La traducción al inglés del segundo libro de la Saga, La Herencia del Bèrehor, está ya casi lista para ser publicada.

Aquí tenéis una muestra de cómo podría quedar el primer Capítulo traducido por Stephen Caro, el mismo traductor que realizó la traducción del primer libro.

THE INHERITANCE OF THE BEREOR

By J. P. FONCEA

Translated by Stephen Caro

© Stephen Caro February 2009

PROLOGUE

The first part of this saga is told in Ivan of Aldenuri, The Forest of the Taurocs, translated from the Spanish and published in English by CBH, Boston, in 2007.

One summer’s day, Ivan, a boy of twelve, makes an amazing discovery. He finds out that by the power of thought alone, he can rise into the air and fly. His parents, Ferrio and Ana, and his great-uncle Lander are as amazed by his flying as his brothers and sisters - Kel, Enkel, Ruth and little Maggie. But while the children are simply overawed, the grown-ups are worried. Within days of this discovery, Ivan is kidnapped by the Kerren, warlike pirates from across the sea, who carry him off on one of their ships known as Skerrags. In a race against time, Ivan’s family and the Thane of his birthplace, Aldenuri, try to raise the huge ransom demanded by the Kerren for his return.

Ivan, meanwhile, escapes from the Skerrag when it is attacked by monsters of the deep known as Krilden. His flight from the sea battle brings him to a foreign shore, Errion-Thal. He ends up at the tower house of Fendor, home of Gulden and his son Astur. Both are living in fear of their lives because of a dark menace that has awoken in the nearby Forest of Arkane. The Taurocs, ferocious dinosaur-like creatures long thought to be extinct, have begun to stir in the heart of the forest.

In Errion-Thal, Ivan meets Gheos, a wise old man who helps him to come to terms with the part he is destined to play in the life and death struggle that looms.

PART 1

DARK DISCOVERIES

1

All that day, Finnedan had been working in the port of Eldas-Kalar in southern Kerrenia. He had been caulking an old Skerrag which had sprung many leaks. By rights the rotten hulk should have gone to the bottom of the Enden Sea long ago. Every bone, every joint in Finnedan’s body ached. He tried to straighten his horny, tar-blackened hands, but they were like claws. He hung his head and closed his eyes. That day for some reason he felt more fed up than usual. He was dispirited and exhausted. Why, he wondered dully, was he so at the end of his tether? It scared him.

“Cursed pirates,” he muttered under his breath.

Like so many times before, he felt an urge to run, to get away from that place, in which he had been a slave all his life. Or nearly all. Yet he rejected the idea for the same reason as always. Escape was impossible. He lifted his head and squinted through his matted grey hair at the sun. It was low. But not low enough, he thought sullenly. He picked at a few more strands of rope. There was tar, plenty of it, and many seams still to be caulked on the Skerrag. When the day’s work was done, he would get a dish of thin soup. Then, as on every other day of his fifty years in that God-forsaken place, all that remained to do was to lie down on the few rotten planks that passed for his bed. And the next day…

His eye was suddenly drawn to a shadow drifting across the setting sun. Shielding his eyes, he saw that a Skerrag was coming slowly through the narrow harbour mouth.

Kerrenia lay several weeks journey by sea to the north-east of Finnedan’s birthplace, Aldenuri. No Aldenor would ever have gone there willingly, however. The few that were there had been taken in past Kerrenic raids. They were prisoners for whom the Kerren (as the pirate people of Kerrenia were known) had not demanded a ransom. Or they had demanded such a high price that the prisoner’s family had been unable to pay. In that case, they became slaves. And they would work until they dropped. Not all the slaves were Aldenors, however. They came from far and wide, from wherever the Kerren pirates had come down - Kelden, Larunder, Asturdun, Orroguin, Iberdun, Induskhan, Ilyares, Veigos, Askeldain, Pictenor and many others. Most of these places were unknown, except to the few who had voyaged across the uncharted seas. There were almost as many different languages as slaves. So they spoke Kerrenish, the only common language, and for that matter, the only language permitted by the Kerren.

Few slaves lived beyond the age of fifty. The work they were made to do was as hard as the climate. For much of the year Kerrenia was under snow and ice, as it lay far to the north. During the short summer, the sun gave a little warmth in the middle of the day. The winters were dreaded. When the darkness came, it did not lift for months. Then the winds from beyond Finislaerken lashed the land.

The Snörka of Kerrenia was called Trock. Unlike the Thanes of Aldendor and Errion-Thal, however, his power was not restricted to a town or region. It extended to the whole country, which he ruled from the capital, Eldas-Kalar. The second most powerful man in the land was Öldemük. Öldemük had the Snörka’s trust, which meant that his power was effectively unlimited. It was Öldemük who oversaw the slaves. Tall, strong, quick to anger and utterly ruthless, he was feared by all the slaves and many of the Kerren. He wore a long cloak and a short sword which he never took off. His face, ravaged by wind and sea and fretted by scarrs, was like tarnished copper. He had small, bloodshot eyes, though that might have been because he was a little too fond of the bottle. These things, and his thin, lank hair, which was somewhere between grey and straw in colour, made him look older than he was.

As chance would have it, the Skerrag slipping into Eldas-Kalar on that early spring evening was carrying Ivan’s ransom.

The ship had not gone back to Eldas-Kalar after leaving Aldendor, however. It had sailed on to other places, spreading terror wherever it went and leaving grief and suffering in its wake. It had wintered far from Kerrenia. Now it was returning weighed down by the spoils of pillage and plunder. But of all the booty in the hold, Ivan’s ransom of sixty gold marks was the biggest.

