled with books, computers, and two cats (Java and Larry).

Book preview

A Painful Blessing

A Painful Blessing

By

L Frank Turovich

Copyright © 2013 by L Frank Turovich

All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Synopsis

To escape the pursuing and vengeful Veritoori knights, Bergulf runs into the forbidden forest of Oolinor. But when he encounters one of the xenophobic Alfr his eventual fate becomes worse then he ever imagined.

Table of Contents

A Painful Blessing

Afterward

Other Stories

Copyright

A Painful Blessing

The howling urged Bergulf to continue running.

The youth maintained a steady relentless pace that ate up the distance even as his pursuers sought to run him down. For the last day and a night, he had successfully evaded the Veritoori knight’s efforts to capture him. The knights sought to eradicate his residual threat to their domain, the soldiers wanted vengeance for slain comrades, and the hounds hunted for the pure joy of the kill.

Tall, rangy, with wide shoulders and strong legs, Bergulf ran on, his stained mountain sewn leather jerkin and trousers dark with sweat and worn boots stolen from a villager that no longer needed them. He wore a great sword cross-strapped to his back and a large hunting knife bounced against his side. Born into one of the mountain clans of Worldheart, his people were famous for their strength, endurance, fighting ability, and feared by all nearby kingdoms. A factor the clans used every spring to raid and terrorize the lowland kingdoms.

The area he ran through now was a collection of high grasses and flowing plants, small copses of trees budding in the early spring warmth, and small hills that he used to avoid being seen while fleeing as fast as possible. He leapt over a fallen trunk right into a swarm of insects and spent the next few steps sputtering them out of his mouth. A herd of deer startled up as he jogged past, and then bounded away in fright.

His first instinct had been to fight, but soon realized he was vastly outnumbered and fled. Behind him were several Veritoori knights on horse, a bevy of soldiers on foot, and several trained hounds and handlers, all thirsting for revenge of their slain countrymen.