Elgaraen

Let it be remembered - I gave her a choice.

I place my pen down, push the stopper back into the blue-black ink bottle, lean back into my chair. The lad quietly takes away my papers, placing them neatly to one side. He gathers them reverently now, as though anything I touch is imbued with some vital essence.

No time to think of what I have sown there. It is done.

But what is sown now?

Such a gathering! To see so many folk of the star together. I do not know how long it has been since we met in such a number. I should ask Oldgrove - he prides himself on history. Perhaps he will recall it.

A gathering by chance at the shore of the lake at Tinnudir, though Adunzil and I had hastened there at Filrean's call some days earlier. A hard fast ride for me. The pain that results from so many hours in the saddle, offset by the thrill and ease of movement that being a-horse always brings.

heh.

That went better than i could have hoped for.

Duresen't start out well, though. Master Oldgrove brings me ter the Bridgetown... an' up pops more of them grim northerners ... and then... that old bastard hisself, the helm-giffer. I realises master Oldgrove is an even better liar than me.

'You be safe with me lass' he says.

We are stood here in the beating rain, four of my kinsmen amongst the ruined pillars as statues of old. Indeed, several of the brigand-folk below have wandered past the old masonry, mistaking our stilled forms for the likeness of bygone kings or sentinels. Our cloaks are useful here, blending seamlessly with the hues of night, scrubbed against the barks of trees and the soft earth that we roam by so as to hide our scent. We watch and we wait. Our senses become aligned with the stones of our forefathers, the rhythmic pitter-patter of the rain our silent war chant.