Bree

Dani does not remember how she got to live in the Alley...she's just always been there.

((Artwork is an original by Basaran - I love this Basa, thank you so much.))

Rod,

Okay, so by now you've probably heard Mel squealing at you about the letter I wrote to her. Yeah, yeah, I'm back in Bree. I'll swing by the farm, I promise. If she's even speaking coherently, hopefully Mel has told you that in my letter to her, I said I had a few things to take care of. I'll be there as soon as I can.

Mel,

It's your brother, of course. I've returned from Kingsfell finally. The parentals are all sorted out, I think. They've got a few new cows, with the coin they saved before they left. 

Honestly, the years I've been gone, I've been bored out of my mind. Even while building the farmhouse, setting up the fences, buying and rationing the feed. I am so excited that I'm back here. It's a lot less depressing, to tell the truth.

"Pathetic! Get up!"

Her muscles ached, arms and legs trembling as she tried to push herself up to at least get her head out of the dirt. She only just managed to dribble some bloody spittle onto the ground before they gave in and she found herself sprawled face down again.

Summer. Back home we would be breaking sweat by pulling the oars; our galleys scudding through the shallow waters, as we’d reach the shores of Rhûn. Those were the times, glorious plunder and the thrill of a good skirmish. Gods know I miss that. But I am stuck here, in this tedious town, where you won’t even taste the difference between a horse’s waste and a gulp of mead.

The Midgewater was quiet but for the  buzz of flies and the familiar "neek breek" croaking on insects. The sun dropped lower, the glow turning the brackish water crimson as Corrben stood on the edge of the ruin. He had spilled as much blood to soak the lands of his birth, the blood of southrons who seemed determined to destroy and steal all the hard wrought work his people had done. Raiders and thieves, rapists, murderers and con artists were all among the flow of folk from the south.

The squint eyed southerner was bound and forced onto his knees in the stone floor of the ruins in Midgewater. Corrben stood just to the side of him, his hands streaked with blood, staining the leather bindings wrapped around his knuckles. He noticed the unusually dark color, nearly burgundy rather than crimson as it oozed from the broken nose of the prisoner. Splattered on the pale stone, it looked nearly black.

Gwennol listened as Pren explained how the people he had met on his first journey to the north had accompanied him south, only betray him and leave him for dead. He spoke of dark figures firing arrows, swift and strong they were but he did not see their faces. All he knew was that he had lived and lusted for revenge against the faithless man who he believed was behind it all. It was a fight with this man that left him in such a state and once again, they had tried  to kill him. Tying him and leaving him to drown.

Corrben and the other scouts crept up on the camp site. The southerners were sitting on crates, drinking stolen ale and smoking stolen pipeweed. There had been a raid on a Staddle farm and likely this was some of the booty. He crouched, his spear gripped in his hand, feeling a trickle of sweat down the back of his neck. There were three men, including one of those squinty eyed ugly bastards who were notoriously cruel and good fighters. The other was a woman, though it was hard to tell if she was young because her face was lined and dirty, hard from poverty and war.