The Man in the Scar

By Harold Carper

Once Velkis fought men, beasts, and demons in the arenas of the great cities of the Empire, but years ago he put down the shield and spear in favor of chisel and file. He wants only to live in peace among the farmers and woodsmen who have settled in the mountainous north far from their ancient homes in the lands of men. Monsters once ruled here, driven out more than a century ago by a great hero of the Empire. But the spells and towers that hold the inhuman hordes behind the Dragon Spine are weakening, and something has returned, hungry for blood. (Novella. ~15k words.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harold Carper
• Release date: May 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310628962

Harold Carper

Harold Carper is a United States Air Force veteran, husband, father, and systems administrator.The son of ministers, he was brought up in the Assemblies of God. Once on his own, however, he asked too many questions to which there were no satisfactory answers in mainstream Christianity. After years of study and debate with armchair, Internet theologians from around the world, Harold’s searching led him to a new spiritual home among Messianic Jews and Hebraic Christians. He found the Messianic perspective more scripturally founded, more intellectually rigorous, and richer in tradition than any other, and has been a Torah-keeping Christian ever since.Politically, Harold is a libertarian-leaning conservative or a conservative-leaning libertarian, though very likely neither group would claim him.Finally, Harold Carper is a Texan, by choice if not by birth. His son is a native Texan, and Harold has done his best to adopt the customs, attitudes, and mannerisms of his adopted home within the moral constraints of liberty and God’s Law. There are more guns in his house than people, and still not enough.

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The Man in the Scar

Harold Carper

Copyright 2014 by Harold Carper

Cover image by thatbeardguy.

Cover spearhead image: Cold Steel 95MW Man at Arms Winged Spear, courtesy KnifeCenter.com.

The Man in the Scar by Harold Carper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Smashwords Edition.

The Man in the Scar

By Harold Carper

Velkis considered the blood on his hands and wished it were not his own.

Sissy. Should have thought of that before you cashed out.

His knees complained as he climbed the age-grayed wood of the stoop after another long day at war with an impossible tree. He left his axe leaning against the wall just within the rough-hewn door rather than hanging it on the proper pegs and shuffled to the cabinet that kept his hard, stale bread more-or-less secure from vermin. He reached in with his left hand, the one that was not constrained by the tight, grotesque scars on bicep and shoulder and withdrew two small, cloth-wrapped bundles—the same two as yesterday and the day before—and placed them on the table. At last, he poured a cupful of wine before lowering his rough-hewn, age-grayed self onto a bench placed close against the south wall. His shoes thudded to the floor, and life began returning to his feet. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes—only for a moment, he told himself.

Can't fall asleep before...

Sleep flew from him like a brace of startled quail, and pain radiated from his posterior, his lower back, his ankle, his neck, his...everything.

Baby of an old man! He cursed himself. You'll fall asleep right into your supper next time.

Leaning on the table, he pushed himself to his feet and paced the small room to work the pins and needles from his extremities. Something woke him, he thought. An owl or...

Before the thought was done, the anxious call of a ram's horn broke the silence. It carried clearly through the open window. Once, twice. He snorted, shook the cobwebs from his head, and reached for the bread still bundled on the table. The fools can take care of their own squabbles...or snakes, more likely. He untied the bundles of bread and cheese and fished a small knife from a pouch on his belt and paused for a moment, eyebrows raised, before setting it on the table. Unless it's a bear. I could use a new blanket.

Velkis was not decrepit, but at something over fifty-six years, he was old for a fighting man. He came to these mountains more than fifteen years ago, and it seemed to him now that he would never be accepted by the people as one of them. The town, Tarata, less than a hundred years old, was a colony from Liepisata, two days' journey south. The settlement would not have been possible before Lielevis pushed the Raivin over the Dragon Spine one hundred and fifty years ago. Old fears persisted, and a generation grew old before men dared to make permanent advances into the dark forests and mountains of the north. The old fighter chose this place for that very reason. Where better to bury his past and start a new life than in a frontier village where everyone was a foreigner and no one had roots? He was surprised to discover how fast and deep a transplanted people grew roots in a new place. They carried their roots with them, in fact, in their wagons and saddle packs. They left their old lands for new, but brought their language, traditions, and blood with them.

Velkis could not conceal his foreignness. His accent spoke of southern seas and a dearth of learning. His coloring and features painted of distant lands known to these people only from old maps and older myths. His obvious strength and imposing mien permeated every space he entered with clouded threats. Women came easy despite—and sometimes because of—his injuries. In the great cities of the south, where everyone was a stranger even to neighbors, the same qualities that charmed women drew lesser men like egrets to a bull. In an insular community like Tarata, where every person knows the intimate details of every other person's life, a charmed woman meant an angry husband or father.

The horn moaned again like a woman in labor. Two blasts. Velkis opened his front door and stood on the stoop looking north toward Tarata and his