Heir of Iron

"He's what God had in mind when he made the word 'friend'." Bart agreed, leaning forward on his saddlebow, Naima's smile was soft, but full of heartfelt emotion.

"He's never left my side you know." she said, Bart reigning his horse closer to hear her soft voice, "Father told him when we were children, 'Son, your sister is your other half. Protect her like you do your right hand.'" her voice took on a deep, wise tone — her impression of their father, no doubt.

"He did just that." She continued, wrapping her fingers around her ever-present braid, toying it between the small, strong hands Bart now associated with the gentle touch of a healer by instinct, "He's been my shadow, my helping hand, and my shoulder to cry on my whole life." She said, shaking her head with a rueful smile; "He even helped me see Rashid for the man he was."

"Truly? To hear Rashid tell it, it was he who came around first." Bart asked her, and she turned an arched eyebrow at her husband as he rode nearby — one he simply responded to with a wide, toothy grin. The dark-skinned woman chuffed out a little laugh and sighed.

"True enough, but we both had need to come around to the idea. It was Nazir's patient heart that let me vent and rant and swing my nails in anger at this, big, overbearing lummox that I simply could not get out of my mind." she said, shaking her head ruefully, "Brilliant as I am, I was blind yet at such a young age. My dear brother has always seen to the heart of things."

"He is sharp of eye and mind." Rashid agreed, still grinning as Bart turned his gaze back to the pair before them, the music echoing anew as the youth found his feet with the exotic strings and frets.

A chill suffused him, and he felt the shaking tremors of a fit trying to gnaw up his spine. Clenching his teeth he flicked his eyes to and fro wildly, before he spied it — the skull visage loomed out in the woods ahead of the lad and his new southern friend — seeming as natural and horrible as an earth-mired corpse peeking through the roots of a dead tree. Its hideous black flesh and bleached white bone faded into the shadows of the yew and ash, so perfectly still it swayed with the trees that shadowed it. Bart swallowed and set his gaze back against it even as a cold sweat began to form on his brow, The creature loomed over Nazir and Callum spreading its hideous arms as they walked heedless and sightless towards the waiting monstrosity's grasp.

"Not them, not while I draw breath." He snarled quietly, his shaking hands grasping the bow of his saddle and with a jerk, he hurdled the animal, swinging his legs free and hitting the ground hard, his joints protests but his bloody-minded focus ignored it as he increased his pace, striding forwards towards the bleached, laughing skull of the monster.

It twisted its fleshless face at him, curious and inviting and Bart's lips peeled back from his teeth in a brief snarl as he closed the distance — an expression that met Nazir's eyes as the dandy turned to meet him, eyes going wide before Bart found control of his expression in a casual sort of smile, wincing a bit as he came to a stop.

"Something the matter, brother Bart?" Nazir said as the towering knight came to a rolling stop, eyes fixed beyond them on the stand of shade and stones just beyond the treeline, where the looming presence had been.

Now there was naught there but the gleaming, sleek form of a raven. Its neck slashed with a stripe of white that vaguely gave it the look of wet, exposed bone as it jerkily twitched its head at him. Bart blinked, the animal turning its head at him pointedly, inquisitively before giving an almost mocking caw and fluttering away into the deeper brush — the looming apparition nowhere to be found.

"No." Bart said after a beat, making a show of rolling his shoulders as the young boy and dandy both eyed him in mild alarm; "I've been in the saddle a moment, and feel Nazir had the right of it." he said with a nod to the man, who seemed content to accept that with a renewed smile.

"Oh, quite. A stretch of the legs is good for the soul on a long road." Nazir chimed in, gesturing to the young lad, "I was just telling Cal here of your recent exploits, he was somewhat skeptical of your bonefides!"

"Ain't like that, Ser. Jus' ne'er seen a proper Paladin, so it's true then?"

"If Nazir said it, so it is — within some reasonable artistic license," Bart said, eyes scanning the woods one more time... his back stiffening as he realized he'd been had by the creature. All he had done was prove to the abomination that it could provoke him to action, that it could influence him all the same. Bart swallowed a jolt of shame as he realized he'd come running bare-handed and unarmed, what good could he have done in any circumstance?

As it had kings and saints, indeed. He looked back down at Cal with a smile.

"My sworn brother is a born storyteller, he cannot help but... polish the memory a bit."

