{Legacy}Tidhelm's log: twenty-fifth writing

A week or so into the ''Brotherhunt'’

A lot has happened since I last wrote, most changed for the worse. It has been some days since I parted ways with Irwfrith and Melowen over our little dispute. Even to this day I still judge my ways the better. After breaking up I took my horse and rode South swiftly, like the wolves were at my heels. I reached Enedwaith within a day or so crossing dry beds and ruins without much that would hinder my path. The road through Enedwaith itself was more eventful to say the least. After riding for a few hours I came across a scouting party of Dunlendings looking for something. About three or four of them, at least that was how much I could see. I approached them with sheathed sword on horseback and soon after they were pointing spear and sword at me. I showed them the old token and they lowered their weapons in an instance. I still resent using it as it reminds me too much of what happened, yet it was the wisest course of action. They of course saw that I was not one of them yet they were wise enough to keep themselves from harm me. I went on my own way after that not wishing to talk to those savages. Nothing crossed my paths until I came to a place of dread. Its name was not known to me until just now, the Bonevales.

The place was dark and filled with dread, and the night was beginning to fall. I was out of provisions by that time and I would had perished if it was not for the tiny fire that I saw near the cliff wall. I approached the camp with my sword unsheathed, leaving my horse near some bushes. Before I knew it a pain like I have not felt for years went through my face causing me to shield it with my free arm, I stepped back and swung my sword in front of me like a madman. A scream  that was not of my own followed. When I opened my eyes I saw a man clad in grey standing before me, with a cut in his left arm, causing him to drop the club he was carrying. He was not one of the savages, he looked more alike to myself than he looked like one of them. After sheathing my sword and helping the man to take care of his wounds, we got to talking. The man was called Naeglanc and he was here on a quest that he could not explain to me, as he was bound to secrecy. I did not asked more of him as I was too tired to be bothered with explaining why I was here myself. After a night’s rest I found myself alone in the camp, after a few hours Naeglance returned. He said that the company of my people was somewhere in a forest called the Mournshaws, a bit West of here. I asked how he knew that I was even related to them. He said that some of his company had followed them for some time in Enedwaith yet the scouts loosed track of them in the forest. They were from the Mark like myself, that was something that the scouts knew for sure. The man was not awaiting an explanation why I was not with them so I gave him none. I only asked him to help me with a plan of mine. After I proposed it he gave me a frown and a confused look. I asked him to keep care of my horse and tie me to a tree or pole somewhere South of the company on a path that would need to take. The bruising that I still had from our encounter would be enough to fake an attack on myself. Naeglance was reluctant at first yet after pleading for it a couple of times, he gave me his word that it would be the first thing we would do on the morrow.

I myself was quiet confused why I came with this plan. I was thinking about it sometime after Naeglance went to rest. I knew which path Deallas, his brother and the others would take yet just walking up to them without as much as a scratch on me (safe for some bruising) would raise more suspicion than being tied down, mudded and bruised. I cannot tell them about my way of passing the Dunlendings. Nor may I show my weakness at that. Another point that I almost never write about yet I start to feel it more and more. The pain in my knees every time I awake, a stiff back when I only sit for mere minutes on a horse and my strength that is ever weakening. I might not look like it, I know. Yet being over sixty winters is taking its toll on me. I must not show my weakness to them, at least not now…as why would they help an old man when they view him as useless and I need their help in these lands. I know that they don’t think highly of me since the beginning and showing the bane of my age to them will not do me any good. I can hold this out until we are back in the Mark, yet after that I am unsure.