Aldric Holt · human · Alliance · Westfall
EU · Roleplay PvP
I am writing this on Sentinel Hill, at the foot of the tower, my back to the wall. Three nights ago I was in Stormwind, in the dwarf's shop behind the forge.
Grimand Elmore paid me for the work I carried up from Eastvale, then gave me a package for a dwarf called Stormpike and a road north past Ironforge. I do not know that road yet. In the street the city wanted things. A man wanted signatures for a guild. Another wanted ten gold. A dwarf shouted for Durin and for his mountain. I made a belt and a pair of boots that evening and left before the lamps were lit.
It was past midnight when I came down into Westfall. A fire was going at the hill and the captain shouted for names. Three cheers for this one. Three cheers for that one. This land shall be ours again. I said well met and stayed at the edge of the light. Cerelai had gone for flint and tinder and someone beat her to it. Lraccirneh said the nights out here are colder than you would imagine. Lisy was roasting chestnuts. I warmed my hands and left before the fire burned down.
In the morning the Saldeans gave me work. Watch the fields, kill what walks in them. Ozwin Ironsprocket wanted the harvesters, so I went into the wheat with a mage, a paladin and another hunter. By noon Haskell had his okra and I had twenty of the machines. Schlily said ty guys and went off with the rest. I stayed.
The machines walk where the wheat should be. They are rust, and they do not look at you until you are near, and then they run at you.
Then there was a priest at the road. She had mended me twice without being asked. Sonia.
— I owe you one. — Ay no worries, I just turn coyotes into healing rocks. It is an honest job. — I see. We are alive. Thats someting. — Have a good one, do some slaying.
I say that too often and nobody has ever taken it. She took it and put a price on it, and the price was her job. I stood there with my mouth open. In the field afterwards, with the grass in my boot, I put the price next to the favour. A favour is easy to carry. A job is paid, and then there is nothing left between you.
After that the field was mine. I killed the rest of the machines and skinned what could be skinned. My hands did not shake until the sun was low, and at the end of that day I had twenty-five copper in the purse.
In the pumpkin fields at the Furlbrow farm I found a smuggler in the rocks. Benny Blaanco. He had a watch in his coat. Then down to the water at Longshore. The murlocs come out of the shallows and run back in when they are hurt, and I stayed on the sand until it was quiet.
In the last of the light I carried the watch to the stead. Farmer Furlbrow held it up and did not ask where I got it. He said his wife gave it to him on their wedding day. Then he said a wagon cannot be mended in this country, and Verna talked to the old horse. Don't worry, Old Blanchy, we'll get you something to eat soon. They paid me in bread and cold milk, ten of each.
That night I cooked ten boars, ten wolves, eight coyotes. The smell was in the whole street. Then the bank, where I put the oil and the hops and the feathers. Meat in the bag, feathers in the bank: that is the whole of my fortune.
Two new things my hands have learned. One is to look far, past the trees. The other is to look out of the bear's eyes. I have not tried the second one. He is a bear. I do not want to be in his head while he is eating.
The next night, in the city, two old men were talking behind me. One said he woke up in a bed in Northshire three weeks later and remembered nothing. The other said he never saw a man move so fast in his life. I did not turn round. Three times I have come back and I still do not know who does it.
Somebody asked me about the wolves. I said the wolf lost, that is the whole story. It is the only story I have that fits in one line.
Then the tower, and Gryan in the gate. Fifteen trappers, fifteen smugglers, the same words as last week. Last week I did not say yes and I did not say no. This week I said yes, and he turned to his list. Captain Danuvin says Stormwind has abandoned Westfall. Nobody in that yard argues with him.
All night Gryan stood in the gate and called out names. Three cheers for Tyrandil. All hail Vecnaa, defender of the people. Murgin, Tyreke, Gorzam, Rose. He does not get tired, and the names are not mine. I stood in the yard with the others and listened the way you listen to rain.
Then the bandanas. Fifteen of them, red, off the necks of the Defias at the Molsen farm in the dark. I brought them to Scout Galiaan and she gave me a cloak. Grey, with their sign on the shoulder. Heavier than it looks, and it smells of a warehouse.
Today I carried water. Two bottles from two wells, one at the Jansen stead and one at the Molsen farm. Alba Fairmoon thinks the land is sick and wants to know where it starts. The gnolls in the quarry did not care about wells. I came out of that grass with three of them on me and my knee in the dirt. The last one got the knife, close enough to feel it.
I have been closer than that. In a mine. Close is close.
In the afternoon I brought Salma her pie recipe back with a pie in my hands. Danuvin took my report and said the road was quiet. Alba took the water and said nothing about it. There is also a belt of the militia in my bag now. I have not put it on.
So: one belt on me, the old one, and the knife on it. The cloak is theirs, and it goes over the coat.
The fire here is small, and the night is the cold one they promised. I put my pack down on one side of it. I sat on the other with my back to the wall, and left the log free for whoever comes up the hill next.