Quoted By:
Faced with such an unfamiliar (though not entirely unwelcome) situation, you default to old habits. Begging the girls pardon, you escape into the space behind their house, which they keep as a kind of garden. Though you left your shield upstairs, you keep your sword on your person at all times. The old blade could use some repair. It's edge, though still sharp, has chipped away in places and the leather which wraps the hilt has worn down. Going through the stances and postures inevitably reminds you of your father. Whatever his faults, he was a good teacher, patient, encouraging, clear and illuminating in his instruction. You never understood why he didn't offer his services to Lord Hobson, the descendent of his late lord. You're certain he could have made a comfortable living as a captain or lieutenant in his service. But then, your father was witness to the carnage of Valrkel Fields, and the grudge he bore against the Suthermenn, first for slaying his king, and then for humiliating his lord, not even twenty years passage could assuage. If he bore that grudge in silence, was his pride worth the privation of his family?
You are so fully absorbed in your exercises and thoughts that it is not until you hear a sharp word from your returned host, that you realize the girl had been spying you from the door this whole time. She retreats quickly inside, before your host can further admonish her, though her gaze lingers a while at your body. You quickly don your shirt, which you had discarded to bear the oppressive heat. The host then appears at the door and summons you to supper.
You nibble on your food in silence, feeling dissected between the glare of your host and the curious glances of the girl standing by the table. The latter, you learn, is a ward, an orphan that your host has taken in and raised. Soon, she wheels in another young girl, whose vacant, listless expression suggests confinement to her strange wheeled chair. With the utmost attention, the ward begins to feed the new arrival.
Eventually the host speaks, griping about his troubles. The headman has put a bounty on the heads of a clan of ravenous babwyns that have settled in the mountain. No one has yet discovered their lair, and they harass both pilgrims and the miners who dwell here. Worse, the giants who live in the mountains are unable to distinguish between them and humans, and it is only a matter of time before the villagers are blamed for their mischief. Believing you capable and trustworthy, he urges you to kill as many of them as you can find. Five staters for each of their tails you recover. Twenty for the location of their lair. And fifty for the head of their leader. Babwyns are much stronger than the average man, but not much more intelligent than a child. You'd rather avoid them if you can.
->
