CHAPTER 1.16 - HIGHBARROW: I
Anuk watches Rian and Thae scanning the trees. Thankfully, she requires no weapons to protect herself, unlike them. Their stances are confused: weapons not raised but definitely not dropped. She understands their unwillingness to comply with the voice but had seen the blur of the arrow passing close to Hugo’s face. Assumes that the archer has some skill, and following the last ambush she isn’t keen to assume the forest is not crawling with the hunters Rian theorised. Or worse, more bandits. Her mind races.
Shockingly, Hugo steps forward. The little man at least has the sense to have his hands empty and raised. And then…
“It is I, Hugo, prince of the gnomes.” The halfling’s voice is dripping with confidence, his accent glossed with status and the type of fake deference she has heard from gentry humouring people they obviously see as beneath them. He even has the temerity to have an irritated tone of frustration inside the bored ‘posh guy’ drawl. To silence from the trees, Hugo doubles down. “Of course, my bodyguards cannot submit to your orders…” He chuckles, the little shit chuckles!“…not if they want their pay, at least. But I assure you we mean no harm to you as long as you contain your own aggression.”
Hugo glances back at the two warriors, waves one of his raised hands towards the ground. Rian and Thae exchange a glance, confusion all over the big man’s face. Thae nods, rests the warhammer’s head on the ground. Rian’s heavy eyebrows hit his tousled hairline, but the woodsman scans the trees again as he exaggeratedly sticks the point of his pike into the earth, opens and spreads his hands. Anuk tries, and is certain fails, to keep her face blank. Little shit’s going to get us killed with this idiocy.
Time stretches, slows, as long seconds of silence trickle past. Then they watch a shadow emerge from behind a tree. Not like Thaesurala’s uncanny tree-walking, but the figure still goes from invisible to evident like a visual trick. They’re confronted with a dark-skinned woman, standing a shade under 6’ tall, clad in deep green leather armour. She holds a longbow, drawn and ready to fire, aimed directly at Hugo’s face. Her aim is steady despite a terrible limp, obvious even in the couple of steps she has taken. Her right leg’s rigid, adding a pronounced roll to her gait. She’s an older woman, not unattractive but her face is lined and bearing a furious expression. Anuk’s heard the common wisdom that your wrinkles will conform to your usual expression. If that’s true, this woman spends a lot of time travelling an arc between frustration and rage.
The left side of the woman’s hair is cropped extremely short, the right a straight shoulder-length curtain. Her stubble, hair and eyebrows are uniformly forest green, an unnatural shade giving all appearance of being her born colour. She has deep green eyes and the ear displayed by her crop is long and pointed, pierced five times and once in her tragus, each piercing bearing a small stud with jade or emerald stones. Given her height, Anuk assumes the woman is half-elven, but she could be full-blood.
Hugo’s eyes are locked on their ambusher, an impressively relaxed smile suffusing his features. Unwavering, he goes into a perfect rendition of a full courtly bow, intoning “Good lady, please. Let us discourse; there is no need for disagreement here.” For a moment, Anuk’s certain the angry woman is about to loose her arrow into his smug face. She feels a momentary discomfort as she realises others might describe her as temperamentally similar to this vision in green. But then she sees the bowstring relax slightly. The woman could still fire given an instant, however to all appearances Hugo’s dumb-ass plan might be working?
“Whoi are y’here?” The woman spits with a heavy accent that Anuk believes suits angry swearing. With a friendlier, more gentle tone it might sound poetic, musical even. Hugo, arms still raised, maintains a conversational tone but injects a tinge of ‘would you believe it?’ frustration. “Dear lady…” Anuk actually sees the dark woman flinch at the patronising endearment “…I am not sure you are aware, but the forest has been insane recently.” She sees the woman’s face twist as she spits on the ground. “We’ve had to slaughter most of our livestock. Oi’m fully aware.”
