Shorewalker
Well-Known Member
Firstly, heartfelt thanks to all of you who have commented, made suggestions, debated and generally offered whatever you could to my previous efforts. Critiques can often sting, but they are never without merit.
I've found myself balancing a lot of what has been said. Some stuff I've immediately latched onto and used. Some I've given real thought to...and then come up with my own version that I think has hit the right mark. Some I've thought about...and then discounted, perhaps because what has been written serves a future purpose, or it simply doesn't fit with my own vision.
Apologies if the last bit sounds arrogant...it isn't meant that way.
Anyway, this is what we now have. I hope a number of you can see your own little bit of influence, because trust me, many of you are in here!
“State your business in D’raynar, lad!”
Jenn flinched from the sharp edge of the voice. She did that a lot these days, a tic that had developed in response to harsh words and loud noises.
His face florid and jowly, the Town Guard was close enough for her to smell the sharp tang of his sweat and the sour ale on his breath. His livery looked tired, his breastplate and helm dull and unpolished. Holding his halberd horizontal before him, he was barring her path.
Stomach knotting, Jenn kept her eyes on her worn boots, her face hidden away in the cowl of her cloak. At her hair line, the tickle of sweat began to march down her brow.
Gods! Don’t stop me now. Not here. Not when I’m so close.
“Just…just hoping to meet with some…friends, sir.”
Her words came out low and tremulous. They must have surprised the man, for he stepped forward and pulled back her cowl. He started, and she imagined that her cropped hair and haggard features had not been what he was expecting. He recovered his composure quickly.
“Not a lad at all, then, eh?” His smile was unpleasant. “Still, the question remains…what do you want in the city? Do these friends happen to have names?”
Seized by black dread - her trusty travelling companion - Jenn could not meet the guard’s eye. Neither was she keen on providing a true answer. This time last year, a man like this would have bowed before her, perhaps opened a door at her approach whilst offering a respectful smile.
That was before her old life had been scoured away by fire and steel. Those men who had served her father were now as dead as the smouldering ruins of Harmengarf. Now she could not help but view everybody with suspicion, wondering whether they would be the one to slip the blade between her ribs.
Before the hulking city gates, she shuffled and mumbled, the desire to flee balanced by the exhaustion that had her legs feeling like lead.
“I asked you a question, girl.” Jenn was tall, but still the guard loomed over her. “You don’t look the sort we want in the city without good reason.”
The words stung, anger simmering below the thick layers of fear that almost suffocated Jenn. Rage was possibly the only thing that had forced her onwards these last few month, but it would not serve her well here. Instead of delivering a sharp rebuke, she slid her gaze up at the ominous skies, these pregnant with rain, and then the high, crenellated walls of the city. She reminded herself of what might be inside.
Vengeance.
“Please, sir, I just need to…”
“Is there a problem, Grandol?”
Jenn’s interrogator turned at the sound of the voice. A second guard approached, an older, rotund man. He had just allowed three laden carts to rumble in through the gates without much in the way of questioning.
“Not really, captain. This girl wants in, but won’t tell me anything of her business.” The tall man sized Jenn up again. “I reckon we’ve got enough beggars of our own without adding to their number.”
“Well, she might not be the best dressed traveller we’ve ever seen,” the second man stopped at Grandol’s shoulder, “but that doesn’t mean she’s going to be leeching off the good citizens.”
Jenn would still not look up, but she liked the tone of the man’s voice. It sounded reasonable, kindly even, a laugh not far from his lips.
“So, lass, why have you come to D’raynar? It’s not that we don’t appreciate visitors, but we’d prefer it if they had good reason to be here.”
“I need to find some people,” Jenn mumbled, shifting her travel pack around on her shoulder nervously. As vague as the answer was, it was at least the truth.
“Which people, lass?” pressed the older guard.
Jenn hesitated, wondering whether honesty would buy her laughter or a time in the city gaol. What did she truly know of those she sought, other than they were mercenaries and good with cold steel?
That had been enough to bring her halfway around the world, though. She needed men handy with blades and the appetite to use them. For what had been done to her family, answer had to be given.
“I…I’m looking for the Watch.” Her boots remained inordinately interesting. “I’ve heard that I might find them here.”
The younger guard snorted, a sound of derision that was cut off as the captain slapped him on the arm. Her head remaining bowed, Jenn felt the first few drops of rain splash onto it, large and chill. She needed to get inside D’raynar and not just because of the Watch or the weather. She slid her gaze sideways, across the rolling fields to copses and woods. There were things out there, treacherous things, and she was possessed of a certainty that they were getting closer.
The elder guard spoke again, his tone sympathetic. “Lass, the Watch are not the sort of people you should be around. They’re dangerous types, likely to lead you into trouble. Besides, whatever it is you want them for, they’ll expect a healthy fee and…Well, no offense, but you don’t look like you have two bits to rub together.”
Jenn could feel the tears coming again, the indignities heaping on her shoulders. There was a time when she had wanted for nothing, a time when she would have rolled through wide city gates in a gilded carriage.