Cal gave a derisive little snort, the boy's eyes hard and seasoned by the frontier life it was accustomed to; "Sounds like Ol' Man Whitt, always tellin' stories a mite bit tall." he said, and Bart raised a brow.

"This Whitt, does he know much of the local lore?"

"Oh aye!" Callum asserted, the odd approach forgotten as Bart engaged the young man in an activity irresistible to young boys the world over —talking about their hometown, "Old Whitt's been 'round since 'fore th' Gray Plagues, an' his sire and grandsire reckon on back tae the Black Times." he said, meeting Bart's eyes with glee; "Iffin' anyone knows first thing o' anything here, it's Ol' Man Whitt."

"Well, I do love to meet a fellow bard, I trust we're in the presence of the foremost authority on the location of note?" Nazir chimed in, and Cal grinned wider.

"Yup! Iffin' ye need tae find anyone in the three valleys, I'm ye man!" he crowed earnestly, the hound's jaws lolling as if to laugh at her owner's bravado; "Been runnin' 'round these hills since 'fore I could run!"

"Marvelous." Bart murmured, the young man looking up at him suddenly; "Did ye really fight an ogre th' size o' me house?"

"I had help," Bart confirmed modestly, The boy stared at him critically before he added; "I mostly just pushed him over after everyone else did their part."

"But it was as big as me house?"

"It was big as someone's, I haven't seen yours."

The boy grinned wider.

~ ~ ~

The journey was filled with idle chatter for the remains of its relatively short trek. The reduction in the pace served to allow everyone a chance to stretch their limbs and walk about — saddle fatigue getting the better of a few of their number ill-used to riding at a stretch, Lidia chief among them.

"Ohhh ye ain't supposed tae be up off tae ground for so long at a stretch, by God," she groaned as she rolled her shoulders and dropped gamely into a bouncing, long stretch of her equally long legs, the slender thief not made for stillness but action. Bart turned his attention to her, Nazir and Cal caught up in another story of exotic adventure, though the youth's keen eyes followed Bart's lead.

"Swear on tae Lady, I was nearin' a single cramp all o'er." she groaned, Cal's young eyes wide as she bent and twisted, her sinuous frame winding and flexing with pops and cracks. Her borrowed attire returned, back to her comfortable, spare style — a brief cropped tunic and low-hanging, tight-fitting trousers leaving much of her lithe torso and arms exposed. The muscle of her frame was unnervingly symmetrical like the rest of her features, and flashes of belly and hips rippled tautly in the dappled shade of the trees.

Nazir grinned as he noticed the boy's attention lapse from his story to the sidhe woman's unwitting display. He set out a low, whistling tune and set about playing a peppy, strumming beat along to it. Lidia seemed to indulge him as she raised her arms up above her head, pointing her fingers and toes with a deep groan and a few more pops of stiffness — and then turned herself into a neat, fluid cartwheel — long limbs and red hood swirling through the air gaily as she tumbled and twisted, rolling across the soft grass and packed earth with negligent ease. She tucked back into a series of fluid handsprings, each coming out faster and more forceful than the last. Laughter echoed from her as she went, a cheerful sound of delight that shook the pall from Bart's mind as he watched her kick off the ground and tuck herself into a neat flip, landing alongside the marching trio and their canine escort with a sound planting of her feet, arms out to either side.

"Ta-da," she said with an understated little tone, her gleaming cat-like eyes full of joy, the glee of motion still evident in the thrill-seeker's heart. In spite of it all, her spirit remained irrepressable. They were all still coping with the events of Lachheim, it seemed.

"Tha' was bloody amazin'," Callum said, eyes wide on her as she righted her hood up around her messy red hair, her smile was a touch bashful — but if there was one group Lidia knew her way around, it was children.

"Oh nae, jus' a day-tae-day level o' agility iffin' ye practice lots." she hedged, Thistle's attention focused on her keenly — far more than she had on anyone else, even Bart and his towering size. Lidia edged further away from the trio, still bouncing along merrily though she caught Bart's eyes with a worried glance from beneath her hood, a look that passed between him and Nazir as well in a quick relay as Bart and Lidia dropped back, and the southerner engaged the boy with another question or two on the cozy glen they were approaching — the scent of woodsmoke clear and inviting now.

"What is the matter?" Bart asked her worriedly as they dropped out of earshot, and the little sidhe set her teeth.

