Faalken described the city in a bit more detail, like the massive, grand, breathtaking Cathedral to Karas that was in the center of the city, and the Eight Fountains, one at each compass point, beautiful sculptures set in fountains, many of them rigged to spray water. The most famous was the Fountain of Swans. There were many other landmarks in the city, like the BlackTower, a tower that was once home to a wizard, and now was a cursed place. Many came to look at it, enjoying the perverse thrill of catching glimpses of the hideous things that roamed the tower's halls, and occasionally appeared on the balconies. Faalken had told him that they couldn't leave the tower, but that anyone that went into the tower was putting his life in his own hands. Dolanna had called the things trapped in the tower Demons, and she said that it was the hands of the Gods themselves that trapped them inside.
Dawn came early, but Tarrin was already awake to greet it. He was dressed and packed when Dolanna knocked on his door. She gave him a cursory glance when she saw him fully dressed. "Do you often sleep so little?" she asked.
"I don't sleep too much, no," he replied.
"That will work to your advantage at the Tower," she told him with a smile. "Get your pack and come downstairs. We will eat, and then be off."
Tarrin picked up his two packs, a personal one and one for a pack horse, and then went downstairs. His father was already up, sitting at a table with the knight as Wylan Ren set down plates of fried eggs and bread and bacon. "Morning, Tarrin," Wylan said with a smile as he passed. "I'll bring you some breakfast."
"Thanks, Master Wylan," he said, then he set down his packs and sat beside his father.
"Morning, son," he said. "Sleep well?"
"Well enough," he replied. "You?"
"Your mother kept me awake pretty much all night," he said ruefully. "You warmed up to the idea of going much faster than she did." He took a bite of bread. "Now that you've had a night to think about it, what do you think?"
"I, I think I'd like to know more," he said. "I don't know if it's what I want to do with my life, but looking into the possibilities won't hurt me."
"That's a good attitude," the knight, Faalken, told him. "A man set in stone will break before he can bend." He leaned back in his chair some. "You know, maybe I can convince the Tower to let us borrow you for a while," he thought aloud.
"Borrow?"
"You're Ungardt trained," he said. "There's alot we could learn from our northern neighbors. They fight better than most I've seen. They're not the wild savages people make them out to be."
"Definitely," Tarrin said. "They work very hard to be that good."
Faalken nodded. "I think all the screaming and craziness is more show than anything else. They have a reputation for it, so they have to maintain it." He grinned suddenly.
"A predictable opponent is a defeatable one," Tarrin quoted from his mother's many sayings.
"I see you learned your lessons well," Faalken said shrewdly.
Wylan Ren brought him a platter, and also weak ale for everyone to drink. "Uh, Faalken, I need to ask you about the horse," he said.
"Don't worry about it," he said. "Dolanna bought one of the inn's horses for you."
"Well, that's nice and all, but I don't ride very often," he said. "I'm bound to get saddle sore."
"I'm sure Dolanna will take care of it if you start getting raw," he assured him.
"That's a relief," he said, cutting into the eggs.
Dolanna came down with his mother, and they ate breakfast quietly and quickly. Just about the time that Tarrin finished his breakfast, Tiella Ren staggered down the stairs. Tiella was a pretty girl, fifteen years old and with blond hair and blue eyes. She was very petite, even shorter than Dolanna, but had a very generous figure. She was one of the most sought after girls in the village. Every boy in Aldreth sighed and staggered a bit when Tiella Ren walked past. Tarrin had probably talked to Tiella more than any girl in the village, because she was very smart, and she knew that Tarrin didn't have a real interest in her in the way the other boys did. Although she was very pretty, Tarrin thought of her as a friend, not like that. She was wearing a plain wool travelling dress, one of her older ones so that the brown dye had faded, divided at the skirt for riding. She too had a pack with her.
"Tiella," Tarrin greeted. Tiella was not a morning person. Tarrin had seen her in the morning before.
"Umm," she said blearily, sitting down. Tiella had taken the apprenticeship with the herbalist as much for the fact that he didn't get up until noon as anything else. "There should be a law against getting up this early," she groaned, putting her elbows on the table and putting her head in her hands.