She almost crumbled then, almost fell to her knees in the dirt in final surrender.
Would that be so bad? Could anybody blame me?
Some strength remained though, just enough to keep her spine straight.
“Please, I beg of you. I need…I need the Watch.”
The man stared at her intently, his gaze running over her face before settling on her eyes. His expression slowly melting in understanding, he sighed.
“I do believe that you do, lass.” Stepping aside, and dragging Grandol with him, his arm swept towards the gates.
“D’raynar welcomes you. Go safe and I hope you find what you need.”
Squeezing further back into the archway – she thought the door it covered a gate into somebody’s walled garden - Jenn pulled her cloak tighter around her neck and shivered. As she had feared they would, the black skies had finally split wide. Pouring from the rips came curtains of rain, these hammering down onto the tight street, sending folk scurrying for shelter in doorways and beneath overhangs. With the thoroughfare beneath water, garbage swirling across the cobbles like decaying water lilies, Jenn had thought it best to pause. Damp and miserable, she now watched as urchins splashed laughing through the filthy runnels whilst one old woman wrapped her shawls tight around hunched shoulders and hitched up her ragged dress. Opposite Jenn, run-off cascaded from the tiles of crooked roofs, small waterfalls that steadily increased in speed and power.
As thunder again rattled doors and shutters along the street and a distant hound howled out his outrage, Jenn chanced a peek up to the heavens. The weather looked to be in for the day and perversely, she found herself relieved. The storm’s arrival had delayed her arrival at journey’s end, giving her opportunity to think.
True, the hundreds of leagues she had already travelled had offered enough time for consideration. However, this relatively short distance across the city somehow felt just as long as her many months on the road.
She had hauled her own concerns across the kingdoms but now she fretted on the conversation with the guards at the city gates. The captain’s words of warning had been sobering and she wondered whether any of this made sense, whether any of it was sane…and whether her efforts would make the slightest bit of difference anyway.
But they had to; it was as simple as that. She was the only one left to speak for the dead. Giving up was an option she refused to entertain. Wrestling down her worries, she straightened and strode out into the teeth of the storm. With froth-topped rills of sewage lapping over her travel-worn boots, she set her jaw and turned up the hill.
Trudging along hunched over, the rain battering a chill into her bones, Jenn ached for the simple comforts that had been stripped from her; the soft caress of clean sheets on her own bed, the hearty aroma of pheasant and beef drifting up from the kitchens, the dappled sunlight cascading down through the branches of the hoary oak in the lily gardens behind the keep.
She held tight to those memories, keen-edged reminders of what had been lost, and for that loss, she would insist that there be an accounting.
I've found myself balancing a lot of what has been said. Some stuff I've immediately latched onto and used. Some I've given real thought to...and then come up with my own version that I think has hit the right mark. Some I've thought about...and then discounted, perhaps because what has been written serves a future purpose, or it simply doesn't fit with my own vision.
Apologies if the last bit sounds arrogant...it isn't meant that way.
Anyway, this is what we now have. I hope a number of you can see your own little bit of influence, because trust me, many of you are in here!
*****
“State your business in D’raynar, lad!”
Jenn flinched from the sharp edge of the voice. She did that a lot these days, a tic that had developed in response to harsh words and loud noises.
His face florid and jowly, the Town Guard was close enough for her to smell the sharp tang of his sweat and the sour ale on his breath. His livery looked tired, his breastplate and helm dull and unpolished. Holding his halberd horizontal before him, he was barring her path.
Stomach knotting, Jenn kept her eyes on her worn boots, her face hidden away in the cowl of her cloak. At her hair line, the tickle of sweat began to march down her brow.
Gods! Don’t stop me now. Not here. Not when I’m so close.
“Just…just hoping to meet with some…friends, sir.”
Her words came out low and tremulous. They must have surprised the man, for he stepped forward and pulled back her cowl. He started, and she imagined that her cropped hair and haggard features had not been what he was expecting. He recovered his composure quickly.
“Not a lad at all, then, eh?” His smile was unpleasant. “Still, the question remains…what do you want in the city? Do these friends happen to have names?”
Seized by black dread - her trusty travelling companion - Jenn could not meet the guard’s eye. Neither was she keen on providing a true answer. This time last year, a man like this would have bowed before her, perhaps opened a door at her approach whilst offering a respectful smile.
That was before her old life had been scoured away by fire and steel. Those men who had served her father were now as dead as the smouldering ruins of Harmengarf. Now she could not help but view everybody with suspicion, wondering whether they would be the one to slip the blade between her ribs.
Before the hulking city gates, she shuffled and mumbled, the desire to flee balanced by the exhaustion that had her legs feeling like lead.
“I asked you a question, girl.” Jenn was tall, but still the guard loomed over her. “You don’t look the sort we want in the city without good reason.”
The words stung, anger simmering below the thick layers of fear that almost suffocated Jenn. Rage was possibly the only thing that had forced her onwards these last few month, but it would not serve her well here. Instead of delivering a sharp rebuke, she slid her gaze up at the ominous skies, these pregnant with rain, and then the high, crenellated walls of the city. She reminded herself of what might be inside.
