The Chronicles - Book 1

The Chronicles
Book One
Chapter Two

The final few hours of the day were spent with Allen and Gabe mucking out the stalls and feeding the horses, but doing little else, since everything that needed doing had already been done. The snow ensured that there was no new business.

“I guess that's it for the day,” Allen said as he always said at this time of day. Gabe, likewise, added enough coal to his little blacksmith's furnace to keep it burning overnight, much the same as he did everyday. Following the set traditions, Allen said “well, I think I'll head over to the inn for some supper.” This was the queue for Gabe to declare his intentions for the evening. He could either go along with Allen for dinner at the inn, or go home to eat with his family. Although Allen liked having his friend along for company, more often than not if Gabe didn't come along, Master Enmor would refuse to accept payment for the dinner. Allen left the money on the table anyway and suspected that Liandron simply pocketed it.

One night when the merchants were being more obnoxious than usual towards Liandron and the other serving girls, Master Enmor whispered confidentially to Allen “don't fret over it, lad. That pile of dung over there will be picking up your tab tonight…make it for the next fortnight,” he said darkly as one of the merchants made a grab for Liandron's breasts. Master Enmor had probably served that merchant the most expensive dinner of his life that night, as well as giving him a tongue lashing. Allen had caught up with the merchant later that night when he was alone and had a little chat with him of his own. The merchant still made the run between Charista and New-Market, but he had suddenly developed a fondness for nature and as Allen heard it told, he would camp out alongside The Road as opposed to staying in Gilder's Hollow anymore.

Although Allen had never said anything about this to anyone, much like his other interventions on behalf of his friends as their protector, but Master Enmor had heard about the merchant's new lodgings and suspected the reason for them. Allen thought that might well have been the event that cemented his position as son-in-law-to-be.

“I think I'll be dining at home tonight,” Gabe said as he closed the door to his furnace and sat the coal tongs down. “My mother made sure to let me know about fifty times this morning that she was letting Adria cook dinner tonight, so I imagine I'll be killed if I miss it.” He made a face of disgust. “Though I imagine I'll be killed if I make it as well.” Gabe's younger sister Adria's cooking was legendary and Allen couldn't help but feel sorry for his friend. He'd once eaten a biscuit of Adria's design which was as tasty as eating a big handful of dirt.

“Ah, fortune does favor you,” Allen said as he crossed his arms over his chest and bent slightly at the waist, in imitation of the only other visitors the hollow ever had…priests from the Chrysthal Church.

Gabe crossed his arms over his chest, bowed back, and reverently said, “I hate you.”

Allen laughed as they both went outside and locked the stables up. “Yeah, well stop by the inn when you get done eating supper and have some supper.”

“Not a bad idea…assuming I'm still alive,” Gabe said as he gave a small wave with his hand while trudging through the waist deep snow to his home on the edge of town.

----- . -----

The inn seemed rowdier than usual, strange given the fewer number of patrons. Apparently the merchants and their guards were getting a bit restless from being cooped up in the inn and decided to alleviate some stress by drinking as much as they possibly could.

Liandron and the other serving girls seemed to be doing some weird dance as they flitted between the tables, delivering fresh mugs of hot brandy and collecting the empty ones, all while avoiding the stray hands of their customers.

Liandron spotted Allen and headed over, almost making it through the gauntlet of hands until one of the guards managed to give her a little slap on her rump. She very skillfully, accidentally caught him upside the head with the edge of her serving tray, knocking his head to the table. The guard looked stunned for a second, the joined his mates in a good laugh at his own expense.

Allen sat at his favorite table, the one he always picked if it wasn't occupied. It was in the corner, so he could sit with his back to both walls and watch everything going on. Liandron came over and took the towel off her arm and used it to wipe down the already immaculate table top. She blew some stray hairs off her forehead then glanced back towards the guards. “I don't know that I'll be able to take this if The Road doesn't open up soon.” She threw a couple of hand signals to one of the other waitresses. Since she was the owner's daughter and had been waitressing since she was old enough to carry a mug, she was the defacto head of the serving girls. Allen had seen her wait on a full common room single-handedly, so her position was not undue. She used more hand signals to direct the other staff around. It was a communication system developed out of the necessity of being able to talk to each other across a noisy common room. Allen had never been able to figure out what any of it meant, but as he'd seen most women be able to carry on full conversations without ever saying a word, he didn't know why the hand signals were necessary at all. Whatever the talk said, it was very effective as one waitress came out of the kitchen with a mug of ale and another came out right on her heels with a steaming plate piled high with roast beef and potatoes.