Faalken grinned at Tarrin, then he smacked his palms on the table. Hard. Tiella squeaked and sat bolt upright, then glared at the cheeky knight with murder in her eyes. "I love dawn," he said with an innocent grin. "I love them so much, I'm going to go outside right now and check on the horses."
"You do that," Tiella said in an ominously low voice.
The burly man got up and left without a word.
Dolanna came down with Walten moments later, as Wylan came out, saw the two newcomers, and then went back into the kitchen. He returned with three platters of breakfast, "Wylan, get two more," his father said. "I'm going to go wake up my wife and daughter."
"Certainly, Eron," he said.
Walten was a tall, lanky lad, sixteen years old, with sandy brown hair and a narrow face. His eyes were small and set close together, and his hands were scarred from working as the carpenter's apprentice. He was wearing a simple brown tunic and leather breeches, the knees of the breeches a bit thin from his need to constantly kneel. "Tarrin," he said simply as he sat down. Tarrin and Walten didn't talk very often when Tarrin was in the village, but they got along well enough. They weren't exactly friends, but they didn't actively dislike each other, either.
"Walten," he returned. Walten was notorious for being a bit lazy, but Tarrin thought he understood why. On one rare occasion when they talked, Walten admitted he hated carpentry with a passion that bordered on holy. Tarrin could understand how difficult it would be to motivate yourself into doing something you couldn't stand. He hated carpentry, but he loved to whittle and carve wood. It was that hobby that convinced his parents to apprentice him to the carpenter, but Walten had told Tarrin that there was a big difference between shaving a piece of wood into a shape, and nailing two boards together. Walten would have been a good woodcarver, but not a carpenter. It was the shapes and designs that Walten could design in wood that the kept the carpenter, a wiry, crotchety old man named Dumas Tren, from throwing Walten out on his ear.
Tarrin didn't quite understand the difference, but he kept his opinions to himself. Tarrin crafted arrows in his spare time, trying to master the touch that his father had when making arrows, but what he did wasn't quite the same as what Walten did. Tarrin shaped the ends of arrow shafts to accept the head and the fletching, but Walten could carve remarkably human-like faces and figures into wood. Tarrin could see a difference between the woodworking he did and the work that a carpenter did, but not the difference between what Walten did and the nailing part.
His mother and sister came down moments later, with his father. Elke immediately sat beside him and brushed his hair away from his ear impulsively. Jenna sat across from him, staring at the plate that Wylan set in front of her woodenly.
"We must be off with the dawn," Dolanna said as she sat down. "Eat quickly, young ones. We do not have much time. Tarrin, take the packs and go help Faalken pack the pack horses."
"Yes ma'am," Tarrin said as Elke glared darkly at the Sorceress.
Tarrin shouldered six packs, grunting under the weight, and carried them out to the large stables to the side of the inn. Faalken was there, saddling a small white palfrey, and a large roan stallion pawed the ground behind him. It was a huge horse, and Tarrin didn't doubt that it was war-trained. "Dolanna send you out?" Faalken asked.
He nodded. "Which is the pack horse?" he asked. "I'll start
loading it."
"Those two down there," he pointed to the far stalls. "Those packs in the corner go on them too. Put all the food and the tents on the gelding, and use the mare for the personal gear. I have to reshoe Dolanna's horse, and that takes a bit of time."
"Alright," Tarrin said, and he went to work. He pulled out one horse at at time, then saddled it with the pack saddle. After that, he put on the bridle, then began tying packs and tents to the fittings and loops on the pack saddle. After he'd loaded the gelding, he tied it to a post at the feeding trough and went for the mare and repeated the procedure. Tarrin worked with a quiet efficiency that got the job done quickly, and he finished in time to help Faalken saddle the last two riding horses and picket them at the feeding trough.
"Where did you learn how to handle horses?" Faalken asked as they left the stable. "That was professional work."
"My father was in the army," he replied. "He taught me how to take care of horses a long time ago."