"I dinnae think' about dags," she admitted, looking warily between Bart and Thistle — who had yet to break her level stare with the red-headed girl. Bart furrowed his brow and motioned for her to continue; "I cannae hide from dags, cats dinnae seem tae mind me, but dags can smell th' fae on me." she said, eyes darting this way and that before meeting his. "Fae dinnae have a lot o' love out in these places usual-like. Lots o' children vanishin' in the woods an' whatnot."

Bart nodded, Lidia tugging her hood a bit lower as the hound's attention wavered only a bit, Callum's own gaze flicking back to her with interest as she and Bart spoke.

"I think we can handle one hound for now, just keep me between the two of you," Bart said quietly, to which Lidia frowned but nodded, eyeing the hound with something not so much mistrust as simple anxiety, naked and bold for a moment.

"Aye, I trust ye," she said, raising a hand to pat his bicep fondly before the pair caught back up, the little sidhe taking a deep breath as Bart adjusted his pace to interpose his bulk between the canine and his little friend. Callum immediately returned.

"I 'eard ye voice a bit miss, ye're from around these parts ye?" the boy said — and to Bart's ear their accent was almost indiscernible — both a woodsy Heartlands brogue, but there was more of a twang to Cal's speech, and Lidia's lilted and rolled most softly. She grinned at him from under the hood.

"Oh aye, of a sort. Me dad an' I were further tae th' east. Near the Black Forest and its parts, woodcutting."

"Brave sire ta be doin' cuttin' that close to th' faewoods."

"Aye, he was." Lidia said wistfully, linking her arms behind her by her thumbs, swaying as she walked — as if she could wring the discomfort from her limbs like they were cloth, "Big as a forest bear, an' jus' as strong. Could split a burl the size o' ye head in a single blow." she grinned proudly, swinging her hands down around a phantom axe. Cal grinned wide at that.

"Me Pa's like that too, he's a shepherd jus' like me," he beamed proudly; "Arms like big ol' fenceposts, he can scoop a ram wit' one arm an' shear 'em in three strikes wit' th' other!" the boy crowed and spread his arms, earning involuntary, earnest grins from all in attendance as he adjusted his crook and bania again, eyes fixated on her anew.

"Where didja learn tae do all the flips an' stuff?"

Lidia shrugged and casually rolled forward, so casually Bart started as if to catch her from falling, but she came up — and not on her feet. Walking on her hands in a casual display of dexterity well and truly above anything her fellows could manage on short notice, she grinned at the boy as she casually kept pace with them.

"Oh, 'tis a natural talent. Ye gets lots o' time on the streets tae run an' skip, an' I'm a competitive little scrat so..." She pushed off her hands and turned another cartwheel before coming back to her feet, smoothing her hood and giving the boy a wink. "I made sure I was tae best."

"Wow." was all Cal managed at that, Nazir turning a lovely shade of purple as he continued to stifle his laughter.

"I've assembled some moderately stupendous friends, that's all," Bart added quietly. Nazir blew out a breath and pointed at him.

"See?" he said, looking between Callum and the Knight-Brother; "A company of champions!" he crowed and tsked his tongue at the brawny knight; "And to think you accused me of exaggeration!"

"How many houses tall was Humbaba, again?" Bart asked innocently.

Nazir simply laughed.

~ ~ ~

Perhaps a quarter-hour later they rolled around a bend in one of the many jutting spires, and the scent of smoke and livestock became almost palpable, the well-tamped road turned to ruts and almost by surprise — they turned the corner to a quiet but cozy little village. Nestled in between a series of spires and the natural valley they'd been buried in, a lazy creek wound its way through the hills via the fractures the spires had wrought in the earth. The quiet creak of a waterwheel and the lapping of the stream's quiet flow was a soft blanket that laid over the quiet little niche, clearly more of a touchstone and common ground for the various homesteads than anything like Fairharbour — it centered on a trading post, herbalist, and smithy, the vital essentials of frontier living.

There were a few homes nevertheless, clearly of solid make and as broken-in and moss-ridden as any of the trees. The homes were not run-down as much as simply built in many ways into the earth and trees around them, following the curve of the hill and lay of the land. The wood itself wended and wound into the lay of the buildings — oak, yew, and ash arching up and around the settlement in a great, green canopy that dappled the homes beneath in cool shade. Living trees in many places had grown right into the sides of the older buildings, binding the family and the land in a literal symbiosis, rooted together. Cobbled roads emerged here and there like walkways — made of river stones and irregular slate, they had sunk deep and true, roots and lichen fixed to them sure as any proper mortar.

