Today we finally crossed into Wilder’s Gorge. We entered the
Cradle, the agricultural heart of my homeland, and the only part of it to resemble
the rest of Taeghas. Fields of grain and vegetables checker the loamy, rolling
hills between the greater and lesser Bowstrings, two rivers that feed the life’s
blood of my people into the fertile soil. Orchards full of trees spotted with
apples and citrus fruit cluster around ponds and streams. When last I had lain
eyes upon it, the Cradle shone gold and green in the autumn sun, ripe for
harvest. Now, with mere weeks remaining until that same season, the fields grow
lank with rot, and half the trees are bare.
My companions remain steady. Their loyalty was clearly a
factor in my father’s choice of them. I have made a daily ritual of our
training sessions, and another of them, an armswoman named Magda, has shown a
deceptive skill belying her size and jovial temperament. She is also a fine
storyteller, and had the whole lot of us roaring with laughter over tales of
her fool brother, Maddis. I would like to meet Maddis, someday, if his blunders
don’t get him killed first.
We rode through a number of hamlets on our way, and I
stopped as often as I felt possible to give praise to the farmers for their
crops and the health of their families. Wilder’s Gorge breeds a sturdy people,
and though the land suffers, not one of them offered a word of complaint. Nor
did they particularly welcome me, however; some outright locked themselves away
in their homes as we passed them by. I suppose I must look a fierce northern
raider to these folk. Upon reaching Fulcairn I shall engage the services of a
barber.
We camp now beside a fast-running stream we shall follow in
the morn all the way to the walls of Castle Fulcairn. We should arrive sometime
in the afternoon if we make our usual pace. My guards are anxious to return
home, but none so anxious as I. I rush to meet a father I have not known for a
decade, whose health is by all accounts ailing, and see the corpse of my
beloved brother. One spot of daylight will be the opportunity to meet Reynhild,
a Rjurikan lady who is, or was, my brother’s wife. It will be good to have
someone to speak with who knows the north as I do, and does not look at me as
though I am always moments away from savaging their arm or pissing on a stump.
I grow weary.
Until I again lift my quill, farewell.
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