----Several Months Ago----
An ambush of brigands had been laid in the forest. Ryheric and the mysterious red haired woman had soon found themselves cornered, and while fighting their way out of their predicament, the situation changed from bad to worse.
The goblin snare fell open and swallowed them into the earth. He, the redhead and the half-dozen bandits alike.
Hours later, he found himself sitting in a dark, underground cell. Crude iron bars blocked their way out, and the surrounding walls were solid rock. With nothing stirring for a time, he and the girl spoke. Each unsure what to make of the other. She was the friend of an enemy, and neither had the skill of diplomacy to defuse the tensions. This was not helped by the air being tinged with echoes of the bandits becoming the goblins' dinner.
When the goblins came, the trust between the two prisoners was non-existent. As such, the redhead foolishly ended up outside the cage while refusing to leave, and he, equally foolish, both of them streaked with the brush of recklessness, remained within it. He was ready to defend a one-man siege versus the returning goblins. She took him holding the door shut as an attempt to kill her. He took her leap away from the cage as an intention to run.
Fast as lightning, the situation escalated - the girl took a goblin spear to the side, and suddenly he was at her side, the safety of the bars out of reach of them both. His sword was slicing goblin flesh as he, too, suffered the stings of the hornet swarm.
Both of them were gravely wounded in the flood of goblins, he somehow managed to pull closed the adjacent cage with both of them then shielded by the very bars that had imprisoned them just prior.
The goblins pulled at the iron bars, threatening to extract them. There was only one object he had on him to brace their position.
The seventh lute was pulled from its strap upon his shoulder, and the painstakingly carved neck with the boar tusk pegs (just the right shape) wedged through between the bar of the gate and the static bar beside it.
It held the goblins off just long enough for them to gather to the bottleneck, slowly carved down until there were none left. The lute cracked, bent and broke as the gate was stressed and pulled from both sides. Strings twanged, the sound drowned out by guttural snarls of the goblins.
The bard and his new counterpart were each gravely injured, both having acted on the other's behalf. They had survived, barely.
Eventually Gaerth tracked them down, and through a week long trek through the labyrinth of tunnels, they eventually made it back to the surface.
Those injuries would later be the Wayfarer's undoing. A far greater fight awaited once he returned to his friends, and time was far too short for healing to be a priority.
Had he ever healed from the blade of Gazakh's axe, in the first place?
----Ten days before the present----
Luteless, and horseless, he arrived in the White City with Taph who had tended his wounds enough to keep him moving. When the true fight came, Ryheric knew he would die in battle. He knew this to be his fate.
He hoped the others were alright. He hoped Taph would not be caught. He hoped the Free Folk would prevail, after all the beautiful things he had seen, done and discovered.
When the time came, it was only Cwen, Gaerth, Ath, Ceil, and of course Winnie who took the trouble to dig up his location in the first tier. All of the others, despite their prior sentiments and pledges, despite all said and done, had applied the phrase "out of sight, out of mind". It was less painful than saddening. He would have liked to see them one last time... not for them, but for himself.
He had lost lute and horse. They were his most valuable possessions aside from the curved sword he bore. So, he had nothing left to give to Cwen, except for the deadly kukri once gifted to him by Silver. The kukri was his most treasured weapon. A reminder of some things that had affected him profoundly while his naive trust for Silver was still too strong for his own good. A reminder of that first inkling of care, untainted despite all that had happened after. A pure feeling he held onto.
Between that kukri and the sword, it had the highest kill count in the year and a half since he had received it. The kukri was small and suitable for Cwen to handle. It seemed right, somehow. A faint shade of gold when everything else was dark.
It was legacy enough, and he knew that was more than he could have ever hoped for, not so very long ago.
The kukri was given to Cwen. The girl wept, and embraced him for the third time.
He closed his eyes and held her until the inevitable moment came where the only thing awaiting them all was bloodshed.