Bart was left with a quiet sense of awe, there was nothing ostentatious about this little hamlet — and yet the age of the place hung in the air like a weight. Like it had been back beneath Lachheim, deep in the earth and stone, a place that truly had persisted through time. Persisted and endured.

Callum took off at a sprint as the caravan regrouped at the edge of town. The road ran straight through and over an old stone bridge near the waterwheel, the latter set into the side of the smithy, no doubt powering the bellows and what-not within. Beyond the road wound deeper into the hills, before butting up against the edge of the Crownspeak range and dipping down south to Reikstand. An isolated community despite its proximity to the Kingsroad, it seemed few came this far down this admittedly narrow track. Fewer still this far north, who else but the fellow communities of shepherds, brewers, and trappers in the woods, and the odd Man-at-Arms or Church Knight on pilgrimage? It may have been a generation since they last saw a Knight-Brother on the march.

As Cal moved through the town, however, it came alive. He and Thistle trotted down at speed, bags jostling and kit rattling, and behind them emerged people, animals. Life. Chickens trotted out ahead of an elderly man with sprightly, cautious eyes and a small pack of hounds ran out in sequence to run alongside the young shepherd as he went. Faces turned up in distant windows, and the quiet hum of the homestead proceeded as if it were merely on pause.

"Chief, Chief — there's a Ser here tae speak with ye!" Callum called out as he went to the central building — the one with the mighty bough of an oak tree welded to its timbers, the aged building having a sort of stately, aged bearing that seemed correct as the home of respect and station. A man emerged of later years and solid if somewhat wiry build, the same kind of too-thin, wiry strength that brought to mind Master Balgus and his lean, iron-like build. He had long hair and a long beard of brown streaked with gray, braided at the chin and temples, back from his face and splitting his beard into pleats. Bart walked to meet him.

"Good Afternoon, Chief, My name is Bartholomus, a Knight-Brother of the Radiant Order of Our Lady in White." Bart offered with an extended hand — one that was met with brief skepticism on the part of the chief, eye flicking down to the young boy as if questioning, before taking Bart's hand in a surprisingly strong grip — even as the Knight-Brother towered head and shoulders over the man.

"Ye're one o' the Lady's things, that's fer sure." he lilted in a mild and soft tone that seemed at odds with his leathery, rugged appearance, his eyes shared that same jaded, hardened gleam that seemed to be the way of things here in the deep valleys. "Well met 'Sides then, Ser," he said, Bart nodding.

"Please, just call me Bart. The station rests ill on me," he said, and the older man grinned at him with a familiar warmth.

"Aye laddie, authority nae oft sits comfortable."

Bart nodded in agreement, the weathered, lean man folding his gnarled arms across his chest.

"Chief Kaden, jus' Kaden or 'Chief' is fine, I don't stand on ceremony unless needs be," he said, the two men seeming to size each other up a moment longer before a florid flicker of color intruded itself into the ordeal.

"I am Nazir. Scion of the Brass-Domed Houses of Khorrit, Jewel of Al-Reza, Land of Dreams!" the dandy introduced himself gaily, overwhelmingly so in fact. The Chief's eyes were wide, and he blinked at him slowly several times.

"Laddie, that's enough name fer th' entire clan." he drawled directly, and Nazir grinned wide.

"My life has borne many blessings, and I am generous with the fortune it provides in all ways, including my greetings" he chimed back, offering his hand, and the Chief grinned in spite of himself taking his hand.

"Let's just go with Nazir, eh?"

"Sits fine with me, Laddie." the Chief agreed, looking back over his shoulder. "Colorful company ye keep, Ser Knight."

"They are a motley crew, but truer friends I could not dream of," Bart said without a moment of hesitation, drawing another smile from the cinnamon-skinned southerner before sobriety set in on their features as Bart turned towards the smoke.

"We bring news."

Bart and Nazir delivered the grim tale, and as they did more and more of the town seemed to fade in from the fringes. Calls and murmurs went out until there, at the step of the Chief's abode, their town hall of sorts — Bart and Company were the center of the whole community, as they finished the story, a dozen or more pairs of those same, hard-bitten, bright eyes of every age were upon them. Young, old, long-lived, and newly-wed. A thin slice of this side of the world, this community was the Middlelands writ large. One small knot of freedom at a time.