Vengeance.
“Please, sir, I just need to…”
“Is there a problem, Grandol?”
Jenn’s interrogator turned at the sound of the voice. A second guard approached, an older, rotund man. He had just allowed three laden carts to rumble in through the gates without much in the way of questioning.
“Not really, captain. This girl wants in, but won’t tell me anything of her business.” The tall man sized Jenn up again. “I reckon we’ve got enough beggars of our own without adding to their number.”
“Well, she might not be the best dressed traveller we’ve ever seen,” the second man stopped at Grandol’s shoulder, “but that doesn’t mean she’s going to be leeching off the good citizens.”
Jenn would still not look up, but she liked the tone of the man’s voice. It sounded reasonable, kindly even, a laugh not far from his lips.
“So, lass, why have you come to D’raynar? It’s not that we don’t appreciate visitors, but we’d prefer it if they had good reason to be here.”
“I need to find some people,” Jenn mumbled, shifting her travel pack around on her shoulder nervously. As vague as the answer was, it was at least the truth.
“Which people, lass?” pressed the older guard.
Jenn hesitated, wondering whether honesty would buy her laughter or a time in the city gaol. What did she truly know of those she sought, other than they were mercenaries and good with cold steel?
That had been enough to bring her halfway around the world, though. She needed men handy with blades and the appetite to use them. For what had been done to her family, answer had to be given.
“I…I’m looking for the Watch.” Her boots remained inordinately interesting. “I’ve heard that I might find them here.”
The younger guard snorted, a sound of derision that was cut off as the captain slapped him on the arm. Her head remaining bowed, Jenn felt the first few drops of rain splash onto it, large and chill. She needed to get inside D’raynar and not just because of the Watch or the weather. She slid her gaze sideways, across the rolling fields to copses and woods. There were things out there, treacherous things, and she was possessed of a certainty that they were getting closer.
The elder guard spoke again, his tone sympathetic. “Lass, the Watch are not the sort of people you should be around. They’re dangerous types, likely to lead you into trouble. Besides, whatever it is you want them for, they’ll expect a healthy fee and…Well, no offense, but you don’t look like you have two bits to rub together.”
Jenn could feel the tears coming again, the indignities heaping on her shoulders. There was a time when she had wanted for nothing, a time when she would have rolled through wide city gates in a gilded carriage.
She almost crumbled then, almost fell to her knees in the dirt in final surrender.
Would that be so bad? Could anybody blame me?
Some strength remained though, just enough to keep her spine straight.
“Please, I beg of you. I need…I need the Watch.”
The man stared at her intently, his gaze running over her face before settling on her eyes. His expression slowly melting in understanding, he sighed.
“I do believe that you do, lass.” Stepping aside, and dragging Grandol with him, his arm swept towards the gates.
“D’raynar welcomes you. Go safe and I hope you find what you need.”
*****
Squeezing further back into the archway – she thought the door it covered a gate into somebody’s walled garden - Jenn pulled her cloak tighter around her neck and shivered. As she had feared they would, the black skies had finally split wide. Pouring from the rips came curtains of rain, these hammering down onto the tight street, sending folk scurrying for shelter in doorways and beneath overhangs. With the thoroughfare beneath water, garbage swirling across the cobbles like decaying water lilies, Jenn had thought it best to pause. Damp and miserable, she now watched as urchins splashed laughing through the filthy runnels whilst one old woman wrapped her shawls tight around hunched shoulders and hitched up her ragged dress. Opposite Jenn, run-off cascaded from the tiles of crooked roofs, small waterfalls that steadily increased in speed and power.
As thunder again rattled doors and shutters along the street and a distant hound howled out his outrage, Jenn chanced a peek up to the heavens. The weather looked to be in for the day and perversely, she found herself relieved. The storm’s arrival had delayed her arrival at journey’s end, giving her opportunity to think.
True, the hundreds of leagues she had already travelled had offered enough time for consideration. However, this relatively short distance across the city somehow felt just as long as her many months on the road.
She had hauled her own concerns across the kingdoms but now she fretted on the conversation with the guards at the city gates. The captain’s words of warning had been sobering and she wondered whether any of this made sense, whether any of it was sane…and whether her efforts would make the slightest bit of difference anyway.
But they had to; it was as simple as that. She was the only one left to speak for the dead. Giving up was an option she refused to entertain. Wrestling down her worries, she straightened and strode out into the teeth of the storm. With froth-topped rills of sewage lapping over her travel-worn boots, she set her jaw and turned up the hill.
Trudging along hunched over, the rain battering a chill into her bones, Jenn ached for the simple comforts that had been stripped from her; the soft caress of clean sheets on her own bed, the hearty aroma of pheasant and beef drifting up from the kitchens, the dappled sunlight cascading down through the branches of the hoary oak in the lily gardens behind the keep.
She held tight to those memories, keen-edged reminders of what had been lost, and for that loss, she would insist that there be an accounting.
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