“Well, I don't know that The Road will be open anytime soon,” Allen said looking out of the windows at the snow still piled high on the town. There were only a few ditches in it where people had made themselves a way through. “It's just gotten colder as the day's gone on and the clouds haven't broken up a bit.”

Liandron looked out at The Road then back at the rowdy patrons. “Great,” she said in a flat tone. “Oh well, enjoy the dance” she said as she headed to the kitchen for a fresh set of mugs, then came back out and started anew her precarious journey through the guard's and merchant's tables.

Allen slowly ate his meal, his appetite not as voracious as it normally would have been had he done a full day's work. Eating slower allowed him more time to watch the goings on of the common room. The guards were still enjoying their drinks and making swipes at passing serving girls, all while betting on rolls of dice. The merchants were a bit more subdued if not surlier; the thought of having to pay for the extra night's lodging and how much that would cut into their profits no doubt playing on their minds. The one merchant who'd run afoul of Liandron earlier was still watching her a little too closely, and Allen wondered if he might not have to have a little chat with him later.

The meal was finished and Allen was just trying to decide whether to have some of the cake whose aroma was wafting through the common room as it baked, when the front door of the inn burst open. A gust of cold wind and a pile of snow accompanied Gabe as he stumbled into the inn backwards. It wasn't until he was fully inside did Allen see his friend was stumbling from trying to negotiate the door with a body in his arms.

Allen immediately got up and went to his friend while Liandron's sixth sense for trouble had already propelled her across the room. She closed the door and was inspecting the limp form in Gabe's arms. “What have you done?”, she asked Gabe as he laid the body down on an empty spot of floor.

“What do you mean what have I done?”, Gabe shot back angrily. “I found her lying in the snow practically at my front door.”

Allen finally managed to maneuver around them and the curious guards and merchant who'd come over to get a look at the figure on the floor. It was indeed a her, not that Gabe had ever failed to notice a female form before, and she seemed to be in her mid to late teens. The rough fabric of her wet dress told Allen that she was most likely from a rural village, so she probably hadn't come in from a stranded merchant's wagon. She must have been from the Five Peaks , but he didn't recognize her, so…

“New-Load?”, Gabe finished his thought for him. He backed away from the girl as the serving girls swarmed around her, piling blankets and leather bags full of hot water on her.

“Must be,” Allen answered as Liandron murmured to the other serving girls that the new arrival was barely just alive. “Although I can't figure out why someone from New Load would set out in this much snow wearing just that.” Allen pointed down at a damp mass of cloth on the floor that was the girl's dress. He didn't even bother trying to figure out how the serving girls had stripped her of it while she was under a dozen blankets and as many hot water skins. “And she didn't have a horse or anyone with her?”, he asked Gabe.

“No. All I found was her in the snow with a set of tracks leading from where she fell to as far back up The Road as I could see.” Gabe watched some of the serving-girls trying to get some hot brandy down their patient's throat, but she kept murmuring and twisted her head away from the cup.

Allen could see why Liandron had thought Gabe had done something to the girl. Her face had several cuts and bruises on it, but Allen could tell that they weren't very fresh.

The girl's stirrings became more feverish as the serving girls kept trying to give her the brandy, until finally, despite all of the weight of the blankets and the water skins, the girl sat bolt upright, fully exposing her chest to the room. The view was quickly blocked by a solid wall of serving girls. “Where am I?”. the girl mumbled, seemingly oblivious to the surrounding commotion and Liandron pulling one of the blankets back over her chest.

“Shh…shh…calm down,” Liandron intoned soothingly as she tried to get the girl to lay back down.

Liandron's ministrations had no effect whatsoever as the girl just kept getting more and more agitated, struggling against Liandron and two of the other serving girls who were trying to lay her back down while keeping the blanket and her modesty in tact. “Where am I?” the girl asked again while thrashing around. “Where am I?!?!”, she screamed before anyone could answer her from the first time she asked.

Two of the guards looked like they wanted to help restrain the girl, but they didn't look very comfortable with the idea of holding down a struggling, naked girl. Plus, the serving girls were giving them withering looks just for being there.

“Shh…shh…calm down,” Liandron began again, her tone not coming out quite as soothing as she struggled to keep her patient still. “Calm down…calm down. You're okay; you're in Gilder's Hollow.”

That did anything but calm her down. She just looked at Liandron for a second, terror blooming on her face, then she redoubled her efforts to get away. The whole time she was screaming, “Gilder's Hollow…Gilder's Hollow…I didn't get far enough away!” Liandron had to lean her head back to keep her face from being whipped by the girl's damp hair as she thrashed her head from side to side while yelling, “I've got to get out of here! I've got to get away! I've got to get out of here!”