"I've heard of your father," he said.
"Really?"
"Yes, his arrows fetch a high price in Suld."
"His arrows go to Suld?" Tarrin asked in a bit of surprise. "A merchant from Torrian comes here and buys them from time to time, but we always thought he sold them in Torrian."
"I guess he sends them on to Suld. Some of them, anyway," he said as they returned to the inn. "Can you make arrows like that?"
Tarrin laughed. "I can make decent arrows, but nothing like my father's," he admitted. "Father has a magic touch when it comes to making them. It's something I could never quite manage to duplicate."
"Don't sell yourself short, son," Eron said. "More than half of the arrows I sell are yours."
Tarrin stared at his father.
"Seriously," he grinned. "You just think my arrows are better. The truth is, you can't tell one of yours from one of mine."
Elke laughed at Tarrin's baffled expression. "I feel, cheated," Tarrin said.
They both burst out laughing at that.
"Tarrin, what do you think happens to all those arrows you make?" Eron asked.
"I thought we used them around the house," he said.
"Son, if I did that, we'd have arrows coming out the chimney. You make more than double what I do. But now that you're going to school, I'm going to have to cut down the orders I accept," he noted to himself. "My hands aren't as fast as they used to be."
"Speaking of school, it is time for us to go," Dolanna said, standing up. "Young ones, pick up your packs and go outside. We will choose mounts for you."
Elke stood and embraced her son fiercely. "You mind your elders now, and do well in your training," she said in a controlled voice. "And remember, your room is always there for you when you come home."
"I'll be back as soon as I can," Tarrin promised.
Tarrin embraced his father warmly. "Do us proud, boy," he said.
"I will," he replied.
Jenna crushed him with a fierce hug. "You write me and tell me what it's like there," she said in a breaking voice. "Maybe we'll be there together when I get there."
"I hope so, shortness," he said. "I wouldn't mind having my little sister around. It wouldn't feel like I was alone then."
His family stood by the table. It was obvious that they weren't going to see him off outside, and that was well enough for him. He wouldn't be tempted to turn the horse around and ride back if he knew they were there watching him leave. Tiella was saying her farewells to her mother and father and three siblings off to one side, and Walten was being admonished by his mother on the far side of the room about his manners and being a good boy. Tarrin hadn't seen his mother come in, but he'd been out in the stables.
Tarrin shouldered his pack and, waving to his parents and sister, he walked out the front door.
Outside, Faalken had the horses lined up and ready. Tarrin selected the largest of them, a gray mare that looked to have a steady disposition, and tied his pack to the saddle quietly. "They're staying inside?" Faalken asked. Tarrin nodded, and Faalken nodded himself. "I can understand that," he said. "I chickened out my first attempt to leave home. I turned around and rode back."
"I was thinking about it," Tarrin admitted.
"Setting out on your own for the first time is both exciting and scary," Faalken said, mirroring what Tarrin was feeling inside. "You're excited about the idea, but part of you doesn't want to abandon what it's come to know and accept as life."
"You're a very wise man," Tarrin said with a smile.
"I've seen Dolanna play this out many times," Faalken admitted. "Be glad you got her. Many Katzh-dashi aren't quite so gentle or considerate as she is."
"Is this all she does?" Tarrin asked.
"No, they take turns," he replied as the others filed out of the inn. Tarrin noted that Tiella was looking back alot, but Walten marched right up to a horse and started tying his pack on, humming a tune and with a big smile on his face. Walten was certainly looking forward to getting away from the carpenter. Tiella tied on her own pack, adjusting the cloak her mother had given her a bit, and climbed up into the saddle. Tarrin had his own cloak rolled up behind the saddle, a very tightly woven one that was virtually waterproof. The air was a bit cool on this cloudless dawn, but not so cold that he needed a cloak. And it was promising to be a warm day, like most days were this time of the early summer.
Tarrin mounted the gray mare quietly, checking his staff and bow, the bow set in the saddleskirt and his staff tucked into the skirt on the opposite side. He had everything, hadn't forgotten anything, and he was ready to go.
