“I was hoping we’d find some signs of a herd on the move and have a chance to do a bit of hunting. It’s easier when you’re high up enough that the wind doesn’t carry your scent, and less dangerous than being charged by the beast on the ground. Elk are bad enough, but moose or boar are quite dangerous on the ground. And I’ve never known anyone to refuse fresh meat in the middle of winter.”
“Come sit by the fire and have something to eat,” Benger encourages her. Standing carefully, Emlyn makes her way to the fire and flops down tiredly on an open spot on a log that’s been dragged over as a makeshift bench.
“Stay here and I’ll get your food,” Benger says.
“Nah, nah,” says one of the women, “She looks done in and you’re a bit worse for wear, yourself. You sit down, too. I’m Umisil, and this is Thisea. We’ll take care of you two. It's the least we can do for our freedom.”
Clucking, Umisil grabs a couple of bowls and ladles stew into them while Thisea fills cups of water drawn from the well and butters slabs of fresh bread.
“Here you go, Sera Nia,” Umisil hands Emlyn her bowl with the bread balanced on the rim and sets the cup between her feet.
“It might not be the hero’s feast you deserve, and we wish we could give you,” Thisea nods, “but it’ll do you a world of good to get some food in you, and this is wholesome enough.”
“I’m Ottar,” a burly man with a beard nods, “and we heard the fighting, but didn’t get to see any of it. Seems like you had a big part in it.”
“I couldn’t have done it without Benger and Jathon and his family. If you'd like to join our order, Jathon, I’d be happy to endorse you. You’ve got a very cool head in a tight spot, and you think well on your feet.”
“I don’t know the first thing about swords or fighting,” he defers.
“Nonsense,” Emlyn continues, “I saw you holding off those bandits with a staff. Swords aren’t the only weapons around, just some of the flashiest ones. A warhammer or a mace might be more to your liking, and they’re often more effective and less costly. Besides, we’ll teach you martial skills. It’s the other things that are nearly impossible to teach, like that cool head that makes you a good candidate.”
“Less talking and more eating, Sera Nia,” Umisil chides.
Ducking her head, Emlyn tucks into her food.
Nearing the bottom of the bowl, she grabs a passing cleric, “Post some guards up high and tell them to keep an eye on the trees. If any of them start moving, shoot it. If there was one, there may be others.”
Frowning in puzzlement, the cleric looks to Benger for an explanation: “Archers in the trees.”
Nodding in understanding, the cleric moves off to post watches.
The group sits and chats idly about what’s been happening in Harito, and most of the travelers agree that it's best to go back and try to pick up their lives again, perhaps with a little less travel or travel in larger groups.
One of the monks wanders over, “Which one of you is Nia?”
Nodding in a near doze, Emlyn looks up at him.
“We found the mules and some horses in the corrals. You might want to take a look at the horses to see if there are any you want to keep for the Temple’s breeding program.”
“I’ll look in the morning,” she says sleepily, “but make sure the mules are fed and ready to travel in the morning. Did you find their saddles and bridles?”
“We found saddles, but there are shackles on the stirrups,” he replies, “No bridles, just halters.”
“See if you can get the shackles off the stirrups, and we can use rope to improvise some bridles. Then we can send these folks on their way in the morning.”
“Off to bed with you,” Benger nudges her, “You almost went face-first into your bowl of stew.”
Benger starts to pick her up, but Ottar pushes him aside, “Nah, let me do that.”
“She’s a bit of fluff,” Benger shrugs, “When she was learning to walk again, I’d carry her when she tired out.”
Hefting the half-dozing Emlyn, Ottar carries her to the tent that the clerics set up and puts her down carefully onto a cot.
“You ought to get some sleep, too,” Ottar nods, “We’ll keep watch. We haven’t had much to do but sleep these last few tendays. Being chained to the wall leaves you plenty of time to nap.”
“I’m not that tired,” Benger shrugs as he pulls off Nia's boots and then starts on his own. Dragging up a stool, Ottar sits, “So tell me about you two. Where are you from? How’d you end up here?”
Peeking to make sure Nia’s asleep, Benger starts, “We’re paladins from the Temple of Morrighu. Her old god and her family are both dead. She arrived at our Temple badly burnt, barely recognizable as human. We weren’t even sure she was female, at first. The healers and clerics have worked hard to keep her alive and restore her health. She’s supposed to be taking things easy and recovering. I was supposed to take her home with me at Mid-Winter since the Temple closes over the break. My mother always wanted a girl but ended up with a house full of rowdy boys.”
