The tide-battered piers of Lord’s Heel groaned under the unfamiliar weight of hundreds of new footsteps as they extended purposefully west towards the dark foamy waters of the sea. Seldom used as the port was, it remained an important symbol of the land, and today the residents had spared no expense preparing what was surely going to be the most historic of days. Bolts of red, gold and green representing the myriad of proud houses and great cities lined the streets, hung from rafters and across the tight alleys. Gardens had been trimmed and trees pruned, streets swept and fountains scrubbed. From the air, the cobbled salt stained streets appeared as a giant’s flower patch, isolated between grey hills and blue waters. A small but welcome flicker of colour in a harsh, tired canvas.
The Kingdom of Riduvia had long stood as a bastion on the western most point of the continent. Flanked by its neighbours, friends and enemies both, to the east, and the Sea of Solitude to the west. Riduvia was blessed by a predictable, temperate climate, bountiful harvests and bred a loyal, tenacious people, famed throughout the known world as tireless farmers and fishermen. The Riduvian army were sought after allies, and often found glory in battles on the continent, a resourceful and hardy bunch, unwilling to let injustice go unpunished and never failing to answer when called upon. Years of well earned peace had yielded a prosperous, if cumbersome, quiet on the land and news of any kind from the wider world was often met with great interest and delight.
When the purple sails of a ship of strange design, flying a flag of a creature alien to the people of the Heel, crested the horizon and made port last spring, news quickly spread throughout the kingdom. The leather skinned, broad shouldered crew whispered to one another as they anchored in the bay, chuckling to themselves as crowds of fishwives and weary guardsmen gawped at the foreign nature of their visitors. Such was the nature of the visit and the growing buzz through the city, that the captain of the Indigo, a man who introduced himself as Vigo, was personally invited to dine with the mayor of Lord’s Heel that eve. He spared no expense of course, wishing to impress his guests with the finest local delicacies, from the fish caught fresh in the bay to the plums soaked in honey from the hills surrounding the port.
Despite the abundance of food laid out before the ensemble of nobility, priests, scholars and the sailor, little was eaten. Vigo, ever stroking his forked black beard, regaled his captivated audience with tales of What Lay West. His satchel, made from the hide of no animal known to any of those present save him, contained maps, books in foreign script, and drawings that made books for children appear tame by comparison. The Priests, unusually receptive to the sailor’s bold claims, sat in silence and bewilderment, and the scholars bombarded the foreigner with questions even a fluent native speaker would struggle to understand. The evening meal lasted well into the early hours of the morning, and as dawn struck, the rookery of the keep was emptied. To every corner of the kingdom they flew, with a proposition that had led to this day’s festivities.
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The purple sailed ship had stayed harbored for the weeks during preparation. Today, the market square of Lord’s Heel had been converted into a single large ale house to accommodate the hundreds of aspiring explorers waiting anxiously to depart. As the men, women, old and questionably young, drank, they spoke feverishly about the prospects of what lay ahead of them. The second sons of nobility, with nothing to inherit, dreamed of fortune and prospects of a new place to begin. Widows with nothing else to lose, old men whose family had all but abandoned and forgotten about them, young husbands hoping to provide for their new love, and the children they may one day raise.
Sitting amongst a group, whose names he couldn’t recall, was a guardsman, deep into his third cup of watered down mead. His chainmail armour ill-fitted his larger stomach; a hand-me-down from a retiring colleague, and his fox red hair clung to his forehead from the unfamiliar heat of so many bodies. Endric watched as serving boys and girls ran around the tables, filling up cups and clinking from coins engraved with a dozen different rulers. ‘Fortunate that old Bill is still having children at this age,’ he thought to himself, ‘he may not have any free labour otherwise. He had better treat the wife well.’ He knew everyone in town. Being as far away from other cities as Lord’s Heel was, despite a large population, everyone seemed to know everyone. Endric knew everyone in the city, something he prided himself on from only a few short years in the guard, and was as excited as he was out of his element amongst so many new people. He cradled his short spear, tapping away nervously on his hilt, its dull tip gleaming hopelessly in the morning sun. ‘The mayor never usually makes his own speeches,’ Endric pondered, ‘this really must be the real thing.’
