I

“It’s got late,” the ranger said, his face to the darkening sky. Someways beyond the cragged folds and lines of his face were the shards of mountains that mirrored that visage in profile. In the light of the already setting sun the texture of his flesh was that of roughhewn rock. Had he not turned sharply to me then - the cold glint of steel in his eyes - I would have thought him part of the earth. 

The mountains were our destination. No. Not quite. It was to beneath the mountains we walked. The ranger and I. Although it was plain that we would not reach the foothills tomorrow, or the day after that, and so we both knew that we must make camp. He spoke again and gestured heavenward now to reinforce his observation. His scorched and brittle tone challenged me to refute him. A ghost of a protestation threatened to push it’s way from my lips. Tempted was I to murmur that we could journey some ways yet before the light left us. He saw this and snorted loudly before casting a heavy phlegm ball to the dirt. 

The ranger was known to me only as Pagailon, and I had acquired his services three nights before this one in the tavern at the crossroads. I had been told that was where I would find one such as he, and I had almost given up hope when his foot caught mine as I trudged forlornly towards the door, a chorus of jeers and insults as missiles to naked flesh. Each one cut deeply and had only done so because I had been mislead. 

I fell hard to the compacted dirt floor, the jagged tack-like crusts of aged bread and cheese and lord below only knew what else digging fast into the exposed parts of me. My nose fell inwards through the weight of my own obesity, mucous streaked blood filling my throat. I gagged and put myself over to the side, a heavy foot heaved into my soft belly, turning the gag to a retch and filling my ringing ears with further songs of abuse. A vice-like grip on my shoulder and I was on my feet and pushed roughly towards a dark table away from my abusers. His breath was old tobacco and rot laced with the stinking liquid that passed for mead in that dismal place. 

“I’ll go with ye,” he had said in a voice that was raked over cemetery earth, “fer a fair sum though mind an show me.”

I took the small purse from my belt and placed it on the table before him, nestled amongst the empty tankards and unidentifiable meat. He reached and took it without opening it, putting it far from my sight and that of any one who cared to look into the alcove. A quick glance around told me that I was forgotten, and there wasn’t the slightest interest to where I stood before a table carved from rotten wood, pockmarks of woodworm like the freckles on a corpse. 

I asked him would he not see fit to check the contents. How did he know there was enough there to satisfy him.

“I trust’ ye,” was all he offered, before grinning in the dark. “Ye have the look of a sort about ye,”

I didn’t have to ask what he meant, the inference was clear and he was correct. Only two full moons previous I hadn’t set foot beyond the palace wall. Not in all my nineteen years had I ventured further than I dared to step from beneath my mothers shadow. Yet a lot can happen in two moons. A lot had happened in two moons. I wasn’t the same nineteen year old gelding that I had once been. A part of me had hardened. Quite from where was the most unexpected thing, and I suspect perhaps in a way that Ashe had not quite anticipated. I was expected to flee. Yet I chose not to flee. 

I chose to pursue, for all that would come of it.