“Lots of brothers, I take it,” Ottar grins.
“I’m the oldest of seven,” Benger adds with a grin, “because my parents kept trying for a girl. It seems like she could use someone to mother her a bit, so I wrote to my family, and they agreed to have her stay with us over Mid-Winter Break. I’ll end up sharing a room with one of my younger brothers, but it will be well worth it for her and my mother, I think.”
“How’s she taking all of that?” Ottar asks.
“She gets frustrated because her body won’t always respond how she wants it to, how she’s used to it responding. She mopes a bit occasionally but snaps out of it quickly. I avoid mentioning her family or anything like that because it always makes her so sad. Other than that, she’s been determined and incredibly resilient.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“If the two of you took on that mess of bandits, she’s pretty good in a fight,” Ottar nods, “I know that she said she couldn’t have done it without Jathon, but what happened exactly? We’re all dying to know.”
“She recognized Jathon from our Temple and rode up. She had Jathon call his family members out of the circle the bandits made around them so that he could introduce them to her. They’d already taken his little brother hostage to try to force the rest of them into compliance. She’s right about one thing. Without a lot of direction, Jathon smooth-talked the whole thing until she was in position and ready to strike. She even managed to tell him to get me and find his little brother so that his family could join the fight with a clear conscience. She mowed through quite a few of them on the road, and when they started to retreat into the forest, she launched herself into a tree and took off after them, picking them off from above.”
Ottar’s eyebrows go up, “Using their own tactics against them.”
Benger shrugs, “I didn’t know that at the time. Jathon grabbed me, and we were running through the forest, shouting for his little brother. When we heard him call out, we went quiet and kept running. I could hear men trying to converge on us, but none of them ever managed to do so. I’m guessing that was her bow at work. We ended up in their encampment, following the boy’s shouts. The boy ran out to us, but then the bandits surrounded us. Jathon had his walking stick, and I had my sword and shield. We hadn’t been fighting very long when she showed up, still up in the trees and raining arrows. She said later that they had their archer up in the trees, and she chased him down. They fought a bit, and she stole his quiver before shoving him out of the tree. She is not sure he’s dead, but she said he hit quite a few branches on his way to the ground.”
“Why’d she take his quiver?’ Ottar asks,
“She said she was running out of arrows.” Benger grins, “That quiver was full when we left Harito this morning, so thirty arrows. If I know her, there weren’t any missed or wasted shots. She said that they spent remarkably little time looking up. She spent six of them on their leader to immobilize him. When she told Monases that there weren’t any of them left, I’d believe her. While she was chasing their archer through the treetops, she discovered their bone pile, which made her angry. I think she might have killed them all just to make sure they won’t ever be able to do this to anyone else.”
“That’s exactly why I killed every one of them I could find,” Emlyn interjects, rolling over, “Can someone see to my mare? I haven’t even thought to unsaddle her, and last I saw her, she was standing in the road.”
“Yes, lass,” Ottar rumbles, “She’ll get a lovely feast of oats and hay. I’ll see to it. You get some sleep.”
“My thanks,” Emlyn mumbles, “She deserves it. She ran right over those rat bastards.”
Chuckling, Ottar nods to Benger, “I’d best go see about her horse. Sounds like the horse has earned her keep today, too. If you’re still awake, we’ll talk some more.”
Benger lays back, staring at the ceiling for a time before rolling over to stare at Emlyn’s sleeping form and chuckles at the Goddess’s description of her running through the treetops like a mad squirrel. “I don’t know where she found the strength for all that. I know how far we walked to get to that horrible clearing. I can’t imagine how much it took out of her to cover that distance by jumping from tree to tree,” Benger thinks, “I’m surprised she had anything left to join the fight. I bet she’s out of spells. She must have used them all to keep going. It was a close thing with just that boy and his walking stick at my back. One misstep from either me or Jathon, and we’d have been in those shackles. I’m glad that the Goddess sent more people. We should have asked for more people sooner. She didn’t think to do it, and I followed her without a thought. I should have been busy praying while she was busy getting Jathon’s family out of the fracas. I’ll have to watch that in the future.”
While he’s musing, he hears Nia mumbling in her sleep in a language he doesn’t understand. Before he can get out of his cot, she thrashes for a moment and rolls into a crouch, clearly awake and breathing hard. She looks around for a moment and then calms down.
“Nia, it’s okay. You’re safe,” Benger reassures her, “We’re in a tent that the clerics set up. Everything is quiet.”
