Tarrin mounted the gray mare quietly, checking his staff and bow, the bow set in the saddleskirt and his staff tucked into the skirt on the opposite side. He had everything, hadn't forgotten anything, and he was ready to go.
"How long is it going to take us to get there?" Tiella asked curiously.
"It's four days to Torrian," Faalken replied. "From there, we'll go to Marta's Ford, which takes six days, and then get on a riverboat and take it to Ultern. That takes about nine days. From Ultern to Jerinhold, and then to Suld, takes five days. Twenty-four days, barring bad weather."
Dolanna gracefully mounted as Faalken climbed up onto his roan. "Alright, young ones," Dolanna said in her calm voice. "Let us be off. Tarrin, you lead the pack horses for now."
Turning their horses, Tarrin took the reins of the pack animals from one of the stable hands that had come out to help. Then they started down the Torrian road, beginning their month-long journey to Suld, and ultimately to the Tower of Sorcery.
To: Title EoF
Chapter 2
It was a good day to travel. Tarrin led the pack horses behind the others along the Torrian Road, as birds chirped in the early summer morning and the sun peeked through the trees to warm the earth. This stretch of road wasn't unfamiliar to Tarrin, who had accompanied his father to Watch Hill numerous times, so he settled into a comfortable muse as he let the horse plod along behind the others. Now that they were actually moving, he couldn't deny that he was tremendously excited about this trip. He was still a bit nervous over going to the Tower and learning magic, but even that was starting to interest him as he thought back to the roar of fire that Jenna had created, or the healing that the Sorceress had done. He began to think about what she had said, about earth, air, fire, water, the mind, and the power of a Goddess, and he began to speculate what Sorcerers could do.
There was a reason why he was put in the back, he noted not long after they started out. It put a fighter at each end of the caravan. Faalken took the lead, occasionally scouting ahead, leaving Tarrin to defend the rear in case something snuck on them from behind. This was wild territory, and just about anything could happen. There could be a new band of brigands that had just settled in, or a pack of Bruga or tribes of Dargu, Waern, or even a gaggle of Trolls could have come down out of the mountains to the north for a bit of plunder. Those races, called the Goblin Races, were universally malicious, cruel, and extremely hostile to human life. Bruga and Trolls were very dim-witted, but Dargu were very cunning, and Waern were downright intelligent. There were Ogres and Giants as well, but both of those races were rather gentle and more amiable than their cousins. Ogres weren't very bright, but they weren't evil like the others, and Giants were intelligent and rather friendly when not encountered in their home range. Giants were welcome in most cities, provided they were careful not to break anything. Four times that Tarrin could remember, Giants had visited Aldreth to buy some things that they couldn't make on their own. Master Karn had been commissioned to make giant-sized versions of an axe and some belt knives, which looked more like swords except for their massive hilts. It was a testament to Karn's ability that he made them so well. The villagers of Aldreth had a good relationship with that Giant Clan, which lived two days walk to the north, in the foothills of the Skydancer Mountains.
They weren't the only forest beings that Tarrin remembered seeing in Aldreth. Being right on the Frontier, Aldreth saw more of the exotic beings than just about any other village or city in Sulasia. Tarrin had seen Centaurs three times, and had once seen a Druid, a human that was devoted to the power of nature. On a regular basis, people that looked like humans came out of the forest and visited the village on market days, bought assorted supplies and merchandise, and simply walked back into the forest. The village had a long standing practice of not asking these people any questions. They always behaved with exquisite courtesy, they paid with good money or bartered with good pelts or other valuable forest goods, and it was promoting good relations with their unknown sylvan neighbors in the forest to cater to the needs of those that chose to live there. Those visits were one of the things that kept Aldreth villagers out of the wild western forest. It had been a long standing rule that no hunting or expeditions would go beyond the farthest settlement, which was the Kael farm. Tarrin broke that rule with daily regularity, but Tarrin felt that if he was willing to take the risk, then so be it. Tarrin had travelled two days into the Frontier last year, curious to see what kind of trees and underbrush would exist in a forest that had not been seen by man in thousands of years. He hadn't seen any forest denizens, but on the second day, he began to feel watched, and decided that they'd allowed him to go as far as they wanted him to go. He turned around at that point.
These woods here between Aldreth and Watch Hill were wild for the most part, but there were many farmsteads and freeholdings that had been carved out of the heavy woods on both sides of the road. Most of them were out of sight of the road, down cart tracks that disappeared into the trees, but they were there. Not long after setting out, they'd encountered Arem Darn, one of those freeholders, on his way to Aldreth with a load of hay to sell. He had his wife with him, and their three children played in the hay in the back of the cart. It was unusual to see a living soul on this road until one almost got to Watch Hill.
"Tarrin!" Tiella called, shaking him out of his musing consideration of the trees.
"What?" he asked. He noticed that Walten had drifted back with Tiella, and Dolanna and Faalken were a bit up the road from them.
"I said, what do you think of all this?" she asked in a quiet voice.
"How do you mean?"
"Well, I for one am a bit nervous," she said.
"I was planning on leaving anyway," Tarrin shrugged. "I'm just going to a different place, that's all."
"Where were you going to go?" Walten asked.
"I was going to try to get into the Knights Academy," he sighed. "I knew it wasn't a sure thing, but this kinda blew that out of the water. By the time I finish at the Tower, I'll be too old." He brushed his hair out of his eyes. "Maybe I'll go into the army, like my father. If I decide not to stay at the Tower, that is."
"I can't wait," Walten said simply. "I've hated carpenting since they day my parents stuck me there. At least this is more interesting, and I get to do something." He looked up the road. "I didn't want to spend all my life in the village anyway."
"I've always thought of leaving Aldreth, but I didn't really take it seriously," Tiella admitted. "And here I am."
"Step it up, young ones," Dolanna called to them. "We must stay together."
Tarrin and the others urged the horses to a faster walk, and they were up with the knight and the Sorceress again.
They stopped several times over the day to rest, so that the Aldreth villagers could get themselves out of the saddle and stretch out muscles cramped by sitting down. They stopped for a meal of bread, cheese, and dried meat by a large stream, in a small meadow near the bridge that spanned it. Despite the slow pace and frequent stops, by the time the village of Watch Hill came into view at dusk, sitting atop the small, rounded, flat-topped rise, Tarrin's legs were painfully cramped and his back felt like he had an axe in it. He almost fell down when they stopped outside the Hilltop Inn and dismounted. The sky was changing into the colors of night when the stable hands came out to get the horses. Three of the four moons were up, all three of them full, and the Skybands, the bands of light that existed in the sky both day and night, were going from their daytime dull white and into the brilliant rainbow cascade of scillinting color that they wore at night. They weren't too wide, about the same width as Domammon, the largest moon, which rode just over the brilliant bands of color. Sometimes Domammon hid behind the Skybands. Duva and Kava, the twin moons, had just risen. Vala, the Red Moon, would rise around midnight, as it did at this phase of the month. The three moons and the Skybands filled the darkening land with curious light, just enough to see but not so much that details could be easily made out.