The carriage jiggled in its passage and had come to irritate the woman, gifting Alasdair with great amusement throughout their journey. Her pretty face would turn to scowl each time a wheel buckled atop a wayward rock, and he would then try his best to conceal his laughter. A wicked game indeed, but one he enjoyed playing, for it kept the boredom at bay.
Cramped and tatty, the weathering of wood allowed the wispy draft to creep within, but all had them a cloak to shield from Elynire's slithering frost. Alasdair watched as Oraani used her cloak to lave the inner window, so that her saffron eyes could meet with the harshness outside. The free-sword saw her pretty face fall with disappointment, but Elynire was not to be known for its beauty during winter months. All things slumbered and came as if frozen to stillness. The sky loomed with an endless sea of ghostly curls, whilst the ancient remains of an older kingdom jutted its stony bones from the meadowlands. Husks of alder and birch slept, awaiting spring to breathe life unto them, and puffs of smoke from farmstead chimneys arose the misty shrouds. Life and motion were rarities below the white billowing, folk had their sows about empty fields and some men could be seen attending to broken fences.
"Dravar never sees such clads of frost, such chasms of lifelessness…" Oraani spoke to herself in idle thoughts, eyeing a crestfallen cairkeep; its broken battlements seated in a sleeve of pale ice.
Taryn cleared his throat to get her attention, swallowing a hard gulp as her glare washed over him.
"What're winters like in Dravar then? You don't seem to like the cold much, do you?" The big fellow asked, earning himself Alasdair's boot to the shin. He withheld a groan but glared at the grey-eyed man. Oraani paused for a moment to roam her thoughts for memories.
"The sands of the Gilded River come like a searing sea of fire, and the winds of Dravar come blistering and fevered, hot enough to boil your blood and melt your flesh should you linger too long. My home is a place where the cold never goes. There are no such thing as winters, because the ice does not dare to dance in Dravar…" She spoke with an eerie calmness trailing her words, causing Taryn to gulp once again, appearing as though he regretted his question.
"But they say the mountains somehow flourish in emerald and are home to the wildest of things, like the B'jhar! Giant cat-like creatures with mottled silver fur, and fangs like upward pointing swords." Alasdair interrupted the awkwardness, with a dreamy glaze over his eyes. He had always found Dravar an intriguing place, it never rained and yet life was in abundance.
"And what of the Painted city of Mesa in Upper Dravar? And the Sesen Gardens of Ein, in Lower Dravar?" He almost shouted with excitement, which had caused Oraani to show him a little interest.
"Ein is no more. The gardens were destroyed…" She near whispered.
"I mean, I've only read about them, and seen paintings in those old bloody books Jorge loves. Dravar is said to be the most beautiful place in the Sunlands and yet you're here – no offence to my adopted home, but it's a shithole in the winter. What even brings an Avarri to the cock-shrinking cold of Elynire, anyway?" Alasdair questioned with a friendly curve to his lips, sharing her view of destitution through the cracked glass. Oraani's gaze kept to the deadness beyond, not caring to turn to him.
"That does not concern a free-sword," she declared, her words arid and nonchalant.
"Know only that I am here because you have offered me coin."
Alasdair took the hint and shared knowing looks with Jorge and Taryn. He knew both men were uncertain about her, especially Jorge, who had already voiced his concern. The fool had taken Alasdair aside – without using the art of discretion – and warned him about thinking with his cock. Taryn however never needed to breathe a word for Alasdair to feel his disquietude; his constant shifting under the air of stale silence seemed to send the message.
Alasdair leaned his head back and folded his arms; the man laughed secretly to himself and thought upon the strange woman seated in front of him.
Her beauty came rich without effort, and had the man denying the existence of anything in the world that could contend with it. The way her glare would cleave at him, without hesitation or fear. She was brazenly brave, for free-swords would often find death as easily as a bird could find the sky.
Alasdair couldn't deny that he wanted her in unknown ways. Such dangerous desires confused and excited him in equal parts.
However, he was most certain that Oraani found him repulsive and unsavoury; his reputation wasn't great, but no woman had place their eyes upon him in the way that Oraani had placed hers, as though he was beneath her, under dirt and in the shit with the worms.
