Private Tales Crossroads

[Draedamyr]

Ermengarde

As the horse crested the rise Draedamyr could see the crossroads in question. What he couldn't see was what he had come for. A tug on the reigns drew his horse to a stop.

He had hoped to see a Knight standing by the crossroads. One wearing chain mail and a tattered blue and white tabard. The Knight had been lurking around the crossroads for weeks. At first he had shouted out challenges to those that passed, seeking personal combat. More recently he had been outright attacking them.

Draedamyr didn't care what war had driven the man the madness. Knights looking for fights on the road wasn't unheard of, but not like this. It sounded like a broken man looking for death. A death that Draedamyr had hoped would pay well.

He was no woodsman. He was an urban elf. He supposed he could circle around the area looking for a tent or a cave. Whilst he deliberated another traveller appeared on the same road. Not his target. Another elven duelist who might have been after the same challenger.

 

[Ermengarde]

With the sun on her back, Ermengarde rode on slowly. Supposedly this road was to fork up ahead. Sometime soon in fact.

Were there people? A person up ahead? Good news. She was not lost at least.

Blasted sun. Why did it have to be this hot. Her equine swayed and Ermengarde.., her body did rock like a boat on the sea.

 

[Draedamyr]

There was a rider beyond the crossroad. Draedamyr watched closely for as long as it took to decide that it definitely wasn't the ex-knight he sought.

He started his horse walking down the road. There was no way he was going to follow tracks to find this wanted man. He hadn't the faintest idea how one did that. Paying for a tracker would mean...paying for a tracker.

It was another elf coming from the other direction. She was swaying from side to side in her seat. Exhausted, or perhaps just trying to stay awake after a long ride.

"Greetings," he called out in elven as he drew his horse to a stop. "I don't suppose you happened across a human Knight waving a broadsword around at traveller's on the way?" he asked

 

[Ermengarde]

She seemed at least partially confused.
With a very light command her horse went to a full halt.
»Speak elven not good.« Perhaps a bit of a lie, the educated woman is nowhere near as confident in the languages she rarely used and never mastered.
However she got some clue of an answer figured out, but there were better means of relaying information.
»Common?«

 

[Draedamyr]

He felt a swell of indignation at being asked to reduce their conversation to the common human trade tongue. Such a rough, direct language. So easy to misinterpret when the meaning was so wrapped up in inflection and gesture because the actual language was so curt.

"Did you happen across a human Knight waving a broadsword around?" he asked again. "Was said to be around here challenging everyone to a fight."

 

[Ermengarde]

Ermengarde seemed a little bit surprised at the inquiry. But not that she was asked, but on what. It struck a ring with her.

»Was he wearing blue and white by chance?«

 

[Draedamyr]

"Well...yes...that is the one."

Draedamyr looked farther down the road as if he expected to see the mad Knight. He didn't; he only saw more road.

"And where did you see him?"

 

[Ermengarde]

»I saw him, right at the edge of the forest, he insulted my name before running off, weapons raised after Jhor, a man with whom I've shared the trip.«
Ermengarde explained, shaking her head a little. »They could be still fighting I think. «
The woman turned her horse a little at the notion.

 

[Draedamyr]

"Well, that's the one," said Draedamyr.

"We'll I'm not going to get paid if the knight dies of natural causes. And be natural causes I mean picking a fight with someone better than him with a sword."

Draedamyr's demeanour changed a little. His polite smile thinned and he drew himself a little taller in the saddle. His right hand came to settle on the hilt of Reverie.

"Back down the road?" he asked. His eyes briefly fell to her figure. She'd lost an arm, perhaps to war or just disease.

 

[Ermengarde]

The horse lightly reared as it turned, now facing away from the aged elf.
»Then you better act quickly.«
»I'll show the way, it's a poorly marked path,« Ermengarde nodded as her horse exhanged pace to pace into a canter.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr spurred his horse on after the traveller. She seemed distinctly nonchalant about her companion from the road. Perhaps they didn't know each other at all and had just ridden together for mutual safety. Even Draedamyr preferred to travel with a caravan through the wilds. He had always been an urban kind of person.

Around a small copse of woods and he saw where they were headed before he could hear sounds of fighting. A horse stood beside the road, a man was crawling across the dirty track towards it. He left a trail of blood across the ground. There was no sign of the knight.

"Is that Jhor?" he called out as they sped on towards the scene.

 

[Ermengarde]

Ermengarde Hurried forth, even further out than the oath allowed; towards where the presumed fight happned.

'Presumed' The blood on the scene showed much of that.


»Jhor?!« Ermengarde shoted out at the man.
Surely there would be some kind of respond. And he lifted his head in acknowledgment. That's right.
»Jhor, where did the madman go.«

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr followed the unstable, outstretched arm. The elf drew his sword. The blade left its sheath with a spine-chilling whisper.

