Thanks, carborundum! I appreciate the interest that everyone has shown in this new story.
My set of books arrived yesterday, though I haven't had much chance to do more than skim them. I'll create a character stats thread once I have a chance to review the rules in more depth.
I only have a few more chapters drafted, and I want to focus on finishing up my Rappan Athuk story before I dedicate my full attention to this one. But I'll continue to post periodic updates as I have them ready.
Today, we meet two more characters.
* * * * *
Chapter 3
Callen’s whip cracked in the air over his draft horse, which plodded along methodically down the King’s Road. The whip was theater both for the trader and for the horse alike; Jaron guessed that Callen would have accepted a whipping himself before letting a crop actually touch the skin of his animal. The old halfling trader had spent twenty years riding his cart between the isolated communities of the west, and he was set in his ways. The only concession he made to the increased danger on the road these days was a battered crossbow, which looked as old as he was, strapped to the edge of the cart’s seat along with a quiver of bolts.
Thus far, however, there had been no sign of bandits or other trouble. If there were kobolds molesting travelers, they were staying close to Winterhaven. Jaron glanced back into the back of the cart. Nestled amidst the casks and bales crowded into the bed, Beetle was sleeping improbably against the constant jolts and jars of the road. Thus far his cousin had presented no troubles on the road, and he’d even turned up a brace of rabbits for the stewpot one night. He got along well with Callen, who said little and judged even less. But Jaron was more worried about what would happen when they reached Winterhaven, with its population of nearly a thousand people, mostly humans, living in and around its walls.
Callen kept his cart in good shape, and they’d made decent time despite the poor condition of the road. Once the King’s Road had been a smooth artery of travel, maintained by engineers who would sometimes stay at the inn in Fairhollow. Jaron could not remember now the last time he’d seen road workers passing through the village. Everyone seemed to have forgotten the west, and the populations in the scattered villages across the region had drifted inside themselves, tending their walls and keeping a sharp eye out for threats. The villages were too scattered to provide much in the way of mutual assistance, so it fell to men like Callen to maintain the links between them, risking the roads to make a living in trade and commerce.
“We’ll make it by nightfall,” Callen ventured, cracking his whip in the air again. The horse tossed its head, as if appreciating the joke.
Jaron scratched his side. His simple farmer’s garb had been replaced by a broad vest of thick leather worn over a tunic of double-stitched wool, with leather bracers at his wrists. He’d still had the armor he’d worn as a soldier, crafted of boiled leather reinforced with metal studs, gear fashioned specifically for war. But he’d ultimately chosen this suit instead. While it was durable enough to offer protection against the dangers they might find on the road, it was also decorated with neatly stitched designs in swirls of blue and gold thread, forming images of waves and fishes, trees and animals. It had been crafted by his mother, and while the garment showed signs of wear, the seams were as stout as they’d been when she first made them.
The halfling had likewise armed himself, with a long dirk in a leather scabbard stuck through his belt, and a quiver full of broadpoints slung across his back. His bow was tucked against the wagon board behind him, within easy reach. Two full packs were nestled among the supplies in the wagon.
After four days on the road, he was looking forward to a bath, and a nice bed in an inn. But then he remembered the purpose for this trip, and even that expectation soured. And there was the problem in the back of the cart. He didn’t really expect Beetle to do anything bad out of malice, but the fact remained that his cousin had an odd perception of traditional things like morals and social boundaries. He hoped that Yarine would be able to smooth things over with Dale before he returned. For all of her talk about finding a place for Belden outside of Fairhollow, he could not really conceive of his cousin settling outside of the village where he’d spent his entire life. If the people of his home could not accept the damaged halfling, how could anyone expect the denizens of the harsher world of the Big Folk to do the same?
The noise of the cart and his private musings distracted Jaron, so that he did not notice the disturbance until they were almost atop it. As the cart rounded a bend, they could see that the road passed between several clusters of boulders ahead, which rose up out of the ground like a giant’s knuckles.
Two travelers had been backed up against one of those knobs, fighting for their lives against a pack of bandits. Jaron recognized the little creatures at once: kobolds. One of the small reptilian humanoids was lying in the road in a slowly spreading pool of blood, while a second had fallen between the road and the nearby boulders. That left four more pressing the pair of travelers. Two of the kobolds, clad in ragged tunics of dirty leather, poked warily with short spears from the flanks, wary of getting too close to their enemies, but the two in the center wore heavy armor and shields, and fought side-by-side with small swords that darted in and out like snakes.
Dragonshields, Jaron thought, recognizing the type.
The travelers were as mismatched a pair as Jaron had ever seen. The one in the front was a human woman, fighting with a pair of narrow-bladed swords that she wove into a blur before her, forcing the kobolds to keep a respectful distance back. Jaron had spent enough time with humans to know something of them, but the woman seemed barely old enough to be considered an adult. She was clad in a long wool surcoat, unadorned with any sigil or other marking, that had been torn in several places to reveal the familiar glint of metal armor underneath.
Her companion was an elf—or so it seemed at first glance; as he stared Jaron realized that he was taller than the human woman. He was clad in a light-colored suit of flowing linens, covered by a long vest of bleached leather that came down almost to his knees. His skin seemed almost to sparkle in the early afternoon sunlight, and his hair was a pale gold, trailing out behind him as he moved. His only weapon was a slender staff that he was using to try to keep the kobold spearmen at bay. He was injured, Jaron realized, with wisps of smoke still trailing from a smear of ugly black char that ran down his left arm from the shoulder to his elbow. None of the kobolds appeared to have torches, so Jaron made a mental note to keep an eye out for an enemy wizard.
Callen had spotted the danger as soon as he had, and the old trader was already yanking on his horse’s reins. As the wagon clattered to a stop, he reflexively set the brake and reached for his crossbow.
Jaron turned and grabbed his own bow. “Beetle, stay...” But he never finished his command, for his cousin was no longer lying in the bed of the wagon. Jaron felt a thrill of fear— gods, not now!—as he scanned the ground along the road behind them. The ground here was irregular, with numerous twists and bends in the terrain; Beetle could have fallen out of the wagon, or jumped, in any of a hundred places back along their path.
A cry of pain drew his attention back around. Another of the kobolds, one of the spearmen, had gotten too close to the human woman’s blades. It staggered back and fell to the ground, trembling as blood spurted from the deep puncture in its chest. But she paid for it a moment later as one of the dragonshields stabbed her in the side. By the look of it her armor had kept the thrust from penetrating deep, but Jaron could see that the strike had hurt her by the way that she favored that side as she pivoted back to face the kobold warriors. Jaron’s initial suspicions about the elf were confirmed as he lifted a hand and pointed at the kobold that had injured his companion. There was a white flash from the elf’s eyes, a flare of magic that was echoed by sudden bursts of searing fire that erupted from the kobold warrior’s eyes, mouth, and hands. The kobold shrieked and fell back a step, but Jaron had fought dragonshields before, and knew how tough the bastards were. And the kobold, while bloodied, clearly had a lot more fight left in it, as it shook its head and recovered its position next to its companion, still dazed from the searing flames.
Jaron’s hands moved of their own volition, unwinding the string wrapped around the shaft of his bow, and fitting it into the notches at the ends of the weapon with a speed that was obviously born of long practice. But even as he reached for an arrow, he saw that a fifth kobold had appeared, clambering up onto the rocks behind the beleaguered travelers. The two travelers seemed oblivious to the danger as the little creature lifted its spear, and crept forward to where it could stab the distracted elf mage in the back.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