Sven, the ship’s captain, shouted across the water to Öldemük, boasting about the enormous chest of gold they had picked up off the coast of Aldendor.

Öldemük replied, slapping his thighs in delight:

“Ha, ha! Flay me if that hasn’t bled those Aldendor pigs dry!”

Öldemük couldn’t have cared less if the slaves who were still at work in the port heard this. For Finnedan it was the last straw. He sprang to his feet.

“That does it!” he shouted in Kerrenish. “Only a pig like you would gloat over the misfortunes of others.”

Öldemük wheeled round.

“Who said that?” he roared.

In the hush that now fell, Finnedan knew that with one foolish outburst, he had signed his own death sentence. He was fifty-four. A big man, it was only thanks to his great strength, both of body and character, that he had lived to this age. The terrible conditions he had endured so far would have finished off lesser men long ago.

Chance, or mischance, had brought him to Kerrenia at the age of four in his mother’s arms. The Kerren killed his father in the main square of Aldenuri near the Thanemark. His mother had only survived a few years in Eldas-Kalar.

“It was the grey-beard, Finnedan,” one of the Kerren shouted.

“Which one is Finnedan?” said Öldemük quietly, though he knew very well.

Finnedan said calmly:

“I am Finnedan”.

The other slaves bent their heads, hardly daring to breathe, watching him out of the corner of their eyes. But they were all surprised to hear how steady his voice had been. He was going to die with dignity.

“Bind him,” said Öldemük. “I want him alive. He’ll swing from the Tower of Hornnë.”

Hanging from the Tower of Hornnë was a slow and cruel death. It often took several days. Carrion-eating birds had been known to start devouring the convict before he was dead. This dreadful sentence was reserved for those of whom an example needed to be made.

Finnedan sized up the half dozen Kerren warriors who were closing in on him. Then he did something they were not expecting. No slave, or anyone for that matter, would do anything so foolish, so recklessly suicidal. In four rapid strides he crossed the quay and leapt into the sea. By now it was very dark, almost night. This was in his favour. But the sea around Kerrenia was ice cold all year round. A current known as the Laark drift came directly from the arctic, north of Finish-Laerken. No-one could survive more than a few minutes in that water.

“Get him!” Öldemük shouted.

The guards hesitated, caught between their fear of Öldemük and the knowledge that immersion in that water was almost certain death. In the end, two of them jumped into one of the many small boats tied up at the quay.

Finnedan plunged, thrusting with his arms and kicking hard to get as far from the quay as he could. He swam towards the Skerrag which had just sailed into harbour. If he could come up behind it, he stood a chance. His lungs were bursting, screaming for air. His head broke the surface and he took several great heaving lungfuls. The barnacle-encrusted hull of the Skerrag was between him and the quay. Keeping as close as he could to the ship’s side, he peered round the stern. The approaching skiff was a squat black shape against the lights dancing up and down on the quay. One boat, two men. He took another huge breath and plunged again. The cold was intense. His head was in a vice, its jaws opening and slamming shut on his temples. He knew he didn’t have much time. If the Kerren didn’t get him, the freezing water would for sure.

This time when he dived he had to go deeper to get under the ship’s rudder. He pushed hard off the slimy timbers. Underwater the churning oars sounded louder. His back snagged on something, then he felt it rip. He couldn’t tell whether it was his shirt, or his flesh. Hugging the ship’s side, he broke the surface again. The skiff was only half a stone’s throw away. The marrow in his bones was turning to ice. It was as if he were being consumed by a white fire. He had to clench his teeth to stop their chattering. His limbs were growing heavy. The lights on the quay were leaping and dancing wildly. He knew he had very little time… He had to get out of that deadly water… but how? The skiff was coming closer. No… it was madness. Yet if he didn’t, in less than a minute he would be a dead man. What did he have to lose?

The two men in the boat were beginning to get desperate. The blood-curdling threats from the quayside reached their ears all too clearly across the still water of the harbour. They knew what Öldemük would do to them if they failed to apprehend the Aldenor. One of them was kneeling up in the bow. He was thrusting a harpoon into the water, hoping to spit the slave with a lucky lunge. The other was rowing for all he was worth, his back to his comrade.

As soon as it came within reach, Finnedan grasped the harpoon and pulled with all his strength. The harpooner, who was holding the weapon tightly, fell into the water. Finnedan gripped the gunwale and with one mighty thrust, heaved himself aboard like a pouncing tiger. The rower looked round in surprise as the boat rocked violently. He dropped the oars and stood unsteadily, trying to turn. He did not want to fall overboard. Finnedan seized an oar. In one fluid movement he raised it and brought it down on the man’s head. The oar made a hollow chock, like an axe splitting a log. The rower fell and lay face down on the bench. Without waiting to find out if he was dead or merely stunned, Finnedan rolled him along the bench and into the water.

Finnedan found himself master of the boat. He never looked back. Picking up the oars, he began to row powerfully towards the open sea. The whole incident had taken no more than a few minutes. On the quay, the Kerren and the slaves looked on open-mouthed in the gathering gloom.

Öldemük let out another string of oaths. Then he began to shout out orders, threatening to kill every man he could lay hands on, including his own men, if the slave got away. No slave had ever escaped from Eldas-Kalar. The very idea of escape must not be allowed to enter the slaves’ minds. After their axes, their swords and whips, the Kerren’s chief weapons were terror and despair.

By now the darkness was almost complete. It was too late to turn back. Finnedan knew that his chances of survival were extremely slim. He was frozen to his very core, and weak with exhaustion. Then there were the Skerrags. There was no faster ship on the Enden Sea. And the Kerren would waste no time in coming after him.