"There's blood on the grass." That was about as skillful the elf's tracking got. The dark spots led over the rise.

"I'll go and deal with him." The coin was as good as his.

 

[Ermengarde]

»Looks dangerous, I'll join you shortly.«
Ermengarde hopped off her horse and aproached Jhor.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr St's ability to track anything non-magical was just enough to follow the clear droplets of blood on the grass. With his horse left tethered to a sturdy tree he stalked up the hill.

As he crested the rise he caught sight of the Knight briefly. He had climbed further than Draedamyr might have expected for a wounded man in armour.

Draedamyr wasn't certain if the knight saw him. It didn't look like he glanced down the hillside before vanishing into the rocks. That, he assumed, was the man's current abode. A cave in the slope of a hill.

He wouldn't have expected the trap that was being laid for him.

 

[Ermengarde]

After a good while Ermengarde would followe the trail to meet up with Draedamyr, it' wasn't that high above the hill but given his posture of stalking, the duellist would take cauting in aproaching the highlands from the forest. The thick undergrowth would have provided enough cover.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr stood at the lip of the cave. There was no one standing where the light reached. He suspected the Knight was waiting for him just out of sight.

The tip of his blade was pointing towards the floor. He tilted his head, trying to hear the disgraced Knight. Droplets of blood drew a path deeper into the cave.

"Are you any use with a blade?" he asked Ermengarde.

 

[Ermengarde]

Ermengarde neared Draedamyr, staying still besides him.
Is she versed with a sword?.A reasonable question, the woman was one armed of course.
»Well enough to hold my ground,« Ermengarde assured him, slowly unsheathing her utensil of stabbery.

 

[Draedamyr]

The value of the bounty was less of a concern to him now that having another set of eyes in the darkness. He took a few cautious steps into the cave. If she helped and claimed part of the money then so be it.

"Sir Gilgrenn was a respected knight," he explained. "Apparently lost his mind on his last campaign. Has been attacking people along the road for days now. I suspect he's looking to find a way out. To die in battle."

Draedamyr stopped and raised his sword. He cupped his mouth with one hand to throw his voice.

"Which would be a lot easier if he just came out to die now!" he called out. His voice echoed several times, but no mad knight emerged.

 

[Ermengarde]

»A warrior's death stricken man? Intriguing,« Ermengarde nodded her head as she walked after Draedmyr into the darkness.

 

[Draedamyr]

"Just a theory," he replied. "All anyone really knows is that the knight gave up his honour and started attacking people of his own province. Like a coward!"

That didn't provoke a reaction either. Draedamyr heard a soft clank echo back to them. What he didn't notice was the small silver vial left in a crack behind them. Starfire. An alchemical fluid that was often used by holy orders of knights in battle. Once exposed to the air there were just seconds before it exploded. The right kind of membrane around a vial could delay that explosion by minutes.

Draedamyr called on a modicum of elven magic to bring a light to his palm. There were the remains of a fire in the corner of the chamber. Crumbs being cleaned out by rats.

 

[Ermengarde]

Be it what it could be, but Ermengarde almost found this sittuation funny, even if life was at stake, but hey? Better to die amused than dishonoured. How long was Draedamyr even after this man again, she wondered.
It seemed almost as a too optimistic thought when suddenly a shock resonated through the cavern, knocking Ermengarde to the ground from the blastforce. Dust was lifted into the air and a great tubling sound emerged as the cieling ruptured.

Ermengarde coughed as the rubble settled, eyes instinctively looking to the light. »We'll... that was an unfortunate series of events, you still alive there bloodhound?«

 

[Draedamyr]

It often came as some surprise to find out just how colourful the elven language could be. Swearing was like weaving. A complex pattern of vowels where slight changes in tone could mean vastly different things. Draedamyr unleashed on long string of flowery language.

"Still here," he confirmed, before coughing out dust. He kept his eyes squinted as shut as possible but the dust still worked its way into his lashes and stung his eyes. When he stood up he at least Brough his face above the settling cloud.

His ears thrummed and his head was pounding. At least he still had his sword in his hand.

"He couldn't have teleported. There had to be a way out," he reasoned.

 

[Ermengarde]

»First of all, are you whole? « asked the woman as he finally showed his face after the, ahem, lustrous display of elven swearword articulation. Marvelous.

 

[Draedamyr]

"Yes, yes, all here," Draedamyr replied. Sometimes it took a few seconds to realise you'd been injured. Once he had slit a man's throat and they'd turned and raised a hammer before realising that they wrte dead.

"All parts still in tact." Draedamyr sounded thoroughly unamused with the entire situation.