Two of the big guards actually did step in and began forcibly pinning the girl to the floor, her shrieks continuing the whole time, just became more and more inaudible.

“Why?!”, Liandron shouted over the girl's yells. “Why do you have to get away?”

The girl suddenly went completely still, only raising her right arm to gently lay her hand on the side of Liandron's face. Allen could see tears standing in the corners of the girl's eyes. “Don't you get it?”, she asked in an all too calm voice that was just barely above a whisper. “They're coming for you. You're all going to die,” she finished and passed out cold.

-----.-----

“I just wonder what that was all about,” Gabe said for what seemed like the thirtieth time that night. The girl had been moved to one of the inn's rooms with a contingent of serving girls to look after her. Liandron was still moving through the tables serving drinks to the much more subdued crowd, all of them were naturally rehashing the night's event. A couple of the guards along with a few of the town's men, all led by Gabe's father Almon, had been dispatched to backtrack the girl's trail in hopes that they could find any signs of a horse or fallen companions.

“I don't know,” Allen finally answered by rote. Leaning back against the wall, he made a tent of his hands and placed his fingertips just below his nose as he stared out of the window. “I just don't know,” he added again to himself.

The girl was plainly terrified of something. That much was pretty obvious. The only thing that Allen figured could drive someone through waist deep snow on foot without proper clothing was either sheer terror, or the girl just wasn't right in the head.

Liandron appeared out of the kitchen with fresh mugs of hot brandy and a plate of cheese and bread, which she sat down on the table, then set herself down on one of the chairs.

“Well, how is she,” Allen asked as he made a sandwich out of the cheese and bread.

“She's still out of it,” Liandron said, watching the patrons over the rim of her mug. “She seems to be breathing alright and some of the Pillars are forcing various herbs and medicines down her throat.” The Pillars was the name of the council that governed the village. It was made up mostly of the oldest women in town, with a few of the older men just for a show of equity. However, as they were older men, they had long since learned not to argue with a woman, so they were mostly seen and not heard. The Pillars mostly solved petty land disputes, as well as acting as medical advisors, councilors to the younger women in town on child-rearing issues, and mending broken bones and deep cuts. But since Gilder's Hollow relied mostly on the merchant's business and that meant everyone in town relied on each other to make that happen, there weren't many problems between the towns' folk.

Allen knew there was no way the girl could be dehydrated with four feet of snow on the ground, so as long as they managed to get some food in her, and the cold didn't kill her, she should be alright. However, getting food into someone who spent every waking moment screaming tended to be rather difficult. He imagined The Pillars were probably forcing beef broth into her while she slept. “Any damage from the cold?”, he asked Liandron.

“No, The Pillars say it didn't look like she'd be out in the snow for too long.” She took another sip from her mug and nibbled at some cheese. “But they say that she's lucky that you happened along when you did, Gabe. Any longer and the cold would have finished her off the way she was dressed.”

Gabe colored a little but hid it by taking a sip out of his own mug. “She's lucky that Adria's a lousy cook,” he replied, catching Allen's eye.

The three sat for a while, sometimes talking about the strange events of the day and what the girl's cryptic warning to Liandron could mean. Other times they eavesdropped on the conversations of the merchants and the guards to see what their take on it might be. Allen heard every theory from the girl being a runaway slave miner, which was ridiculous because none of the miners in New Load were slaves, to the Chrysthal Church declaring the entire village to be demons and setting out to purge the entire population of evil by killing them all. The problem was that the only person who could really answer all of their questions was lying unconscious right now, and from what Allen knew of The Pillar's herbs, she probably would be for quite a while.

“Well, here's someone who might have some answers,” Gabe said, standing up. He'd been staring out of the window waiting for the search party's return, and was there to meet them as they began filing through the door. “Well?”, he asked his father.

Gabe's father ignored him and headed straight for a table by the great fireplace where Liandron had set steaming mugs of brandy, she having the foresight to run get them from the kitchen the second she heard of the men's return.

“Found a horse,” Gabe's father Almon answered in his usual slow fashion. He was a farmer used to long, solitary days out in the field, so he tended to say no more than he needed to, no faster than he felt necessary. “Bout three leagues up The Road,” he addressed Allen. Liandron always marveled how most people would defer to Allen as being the leader, even those much older than him did. Even with three quarters of the town's Pillars at the next table, Allen was the one they reported to.