And yet, Alasdair found that he could never forget the forlorn despair graven in her eyes when she had taken his coin. The sheer desperation; why had it lingered within her stare? It was the reason he had allowed her to take his coin in the first place, when he himself had so very little to his name. He would never let her know it for fear of challenging her pride, but pity would always get the better of him. Oraani had her secrets, but he would not pry. Not yet.
"We're here," Jorge spoke, and right on cue the muddied wheels came to a creaky halt.
"Thank the Creator, I can barely feel my arse," Taryn said, wincing in discomfort.
The coachman climbed from his seat and opened the carriage door for his passengers, and a thick guff of wet shit clung to the cold as Alasdair stepped into the winter. He stretched his aching muscles, cracking bones that had been at uncomfortable rest for too long.
"Nothing quite says Elynirish village like a nose full of shit and an eyeful of poor folk," Alasdair said to Oraani, whose Avarri ears had failed to hear the sarcastic excitement lingering by his tongue. She srunched her nose at his smirk and followed the sodden path towards the village, leaving the men by the carriage.
"I really don't like her much," Jorge spat under his breath.
Calem the coachman chortled, "Rust-skins for ya lad, all high and bleedin' mighty, ain't they? Just like those fuckin' mask wearing free-citizen's in Kyssia! Sunlanders think they're the Creator's gift to the world or somethin'. Cunts. Where did you even find that one?"
Alasdair's darkened glare had Calem shift uncomfortably; his eyes begun darting everywhere but at the free-sword.
"Regardless her homeland, you're speaking about a companion of mine. Bite your fuckin' tongue, jarvey. Unless you want it removed!" the free-sword warned with a dangerous voice and a pointed finger.
"And that goes for the both of you, too." He eyed his companions.
Alasdair was unlike most folk from the Rimelands, he hated bigotry and usually wouldn't tolerate it in his presence. His mother had taught him many things, and behind his humour existed compassion for all people of the world. Even though he had once forgotten it during the darker years in his life, it was something he had reclaimed from the shards of his past. Brimmi was lucky he had met Oraani's wrath instead of Alasdair's, a broken wrist was easy to heal for a blue-palm - a severed tongue, not so much.
"So-uh, when will you lads get back? I'm thinking about getting some grub and watering the horse," said Calem.
"I also have some business to attend to, in the form of a beautiful young lady…" the jarvey wiggled his eyebrows tellingly.
"Yeah, I'm sure you do. And I'm the bloody princess of Dravar," Alasdair's whispered snideness had Taryn chortle loudly. Alasdair sniggered as he ran his palm across the horse's neck in a gentle stroke, paying no mind to the coachman's sarcastic chuckle.
"Maybe half a day," piped in Jorge, cutting the curtain of laughter, a thing he was quite good at.
Calem nodded, "I'll wait for you lads to get back then. May the Creator be at your side," Calem smiled meekly and tilted his head at the men.
"And be wary, I've come to hear of strange things about Brynwood as of late." He warned, eyeing Alasdair.
Alasdair and his two companions followed after Oraani, treading through the dampness with shit and mud sticking to their boots. She had awaited their presence just by the village gate. Brynwood was a rather small village with very few villagers. It was built upon the western bank of the Cloudbane River, where the waters slumbered under the ice.
The dozen or so cottages were scattered about the fields, their wooden bodies had crowns of thatched wattle and walls plastered with daub to keep the winter draft from sidling, and the villagers of Brynwood were all but peasants who farmed their near barren fields; their meagre frames draped in nothing but torn cloth, like bones dripping with rags. They all watched Oraani, never having seen someone from so far south.
"They grow wheat to be sold across Elynire. Although they probably never see the coin made by their efforts…" Came Alasdair's deep voice, his eyes wandering over the barren soils. He turned to see Oraani's eyes staring up at the gibbet by the village gate, and from a rope, a man's rotting body gently swayed in the wind.
"The Villager's Court of Brynwood have sentenced Erig Kerren to hang for his insidious crimes against Lord and Lady Cainn, Slandering the name of any great house shall be met with severe punishment," Oraani read aloud the words from the sodden parchment nailed to the gibbet.
"There's an old Elynirish saying: It's always winter in Bryn's woods, and even when the fields are golden, the people are famished and starved," Spoke Jorge.