"How long is it going to take us to get there?" Tiella asked curiously.
"It's four days to Torrian," Faalken replied. "From there, we'll go to Marta's Ford, which takes six days, and then get on a riverboat and take it to Ultern. That takes about nine days. From Ultern to Jerinhold, and then to Suld, takes five days. Twenty-four days, barring bad weather."
Dolanna gracefully mounted as Faalken climbed up onto his roan. "Alright, young ones," Dolanna said in her calm voice. "Let us be off. Tarrin, you lead the pack horses for now."
Turning their horses, Tarrin took the reins of the pack animals from one of the stable hands that had come out to help. Then they started down the Torrian road, beginning their month-long journey to Suld, and ultimately to the Tower of Sorcery.
Chapter 2
It was a good day to travel. Tarrin led the pack horses behind the others along the Torrian Road, as birds chirped in the early summer morning and the sun peeked through the trees to warm the earth. This stretch of road wasn't unfamiliar to Tarrin, who had accompanied his father to Watch Hill numerous times, so he settled into a comfortable muse as he let the horse plod along behind the others. Now that they were actually moving, he couldn't deny that he was tremendously excited about this trip. He was still a bit nervous over going to the Tower and learning magic, but even that was starting to interest him as he thought back to the roar of fire that Jenna had created, or the healing that the Sorceress had done. He began to think about what she had said, about earth, air, fire, water, the mind, and the power of a Goddess, and he began to speculate what Sorcerers could do.
There was a reason why he was put in the back, he noted not long after they started out. It put a fighter at each end of the caravan. Faalken took the lead, occasionally scouting ahead, leaving Tarrin to defend the rear in case something snuck on them from behind. This was wild territory, and just about anything could happen. There could be a new band of brigands that had just settled in, or a pack of Bruga or tribes of Dargu, Waern, or even a gaggle of Trolls could have come down out of the mountains to the north for a bit of plunder. Those races, called the Goblin Races, were universally malicious, cruel, and extremely hostile to human life. Bruga and Trolls were very dim-witted, but Dargu were very cunning, and Waern were downright intelligent. There were Ogres and Giants as well, but both of those races were rather gentle and more amiable than their cousins. Ogres weren't very bright, but they weren't evi
l like the others, and Giants were intelligent and rather friendly when not encountered in their home range. Giants were welcome in most cities, provided they were careful not to break anything. Four times that Tarrin could remember, Giants had visited Aldreth to buy some things that they couldn't make on their own. Master Karn had been commissioned to make giant-sized versions of an axe and some belt knives, which looked more like swords except for their massive hilts. It was a testament to Karn's ability that he made them so well. The villagers of Aldreth had a good relationship with that Giant Clan, which lived two days walk to the north, in the foothills of the SkydancerMountains.
They weren't the only forest beings that Tarrin remembered seeing in Aldreth. Being right on the Frontier, Aldreth saw more of the exotic beings than just about any other village or city in Sulasia. Tarrin had seen Centaurs three times, and had once seen a Druid, a human that was devoted to the power of nature. On a regular basis, people that looked like humans came out of the forest and visited the village on market days, bought assorted supplies and merchandise, and simply walked back into the forest. The village had a long standing practice of not asking these people any questions. They always behaved with exquisite courtesy, they paid with good money or bartered with good pelts or other valuable forest goods, and it was promoting good relations with their unknown sylvan neighbors in the forest to cater to the needs of those that chose to live there. Those visits were one of the things that kept Aldreth villagers out of the wild western forest. It had been a long standing rule that no hunting or expeditions would go beyond the farthest settlement, which was the Kael farm. Tarrin broke that rule with daily regularity, but Tarrin felt that if he was willing to take the risk, then so be it. Tarrin had travelled two days into the Frontier last year, curious to see what kind of trees and underbrush would exist in a forest that had not been seen by man in thousands of years. He hadn't seen any forest denizens, but on the second day, he began to feel watched, and decided that they'd allowed him to go as far as they wanted him to go. He turned around at that point.
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