The Sound of Thunder - Part One

We said a goodbye of sorts. Never enough words of meaning or too much spoken in jest… now she is gone… The gunmetal sky rumbled with the ominous sound of thunder as the first drops of rain pattered down onto Olver’s worn leather workman’s tunic. He cast a worried look up at the heavens and then leapt up onto his trusty steed, urging her into a trot as he left behind the sound of merrymaking from The Prancing Pony. Gently patting her chestnut flank as they passed through the North gate, he leant over and spoke softly to the horse, “Make haste dear Willow,” and then kicked her into a gallop with a cry, “HYAH!” Rhoana was missing and her most prized possessions, possessions she would never be without, had been found abandoned off the road to Trestlebridge. Upon hearing the talk of the find, Olver had anxiously sought out Gleorwyn, the Rohirrim maiden that had found Rhoana’s belongings. After a brief conversation in the Prancing Pony, Olver had attained the location of the find and set off to pick up the trail. The rain came down now, in torrents that sluiced cold against Olver’s furrowed brow and down his neck, as he winced against the driving rain that soaked him through. Willow’s hooves tore up clots of wet earth as they galloped through the rain, across the fields and meadows, Olver leaning forward in the saddle as he urged the mare onwards. That sinking feeling, the familiar foreboding dread of coming events had leached into him with the relentless rain. It was a feeling he knew well and a feeling which had never been wrong; almost a foresight, as if he knew of the menacing peril and danger that awaited him…