“Thanks,” Emlyn sighs and flops back into her cot.
“How long have you been having nightmares?” Benger asks her.
“It’s been a while now,” Emlyn admits.
“Want to talk about it?” Benger offers. “You should, you know. It really does help.”
“I’ll try it,” Emlyn sighs, “but you’ll have to give me your word as a paladin not to say a word to anyone else, and I can’t talk about it here. I’ll tell you tomorrow when we’re on the road.”
His curiosity piqued, Benger nods in agreement, “I’ll hold you to that. For now, you should rest. I’m guessing all your spells are spent.”
“Almost,” Emlyn agrees, “I had a couple left I was keeping for emergencies.”
“That was closer than I thought,” Benger says slowly, “I should have called for aid while you were getting Jathon’s family out of that killing zone.”
“I’m still not quite clear on how all this works,” Emlyn says with a grin, “It’s only my first day outside the Temple, after all.”
Benger laughs at this, “If this is your first day, I can’t wait to see you in a year or two.”
In the morning, Emlyn rises early and goes to find Jathon’s father, Tiago. She finds Tiago stoking the fire and preparing to wake his family.
Pulling him aside, Emlyn begins, “I’ve heard so much about you from Jathon. Thank you for helping with these folks. I wanted to catch you before you leave and give you something for your troubles.”
She hugs Tiago, and as she does, she slips a small bundle into his belt. She whispers to him, “Don’t open that until you’re safely back home. When you go to sell it, don’t take less than 1000 gold ducats for each half of it. Cut it in half and sell each half separately. Don’t sell it all together.”
Stepping back, she grins at him, “Have a safe journey. I’m off to look at the horses, they seem to think we might want. Tell Jathon to find me when you get back to Harito. Even if he doesn’t join us, I can teach him some things with that staff.”
Leaving him open-mouthed for a moment, he shakes it off and continues as if nothing has happened, but surreptitiously adjusts his belt and feels… beads… spaced with knots. “Not beads… pearls. No wonder she said not to take less than 2000 ducats for it. Or not to try to sell it all at once. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many pearls.”
Emlyn stops a passing cleric and asks where to find the horses. Once she’s close enough, she follows her nose to the pen. The horses haven’t been kept much better than the people, but do seem to be at least healthy. Stepping into the pen, she wanders around but doesn’t spot anything special enough to want to keep. There are some tiny ponies, though, that might be just the right size for pulling mine carts in the mines she’s proposing to build.
Emlyn finds them to be a bit on the snappy, cantankerous side, but still gives them a friendly pat and scratch under the chin, which seems to make them warm up to her. She’s still marveling at the tiny animals when the monk finds her again.
“Stop playing with those little lordling toys and come see the real prizes,” he grins, “They’re all in another pen.”
Emlyn slips out of the fence, but not before the pony stallion attempts a nip at her.
She tweaks his nose from the outside of the pen, “Just for that, you rascal, I shall send you off to labor in the mines.”
“I’m Uthorn,” he grins, “I’m told you’re called Nia.”
“I am,” Emlyn replies, “and pleased to meet you, Uthorn.”
“My family breeds mountain ponies,” he explains, “north of Gunthorun, in the foothills. These aren’t mountain ponies, but the Goddess said you were looking for founding stock for a few different bloodlines, and a few of them look expensive.”
“I am,” Emlyn confirms, “War horses, draft horses, pack horses, and ponies for the mine carts.”
“So, you were serious about sending that little biter to the mines then?” he asks curiously, “But where? We don’t have mines.”
“We don’t have mines – yet,” Emlyn corrects him with a grin, “I’m not sure how things are where your Temple is, but the steel here is terrible. It’s barely fit for tableware. It’s no wonder that Benger prefers brigantine to plate. I mean to solve that problem so I can have some decent armor.”
“You could just skip the armor,” Uthorn grins, “and become a monk.”
“I have been wearing armor since I was a child,” Emlyn shakes her head, “Technically, I suppose I am still a child. I think I got my first suit of it at six, so I can’t imagine going into battle without armor.”
“You went into battle in that,” he points to her gambeson, “and that’s not much protection.”
“There’s more to my gambeson than meets the eye,” Emlyn nods and holds out her arm. Tentatively, Uthorn feels around and quickly finds the chain mail she’s hidden inside.
“Healers got you on restrictions?” he asks and chuckles when she nods. “Don’t worry,” he laughs, “I won’t tell them.”
Have any of you ever hunted with a bow? Let me know in the comments.