“She ride it to death?”, Allen asked. With her mental state and the deep snow, this seemed the most likely scenario.

“Nope,” Almon said as he reached a hand under his thick cloak. “Found this in its neck,” he said as he pulled a dark red arrow out of his pocket and handed it to Allen. “Surprised it made it this far,” he said, watching Allen turn the arrow over in his fingers. “We were gonna get a good team together, fit together a sled, and head out to New Load tomorrow.”

The image of the girl saying “they're coming for you, you're all going to die,” flashed in Allen's mind as he twisted the arrow in his fingers. “But what could be coming?”, he wondered to himself.

“An arrow?”, Gabe said as Allen passed it over to him. There was nothing remarkable about it, aside from the deep blood red color from tip to fletching, and it had what looked like eyes etched into either side of the arrow head. “No one from the Five Points would use something like this. Look,” he said running his finger along the blade of the arrow head. “The edges have reversible barbs on them to cause just as much damage coming out as going in. This is no hunting arrow…unless you're hunting people.”

“Yeah,” Allen said glancing at the arrow. “I think we definitely need to take a trip up to New Load.” He glanced around the men gathered around the table and held each one in his gaze. “And I think we need to keep a sharp eye out tonight, in case that girl's right and something is coming.”

-----.-----

Allen glanced around the room and saw that out of all of the people gathered in the common room, the one merchant he'd been watching all day wasn't around. A quick scan revealed that Liandron wasn't there, either. “Great,” he said to himself as he quietly slipped out of the room and headed for the kitchen. The kitchen was empty, but the outside door was left open to the elements. He'd barely made it through the door before he saw Liandron pinned with her back against the outside wall by the merchant, who was drunkenly fighting with her to get her skirts up.

Allen took one long stride toward them with his left arm held stiff in front of him; then he used his momentum to slam the merchant's head into the wall. Liandron slid down and out of the way as Allen got a better hold on the merchant's head and repeatedly slammed it against the wall until the whitewash was becoming red with blood.

“Stop it, Allen! You'll kill him!”, Liandron screamed as she frantically tugged at his arms to get him to stop. He turned to her and she involuntarily took a step back, because he looked so frightening with his eyes full of rage and his face spattered with the merchant's blood. “Just…stop,” she said softly as she stepped back up to him and laid her hands on his right shoulder.

He released his grip and let the bloodied, yet still alive by the sound of his whimpers, merchant slide down to the ground. He closed his eyes and gave a slight shudder. Liandron could almost see him physically take control of himself. Then he scooped up two handfuls of snow and used them to clean the blood of his hands and his face. “Sorry,” he finally said quietly.

“For what?”, Liandron asked incredulously. “You saved me from…well, who knows what just now. What do you have to be sorry for?”

“I just don't like people to see me get…dangerous,” he finished as they went back into the inn.

It was true; Liandron had only seen Allen mad one other time, and that hadn't been a pretty sight, either. But he rarely ever got angry or even lost his tempter in the slightest. He was always very kind and solicitous to everyone, but that had always seemed to her to be a thin veneer of kindness covering a seething cauldron of chaos. He had always been very protective of his friends, but it wasn't until his parents died that the rage started showing up. That was understandable to Liandron, though.

A small group had gathered in the kitchen, no doubt attracted by the noise of the merchant's head thumping against the wall. The group consisted of Gabe, who was idly thumbing his belt knife; Master Enmor who had a large kitchen knife in his hand, and two of the guards. They were the same guards who had helped restrain the girl, as well as going along with the search party. Allen figured they must belong to that merchant, who'd probably sent them out so they wouldn't interfere with his designs on Liandron. “I left you a pile of garbage outside that you might want to collect,” Allen said as he jerked his thumb back towards the kitchen door. His bloodstained hands and Liandron's tear streaked face clearly told what happened.

The two guards looked at each other and shrugged. “Eh, we'll pick him up later,” one of them said. “Maybe,” added the other as they sauntered back into the common room and took up playing at dice again.

“That merchant must be a pretty popular guy,” Gabe remarked as he looked out at the crumpled form of the merchant from the kitchen door.

“Me and some of the boys will take care of him, lad,” Master Enmor said to Allen as he shooed everyone back out into the common room. The innkeeper had a few quiet words with the remnants of the search party and they all headed back towards the kitchen. Allen vaguely wondered if they meant to take care of him by bringing him inside and having one of the Pillars patch him up, or if they meant to take care of him by killing him. Justice in a town with no police or jail could be swift and brutal, especially to an outsider who tried raping a local girl. However, as Allen considered it, he decided he didn't really care either way what they did.