Taryn looked down at Jorge and chuckled,
"That's 'cause Lord Cainn and his house are greedy cunts!" the big man laughed out. Alasdair roughly elbowed Taryn in the ribs,
"don't be heard speaking like that! You bleedin' fool! You'd be swinging in the gallows by dusk! I'm sure Ceola doesn't wish to see your body swing!" Came Alasdair's scolding.
"By the creator…" He sighed at his companion's foolishness. Taryn just grumbled something under his breath and walked ahead with Jorge.
"Lord Cainn?" Oraani asked, as they wandered through the village gate. Jorge's eyes turned to her, "He's the Lord of Brynwood," he answered. "Not the nicest of the Lesser lords." Distain dripped from his tongue.
"If we meet him, let my mouth do the speaking, he's an old acquaintance of my father's," said Jorge.
Outside one of the village cottages worked a young boy, who threw grain to a pen of chicken. He was dressed in an oversized tunic with a mosaic of patchwork, and thin leather boots with deep enough tears to see his toes.
"Little lad," called out Taryn. The boy bowed his head as the big man approached.
"Y-Yes, milord?" He stuttered as the chicken clucked at his feet.
"We're looking for a man named Felban," Taryn said. The boy pointed towards an elderly man sat alone by the water mill.
"T-That's him, he's b-been there e-everyday since…" The cold had his jaw quivering.
"Henri! Never to strangers! I telt you not ever to speak words to strangers!" A woman came to the boy in a hurried stride and took his wrist to pull him away from Taryn. She appeared uneasy and anxious, her eyes cursed with panic.
"I'm sorry mother!" The boy cried.
"By the Creator! Get in!" She screamed in the cold. "Get inside! You'd do well to listen!" The young boy scuttled from the chicken pen and into his home, but his saddened gaze had met Alasdair's in retreat.
Alasdair stepped forward, "Oi! He's done no wrong! Lay off the lad!" Jorge had placed his hand upon the silver-eyed man's shoulder.
"You soddin' city pillocks! Behind your walls of stone! Creator curse you all! Smite you all!" Tears had began rolling her ruddy cheeks, falling from broken brown eyes.
"Alasdair, come on. We know where Felban is," Jorge tugged him from the woman's sorrowful scowl. Something didn't feel right. Alasdair knew it. An oddness stirred about the village. It was within the mother's sorrowful gaze and within her son's fearful trembling. He couldn't quite place it, but something had him itching with unease.
The band of free-swords strolled the squelching mud to meet with their hirer. Felban looked to be in his late twilight years, his hair white and thin, with parchment-like skin withering around blue veins. The old man sat atop a wooden stump with his empty eyes peering across the frozen river; his shaky hide dressed in naught but a dirt stained tunic with an old cord tied around his waist.
"Are you Felban?" Came Alasdair's voice. The old man returned from his daydream and flickered his black eyes between the faces of the free-swords. They settled on Alasdair's face and he squinted to better his sight.
"Hair like oak, a red beard… sliver eyes… SILVER EYES!" Felban's voice grew with realisation.
"By the C-Creator!" He recoiled and stood from the stump to take a step backwards. Alasdair had grown used to such a reaction; his own hands had dictated Felban's well placed fears, and Alasdair's eyes, by their corners, caught the staring of Oraani's.
"Y-You must be here for the hunt? Well I hope youse are!" Felban eyed the swords by each of their waists. Alasdair nodded.
"I never believed that good for nothin' peddler would post it for me!" He said.
Jorge reached into his pocket and brought forth a scrunched up piece of parchment. He unfolded it and on the discoloured paper were a muddle of words that read:
'MISIN CILDRAN
BRINWOD
13 SILVAR GILDINGS
FELBAN OF BRINWOD'
Alasdair was somewhat dubious about the coin involved, he had questioned how such a poverty stricken villager could conjure such sums, but he bit his tongue and withheld from asking for now was not the moment.
Jorge looked from the scrunched up paper, "Missing children? You need to tell us more."
"The little ones've been taken, milord! Taken when we've our backs turnt!" Felban stated.
"What do you mean by this? Taken by what?" Oraani asked. Felban tutted at the swarthy woman.
"Me grandson… 5 days have gone and left… He's a cripple, my daughter bore him with one arm but he's the sweetest boy…" Tears began spilling from the edges of his eyes.