Hugo gives this a tight, empathetic smile. “I am so sorry for your difficulties, ma’am.” He gestures expansively to the rest of them. “My entourage and I were driven deep into the woods during the…difficulties. I humbly offer, as evidence of our good intentions, that we did hunt and resolve the source of the problem.”
The woman’s eyes narrow. “Well, your princeliness, whether that’s true or the poile of shite that it sounds, a laht of damage has been done already. Not sure you spared us moch.” Hugo shows no upset at his failed charm offensive, smiles graciously. “Certainly, certainly, although it does explain why we have stumbled out of the deep forest into your…” again, he does the rich-guy expansive gesture “…charming settlement.” Seemingly compulsively, the woman spits “Highbarrow.” Great, the village has a name.
The woman’s silent, appraising, for long seconds. Rian breaks the silence, deep voice even but emphatic. “We haven’t moved to fight you, and you know we aren’t surrounded.” Anuk almost swallows her tongue, notes that Hugo’s only reaction to this bold statement is to smile even wider. “You see, we’re not your enemies, madam.”
At Rian’s statement, the woman had re-drawn her bowstring, arrow still levelled at ‘the Gnome Prince’. She breathes deeply, an extra edge of irritation in her tone. “Did ya see any fookin GOBLINS on your way here?” At this, Hugo radiates perplexity, looks around at his comrades. Each of them shrugs or shakes head in response. Hugo responds “I’m afraid we have not. That would usually be good news, no?”
The woman seems to consider, unmounts her arrow and smoothly returns it to the quiver across her back. She sighs. “Normally? Nothin normal about today, princeling.” She flexes her torso, Anuk seeing her shift weight onto her left leg. “Well, oi don’t have all day to be fookin grillin’ people about where they go in the forest. But be warned. You treat the village wit’ respect or oi will make it moi business that you regret it.” All this is said evenly. Not the bluster or bravado of someone trying to unnerve them; rather, it sounds like a tradesperson quoting for work they could and would easily perform. Somehow, Anuk finds this tone more intimidating.
Hugo grins brightly. “So we may enter your village? You have our thanks. But may I ask from whom we have received this boon?” The woman looks at him from beneath knitted green brows, scanning for insult or mockery. Hugo continues to radiate that fucking rich-guy aura of asking a genuine, if impertinent, question. “Atheran. People round here look to me to keep ‘em safe.” Her face twists grimly, and she again spits on the ground. “Well, come on then.”
She turns, left leg stepping a radius around her right, as if the other limb is moored into the ground. She sets off down the hill towards the village. Rian and Thae glance at one another, re-equip their weapons. Hugo catches Anuk staring at him wide-eyed, gives a little shrug and a smile, then turns to scamper after the stiff-limbed woman. Anuk shakes her head, looks back into the forest. For a moment, she misses the simplicity of Thaesurala’s life, absent bullshit and politics, but realises that beds are a net good, and that they might find one in the village. Notes that she might have to quiz Hugo what part of an ‘entourage’ she represented in his little scenario.
It’s not hard to catch up with Atheran, given her disability. Despite obvious skill negotiating the woods, her right leg’s immobility slows her pace considerably. Thae and Rian follow Hugo and the villager at a respectful distance. She’s previously seen the holy warrior just slide into whatever role or plan Hugo enacts but isn’t entirely certain whether Rian has fallen in as the halfling’s fantasy bodyguard. As she draws level with the pair of them, they are obviously listening to the conversation ahead.
Atheran: “…animals were going crazy. Loivestock and wild aloike. Self and the boys were ron ragged troyin to stahp people bein trampled or mauled. We had a decent number of honters and a good supploi of domesticated beasts.” She sighs heavily. “We’ve had to slaughter the majority of the latter, and too many of moi lads got killed, injured or lost in the fookin forest. Which probably means they’re not comin’ back.”
Hugo: “I’m truly sorry, Atheran, but at least things have settled down now?”
The woman stops walking, wheels round to stare at him.
