“What is that?” Duncan murmured.
Maric turned to see what he was looking at, and realized the path continued along the cliff around the mountainside and ended at a walled holding. It was a grey, somber-looking fortified settlement, perched on the edge of the cliff and seemingly built half into the mountain. There were men on the walls, he saw, with long hair and beards and thick fur cloaks, already pointing at the two strangers on the path. Dogs began to bark as an alarm was raised.
“They don’t seem that friendly,” Duncan remarked dryly.
“They are Avvars. Hill folk. They’re not apt to like us much.”
“Should we fight?”
“No, let’s wait to see what they do.”
It didn’t take long for three men to stream out of the gates, tall warriors with stern frowns commanding vicious-looking warhounds that barked and growled and strained against their leashes. That they didn’t simply unleash the hounds on them must mean they were willing to talk, he hoped.
The trio stopped just short of Maric and Duncan, staring at them suspiciously as they held back their dogs. The leader was an older man with grey hair well past his shoulders, but even so, he was powerfully built. He had the air of authority, as well.
“Lowlander,” he growled.
It wasn’t exactly a question, but Maric nodded. He thought it best to remain polite. The Avvars had a long history of warfare with the “lowlanders” in the Fereldan valley, and had stubbornly refused to join the kingdom when King Calenhad had united the teyrns centuries ago. The years since had just made them more determined to remain apart.
“Why have you come?” the man demanded.
“We are looking for a man by the name of Kell,” Maric said. The looks the men exchanged told him they knew exactly who he was talking about. This wasn’t surprising. So far it seemed like each of these dreams had been centered completely around the person doing the dreaming.
Did people have different sorts of dreams? Ones where they were innocent bystanders to events, irrelevant to the larger scheme of things?
“You seek Kell ap Morgan? Why?”
“That’s something I’d need to speak with Kell about.” It wasn’t an answer that these hillsmen liked, and he saw them bristle at his temerity. Duncan raised his eyebrows at Maric, clearly thinking that they were about to get into a fight and not altogether opposed to the notion. Luckily, the grey-haired leader spat at his fellows and halted their rage before it got out of hand.
“We shall see,” he grunted. Nodding for the others to follow, he turned and began to walk up the path back to the holding. The others ran after him, yanking hard on the warhounds to get them to come. Maric and Duncan were left either to follow or remain behind. It wasn’t much of a choice.
“They smell like urine,” Duncan complained, though without force.
“You can stay here, if you like.”
They went inside the holding, and were greeted immediately by a crowd of curious hill folk. The children were filthy and feral, staring with wide eyes as they chewed on their fingers. The adults were little better. These were people who lived from day to day, clinging to this mountain like stubborn weeds and subject to a wide assortment of disasters, from disease to poor hunting years to violent feuds with neighboring holdings. The Avvars were born to harsh misfortune, as well as inured to it.
The buildings outside the caves were low but remarkably well-built. These were not primitives, Maric reminded himself. They knew of masonry and mining and traded with the dwarves to acquire fine weaponry and other supplies. Each of the doors had a hide stretched over it, which was then decorated with brightly painted runes.
The totems in front of most of the buildings were also typically Avvarian. Stone idols built to honor their gods, if Maric remembered correctly. The only one he knew of was the Father of the Skies, to whom the Avvars returned their dead, leaving their bodies out on the rocks to be picked clean by the birds. He supposed that was no stranger than burning one’s dead, though he was curious what they did with the bones.
The men led Maric and Duncan across a dirty courtyard littered with dog dung and hanging furs, toward a larger stone building. It was little more than a hut, really, but it was wider than most of the others and had an impressive carved eagle head over the door. Someone important lived there.
The grey-haired man went directly inside, and when Maric went to follow him the other two Avvars interjected themselves, crossing their arms and glaring at him firmly. No access just yet, then.
They waited in the courtyard, a group of dogs coming up and snuffling at their legs curiously. These were not well-kept animals like Hafter; they were almost wolves, and covered in matted fur that reeked of wet. Duncan gagged and covered his mouth, but Maric just smiled. Being Fereldan, he had been around dogs since he was a child.
Nearby, a group of children looked around a corner at them with fearful expressions. One brashly threw a stone at Maric, missing by a wide margin, and then the whole group of them ran off giggling in terror. The pair of guards at the door took no notice of any of it.
When the grey-haired warrior reappeared, he had beside him another: This was a younger warrior, wearing a reddish fur cloak and with long brown hair and a short beard. As Maric saw the intense, pale eyes, he realized that this was Kell. A Kell with hair, and sporting tribal tattoos up and down the length of his bare arms, but there was no mistaking the man’s taciturn demeanor.
“Kell?” Duncan asked, gasping.
The hunter’s eyebrows shot up. The grey-haired warrior glanced at him, frowning heavily. “The lowlanders say they have come to speak with you, Jarl. Do you know of them? We can feed them to the dogs.”
Kell studied Maric and Duncan closely, those pale eyes traveling over them carefully. Maric saw no hint of recognition, but that meant little when it came to the inscrutable hunter. Duncan put up his hand as if to speak, but the grey-haired warrior growled him down. What happened if Kell decided that he wasn’t going to speak with them? They were surrounded by a holding full of seasoned hillsmen that could cut them down instantly.
“Let them come inside,” Kell finally said. He seemed hesitant, but stepped aside and gestured for Duncan and Maric to enter the stone hut. The other men present appeared startled, but deferred to Kell’s wishes and gave way.
The hut’s interior was uncluttered, with thick furs covering the floor and a large, high-backed chair made of logs. This was an audience chamber of some kind. Maric knew the sort. Several longbows and animal heads were displayed prominently on the wall. One of the heads was from a giant bear, its roaring mouth wide enough to engulf a man’s head. An impressive trophy.
Maric could see little past a curtain that hung in an interior doorway, but saw the hints of another room beyond. He also heard the distinctive cooing of an infant, as well as the sounds of a young woman’s soft humming. She quieted, and Maric got the impression of someone peeking curiously through the curtain, but could make out no details.
Kell sat down in the chair, resting his chin on his fist as he studied them again. “I saw you both in a dream,” he murmured, “and now you are here. How can this be?”
“That wasn’t a dream,” Duncan snapped. “This is.”
Maric wouldn’t have leaped right into it like that, but perhaps it was just as well. The hunter looked at each of them in turn, no doubt wondering if they were joking with him. Seeing that they weren’t, he frowned. “This is no dream. You are standing here before me, in my hall and in my holding. This is reality.”