Their boots squished as Kyen and Adeya walked along the mountain’s shoulder. Mud slopped up on the hems of their cloaks with every step. Their hair clung to their faces under damp hoods, Adeya’s in lank strings and Kyen’s plastered to his brow. The misty drizzle fell from dark clouds that billowed over the mountainside and curtained the winding road below in haze. A settlement, a cluster atop a gray foothill, overlooked the highway and the lowlands.
“Kyen?” Adeya pulled at her soppy cloak; it slapped as she folded it against herself. “Can we please stop?”
He ducked around a dripping boulder.
“Please, Kyen? We haven’t seen any sign of Ennyen.”
He paused for a moment to survey the ground then picked his way across a stretch of tumbled rocks and scree.
When she didn’t receive an answer, Adeya kept whining. “I just want a hot bath. A fresh meal. A soft bed with a pillow and piles of blankets. Eek!” Her foot slipped in the mud, and she dropped bottom-first to the ground with a splat.
Kyen looked back.
She pouted at him, and with a slump and a sigh, he walked back to her. He extended a hand to help her to her feet, but she didn’t take it. She sniffed, gazing up at him, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Alright. We’ll stop.” He sighed again.
“Oh, thank you!” She took his hand, and he lifted her upright.
He angled their course down the slope, heading for the settlement in the foothills.
The drizzle eased up as they neared, and the form of the village emerged from the mist. Roofs, broken in and patched, poked above the walls of a wooden stockade that bristled with a stakewall. A road split off from the Great Highway and, after passing between the stakes, ended at a wooden gateway flanked by a watchtower.
Seeing these defenses materialize, Kyen’s face grew pensive. He slowed to a stop. “I don’t think we’ll be finding an inn here, Adeya.”
“Look, though. Smoke! It’s warm and dry, at the least,” she said. “Nobody would refuse the honor of lodging a princess in their midst.”
“I’d not mention your title, if I were you,” he said. “This close to the Claimless Lands, it might be a thief hold as easily as a village.”
“For a hot bath, I’d fight thieves,” she said. “Can we see, at least?”
Kyen hesitated.
“Please? They might have sandwiches.”
“Alright, alright,” he said. “But if anyone finds out who we are—who I am—it’ll be trouble.”
Adeya mimed sealing her sweet smile with two fingers. She started towards the gate, but when Kyen lingered behind, she stopped to wave him forward. He hung his head and picked up his step to join her.
Wooden spikes long enough to skewer a horse lined the road leading up to the gate. One spike, larger than the rest, pounded straight into the ground, stood like a column beside the watchtower. An array of rusty swords and knives pinned faded rags up and down its side. At its pinnacle hung a human skull, still wearing a bandit’s headband, impaled in place by a broken spear.
When Adeya hurried up to the gate, her eyes traveled up the column and grew wide when they saw the skull. Kyen stopped beside her with a hand on his hilt.
He leaned in to whisper. “I’m not sure about this...”
“Well, they’re not bandits.” She whispered back, her eyes still on the grisly display. Craning her neck up towards the watchtower, she put a hand to her mouth. “Hail up there! Greetings?”
A sentry rose from the shadow underneath the tower’s peak. He held a bow in one hand. With the other he drew an arrow from the quiver at his hip.
“What do you want?”
“To beg lodging for the night,” she called up.
“We don’t lodge strangers. Begone!”
“But we’re travelers!”
“Thieves more like. Or fugitives. Troublemakers either way,” said the sentry. “Nary an honest traveler in these parts.”
“We really are travelers. Cold, wet, hungry travelers. We’re from Isea—”
“Save your tale-spinning. Get gone!”
“Please?” Adeya clasped her hands under her chin. “I’m a healer from Isea. If there’s someone sick or wounded, I’d care for them in exchange for lodging.”
“No. Now get!” He notched the arrow on the bow string.
“Adeya.” Kyen laid a hand on her arm, pulling at her.
She shrugged him off. “See here, you! I need a bath. And a dry bed. And a meal. I demand to speak with your leader!” She pointed at the ground.
“Adeya.” Kyen whispered.
“I will not stand for such incivility,” she continued. “No wonder you never see an honest traveler! You should be ashamed of yourself. I’m not leaving this spot until I speak to your leader, and I insist on being treated with respect.”
The sentry’s frown faded. He pursed his lips but it did nothing to hide the growing twinkle in his eye.
“Do you know who this is?” She pointed at Kyen.
Kyen stiffened. He whispered out the side of his mouth. “Adeya—Don’t!”
“He’s… He’s my escort,” she stammered. “And he’s a very good man, too.”
“Aren’t you a genuine article?” The sentry chuckled. “You must be travelers, and lost. Very, very lost. Do you know where you are, little dame?”