Atheran, angrily: “Well, your worshipfulness, out here in the forest it ain’t that fookin simple. Winter’s jost around the corner, and without the milk and cheese and wool and everything else, oi’m not sure we’re not screwed. Roight now we’ve got the bulk of the village – at least the ones who ain’t layed op in the Honter’s Hall or diggin graves for the one’s who got snuffed – tryin to butcher and preserve all the fookin good meat. Won’t stay that way for long.”
Atheran stares for a moment, not at Hugo but through him. She looks weary, careworn for an instant. Then, Anuk sees her own toolset come into play, as the brief vulnerability is ignited into anger and frustration. The woman resumes her rolling gait.
They have quickly reached a narrow trail through the trees, and the village is more clearly visible. One large building, obviously the civic centre, presumably this ‘Hunter’s Hall’ stands surrounded by a scattering of houses and a couple of obvious businesses. Everything is interspersed with enclosures, plots of garden, with small fields on the periphery. In the small patch of forest they’ve cleared, the settlement obviously uses every square foot for survival. A forge stands close to the Hall, while further to the eastern edge a larger wooden building suggests a merchant. It seems too small a settlement for an inn, and some of Anuk’s hopes for a comfortable bed wither in her chest. The central green of the village is a flurry of activity as Atheran described. The villagers, at least, seem to have organised; they can see tables set up for butchery, smoke rising from fires and enclosures for smoking the glut of meat
Rian clears his throat, rumbles. “You said goblins?” Atheran curses colourfully, not at the man, but seemingly at her situation. “Little fookers seem to have made off with a couple of kids before dawn today. And oi can’t go lookin for them on me own.” Hugo picks up the thread effortlessly, asking “Kidnapping children? Is that usually a risk?” Atheran continues on bloody minded, but her tone’s etched with perplexity. “Naw. We moight lose a chicken or two. One toime even a couple piglets. But even those were outside, jost on the fringes of tewn. These were two babes snatched from their beds, wit’ their parents in the next room.”
Rian, uncharacteristically, seems to be warming to the topic. “Do you know where they’re based? A tribe den?” This catches Atheran’s attention, turning to stare at the bearded man. “Vaguely, yeh. Little coonts seem to come from the northeast, nearer to the coast. Boot it’s outside of our normal hontin’ range, and loike oi say: they’re not usually worth the bother.” Again, Anuk can see Atheran taking a hit. Realises that it’s not only the villagers that look on her as protector. SHE sees herself in that role and is chewing on a bitter pill of failure in that regard.
Her study of Atheran’s knotted shoulders blinds her to a wordless negotiation going on between her companions. As she pulls out of her reverie, Hugo’s fixing her with a questioning look, as Rian and Thae are nodding. Great. She gives Hugo a flat, exasperated nod, and he smoothly shifts gears. “You know, my companions and I, we have a certain reputation for solving tricky problems like this.” Again, Atheran wheels on them.
“Great, great, yer a bonch of fookin adventurers, are yeh?” Hugo appears ready to continue the sales pitch but Atheran barrels on. “Idiots, that’s adventurers.” Hugo seems lost for words. Atheran sighs. “Oi know what oi’m talkin about, believe me.” She rubs a fatigued hand across the bridge of her nose and brow. Pauses a moment, says flatly. “Oi used to be an adventurer loike you. Then oi…”
Anuk watches the urge bubbling up inside Hugo and, to her surprise, Thae. A silly stock line from any guard in any play. At least, the type of play that encourages participation from the cheap seats. In concert, the pair chime in “…you took an arrow in the knee?” Atheran stares silent daggers at each, then leans, begins pulling up the right leg of her leather britches. They all look on horrified as the material emerges from her boot. In place of a leg, the woman seems to have a thick, straight strut of iron. It certainly explains her gait.
“No, oi got my bastard leg bitten off by a wyvern. Adventurin’s not a calling, it’s not a job. It’s a fookin CURSE.”
