It was dark on the road, and Pillars of the Sky loomed up ahead, dark and purple and almost threatening.
Down the long, dark road, a rider was riding. He was clad in a black cloak and seated on a black horse, and as he flashed past the midnight landscape, he shivered and took a tighter grip on his sword.
He was a message rider of Dwllyn, and though he did his duty, and did it better than any others, that didn't mean he had to like it. He peered ahead into the pitch blackness, though he could see nothing. There were dangers on the road, he knew, not the least of them being breaking his horse's leg in a hole in the ground.
After a few hours of steady galloping, he became aware that there was someone else on the road with him. Far, far back, the road went over the lip of a small hollow, and, glancing over his shoulder, he could see a faint speck on the rocky path, coming up fast. Then his horse stumbled over some hidden stone, and he barely kept his seat - or his silence, though no doubt the rider behind him was already aware of his presence.
That was when he heard the howling. A lone wolf wailed its sorrows to the moon, and, closer to him, more wolves picked up the cry. A nervous sweat broke out on his forehead and he realized they were all around him. Closing in for the kill, he thought, urging his horse on to greater speed. His horse, too, had pricked up its ears at the sound of howling, and its eyes rolled fearfully in its head as the poor brute realized that the threatening scent was drawing closer. He adjusted his grip on his still-sheathed sword, though he knew it would do no good against wolves. He barely knew how to use the thing; after all, he was a message rider, not a warrior.
Now he could even see the wolves; dark, sleek shapes keeping pace with him on either side of him, flowing over the ground and leaping over tree stumps and boulders. His horse tossed its head from side to side, seeking to bolt. He wanted to spin his horse around and make for Dwllyn, but something held him back - loyalty, and love for his liege lord. He was a message rider of Dwllyn, handpicked by his beloved lord for this perilous task. He knew his duty.
Now he was cresting a slight rise. On either side of the road, the wolves were still keeping pace with him. Now, up ahead, he saw something to give him pause. Four people were standing in the road, two holding loaded bows, and the other two standing impassive in the robes of Druids.
"Halt!" cried one of them in a commanding voice, a feminine voice at that, as the rider noted.
"Stand and Deliver!"
The rider snorted silently in derision. Not bloody likely. He was a message rider of Dwllyn, and he knew his duty. He did yield slightly at the top of the rise, and suddenly the wolves were all about him, milling around and snarling threateningly. He gathered his nerve for what he had to do. A message rider knows his duty, he reminded himself, and with that, he clapped his spurs into his horse and, drawing his sword with a sudden shout, his sent his horse surging forward with a patriotic cry.
"For Dwllyn!"
His horse panicked for a second at being forced into the midst of the mass of slavering jaws and gleaming teeth, then obeyed its master. Like its rider, the horse, too, knew its duty.
The wolves were surprised at this sudden move, and the furry mass melted aside like the Red Sea before Moses. Those few wolves that did not move were bowled aside, or trampled. The message rider paid them no heed, for the archers ahead on the road, who were noe raising their bows and taking aim, were more of a threat.
He was closing with them. Two hundred yards...then one hundred...he was thundering down the road, his horse's hoofs beating out a frenzied rhythm on the turf. He fancied himself an awe-inspiring sight. The manic tempo of hoof-beats grew more and more frenzied - he was closing with the two white-faced archers, barely more than fifty yards now, he was almost -
Suddenly, the branches of an oak tree loomed up in front of his face. Dropping his sword, he ducked, but he was not quick enough. As the branches struck him in the face and chest, he was shot backwards out of the saddle like an arrow from a bow. As he performed several lazy revolutions in the air, his last though was, Strange...why didn't I notice that tree before now?
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There you have it - a nice, short update, and another one on the way in a few days.
saFire will be starting a thread in the Rogues Gallery detailing the stats and character histories/descriptions of the PCs and certain select NPCs.
As an aside, which, as readers, do you prefer - short, frequent updates (like the last few updates), or long, detailed updates every few weeks (like many other story hours, and like the original updates on Page 1 of this story hour)?
In other words, which should I do:
Short updates every few days?
or,
Long updates every few weeks?