“Don’t you patronize me!” She swelled.
“Many apologies.” He laughed. The sentry nodded back at the shadows behind him. The sound of feet descending within the wooden tower answered.
Adeya stood with her arms crossed, her nose in the air, and said to herself, “I will get my bath.”
Kyen buried his face in a hand.
Around them, a deluge of rain began pouring down through the mist. It soaked their already damp cloaks, streaked down the stockade, and gathered in puddles at their feet. Adeya deflated.
The sentry smiled at them from under the shelter of the watchtower.
She glared back, speaking to Kyen, “What kind of heathen place is this?”
“These are the highlands, Adeya,” he said. “It’s not like Isea, or Veleda, or Nalayni.”
“Give me lumbergadders of Varkest rather than this!” She huffed. “Heathen.”
Steps thudded up the inside of the tower. The sentry moved aside for a man with a large mustache. He threw back his hood and leaned at the railing.
“Who be you?”
“A brabbling hoddypeak and her escort, townsmaster,” answered the sentry.
“I am not—!”
“Where you be from?” demanded the townsmaster.
“Isea. And I just want a bath.” Adeya’s voice broke over the last word as the rain continued to drench her.
The townsmaster’s gaze found Kyen. “And your companion?”
“I’m not anyone worthy of note,” he said. “Just her escort.”
“Are you not Kyen of Avanna?” asked the townsmaster.
Kyen hung his head.
“Yes,” Adeya answered. “Yes, he is.” She shrugged an apology at him, but his stormy eyes stayed fixed on the ground.
“Let them in,” the townsmaster said to the sentry. They both disappeared from the watchtower. A moment later, the gate gave a clunk. It hinged upward on ropes, lifting until Kyen and Adeya could duck under its edge.
The townsmaster, pulling up his hood, met them inside the stockade. A purple vest with brass buttons peaked out between the folds of his cloak. His thick, dark mustache covered his mouth. “My name is Theiho.”
“Adeya of Isea,” She nodded to him.
“And Kyen of Avanna.” Theiho surveyed him up and down but couldn’t catch his eye. “I thought you’d be a larger man.”
“Most do.” Kyen smiled weakly at his feet.
“You have the Avanna countenance. It’s not easily forgotten,” said Theiho.
“You’ve seen another from Avanna?” asked Adeya.
“A swordsman,” replied Theiho. “Stopped at our gate a day back looking for you. Described you in detail.”
Kyen stiffened, but he said nothing.
“Is he still here?” asked Adeya.
“No,” replied Theiho. “He kept on up the highway when he learned we’d not seen you this way.”
Kyen relaxed.
“He had your hair and eyes. Though, he stood a good deal higher. Come. It’d be an honor to have the Hero of Ellunon stay with me. Come out of the rain.” Theiho led away.
Within the stockade’s wall, a handful of houses hunched together with their garden patches full of puddles. Beside each garden sat a pyre with wood stacked dense against the rain. They flanked the road that ran up the middle of the village—this Theiho followed—and ended at a small dome of seamless rock. A heavy slab covered its entrance.
When Adeya saw it, her face lit up. “A Firstwold ruin!”
“We are attacked by fiends more often than bandits these days,” said Theiho. “The ruin is our only refuge. At least against the smaller ones.”
Kyen and Adeya exchanged glances. They followed Theiho through the muddy street to the door of the largest house: a log structure of two stories built between a couple river-stone chimneys. An oilcloth covered what looked like a bite that’d been taken out of the corner of the roof.
Theiho opened the door to let them into the entrance hall.
“Marhei?” He called up the hall before turning to them. “Here. Let me take your cloaks and boots.”
A thin lady with gray-streaked hair and a somber dress hurried in from another room. She stopped short seeing them.
“Kyen and Adeya will be our guests, Marhei,” said Theiho.
“Welcome,” she said, unsmiling; then to Theiho. “Travelers off the great highway?”
“Will you house them comfortably?”
“Townsmaster!” A soaked lad ran up to the open doorway and leaned in. “You’re wanted again at the watchtower, townsmaster. Fiends have been spotted!”
Kyen and Adeya paused to exchange a glance.
Theiho sighed. “Forgive me,” he said to them. He laid a kiss on Marhei’s forehead. “I’ll be back by dark.” He strode into the rain and followed the lad out of sight.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Marhei pursed her lips. She edged past them with cautious steps to shut the door. “I imagine you’d like to use the baths before dining?”
Adeya’s “Very much so!” ran together with Kyen’s “Actually, I’m pretty hungry.” They looked at each other.
“Baths first,” he said.
“A real bath?” asked Adeya. “With hot water?”
“What other kind is there?” said Marhei.