"He sat just by that tree there," Felban pointed across the river.
"The last time I place my eyes upon the lad, Alden'd been throwing stones at the moon…" The old man wiped his tears with the edge of his rotten tunic.
"Other village children too…" Felban's watery eyes turned to face the muddy ground.
"Creator's sake… Lord Cainn done nought all for us," he sniffled out.
"We're just lowly men and women… only good for shovellin' shit and dyin' in this here cold! They hung my youngest boy for speaking about it!"
Alasdair's gut came to curl in sickening knots, it wasn't often he felt such a way. "When did this all start happening?" He asked.
"About a month ago, milord. A young girl named Daina went to pick spindle berries for her father's cattle. They'd been struck by barn-itch ya see, and weren't makin' 'im much milk, milord."
"And where did she go to pick these berries?" Jorge asked.
"It were the Quivering Forest," Felban blew a breath into his hands and rubbed them together. Alasdair knew the Quivering forest well. Too well. A place he hoped to never step foot again.
"Many of our village's men left by dawn the next day to search for Daina, but her basket of berries was all we'd found by dusk. We even had a Garmr to follow the scent but even he couldn't find the girl…"
"Could it be lugafangs?" Oraani's suggested. "And what of the fiends to call these lands home?"
"Lugafangs no longer prowl these parts, not in a month have I heard the wind-wolves howl. We'd a falgub who'd fell'd asleep in the mill last month, but those little things'll never hurt children by purpose. It was most scared of us. Urvin the huntsman had his Garmr hound tear the poor thing apart," the elderly man explained.
"But our children still went missin', milord…"
Alasdair thought upon the falgub, as he'd been bitten by one when he was a boy. They were brown and small, like little men with sharp teeth and black orbs for eyes. Usually they stayed deep within the woods, but sometimes were known to pray on small farm animals like hens and newly born lambs. Falgub were often known as farmersbane in Elynire; merely pests with a nasty bite, not child-snatching creatures.
"Urvin telt us that nothin' lurks the forests and heathlands; his hound would find it if so. But I know better. Creator knows I'm old, but wisdom comes with age, not idiotness and folly… I've seen things in those forests… The lugafangs have gone from the woods, and so have the burflak deer and all the other creatures. There's darkness, and nothing but it."
Alasdair chewed his lip in thought, there were shadows shrouding the disappearances. Oraani knew it too, as did Taryn and Jorge; Alasdair could see the trouble plaguing their eyes.
"Why has King Giles not offered guardsmen to protect this village?!" Oraani near yelled out. "I have seen them patrolling Wal Gerrig's streets in suits of iron and steel! Wielding their javelin with heads held in pride!" Villagers had began to peer from their day of work, to pay attention to the avarri.
"In Dravar – " She began, but Alasdair came to silence her with his rough voice.
"Oraani! Enough!" Alasdair's sharp tongue cut her with surprise; he spat her name with such venom.
"You know nothing of this country! Be quiet! This is not Dravar!" Came his rage.
Taryn put out a hand, halting Oraani from confronting Alasdair. He shook his head at the woman and gave her a pained smile.
"Al…" Jorge's voice reigned in his free-sword companion, calming the storm brewing within. Alasdair cleared his throat and regained his composure. It wasn't her fault. Something had crept under his skin to plague his heart with unease. He most certainly owed her an apology.
"The last child to go missing, when and where?" Felban gazed sheepishly at the free-sword, for Alasdair's rage seethed within his eyes.
"It was only last eve, milord. Sely, the boy's mother had sworn she'd put the boy to bed."
"This woman, Sely, where is she?" The grey-eyed free-sword asked.
The elderly man pointed behind them with a shaky finger, to the chicken pen where Taryn had spoken to the boy feeding the hens. Sely stood watching their meeting with Felban. She was the mother of the most recent missing child, and it justified her animosity towards the free-swords when they had approached her son.
"Cheers, old man," Alasdair nodded at Felban, "We'll do all that we can to find your grandson and the other missing children. I swear it on the Creator." He bowed his head and Felban's saddened eyes fell from his, a meek mutter of a thanks came by his lips as Alasdair and the others walked away. They approached Sely, who had pulled her shawl about her shivering hide, awaiting them by the clucking of hens.