steora

Well, ''there aint no use cryin' over split milk'' , tha's what my Gammer says. She aint usually getting a slap round her head from my Ma if she spills milk, though. My Ma's got a powerful slap. I usually ends up cryin'.

Adunzil snaps small twigs and feeds the fire. I observe his graceful, spare movement through half-closed eyes as we change our watch and I prepare for sleep. The air is cool, though not too chill, the half-moon westering as night continues.

I shrug further into my cloak and hood. The night is peaceful, we are close enough to Nenuial for the eyes of our folk to keep the land quiet. I feel safe, as though held in the palm of my father, cradled by the solid earth and roofed by the trees.

I had ter pay thirty copper coins fer that bath! But after an hour with that stinky Finch ... i had ter get the stink o' him off my hair, an' the filth o' his hogs offen my boots.

But Steora swifthand is a clever lass ... so I still made a few coin on the deal. An' I aint givin' the money back to the Burnt Man!

So Gyth's Burnt Man orders me ' Steora, you up an' go an' find The Finch.' An' I knows what He is like iffen I says no ... so I has to go down ter the Mud Gate through all that pig-filth and find him.

Gyth ain't returned ter Combe. We'em parted a bit cross ... a bit too much ale. She had ter start on about her burnt man. ruined the party, she did.

Everythin' is going ter ruin and misery. I aint got no friends, an' Gyth says Wine is her protector now. She wants everythin', she does. She'm already got Bawde, an her Burnt Man... an' now she got Aefenwine too... it aint bloody fair.

All is well. The haunted ruins of the Betrayed City lie far to the north, the aelf thralls bound by aelf words and aelf stars remain unawares in the Ashen Town and I am safe, safe in the Inn in Comb.

Steora will be filled with pride  to hear how cleverly  I slipped out from under their very noses beneath the cover of darkness. 'Scared of your own shadow, Gyth!", she always says. She'll change her tune when she hears how swiftly I rode Heofonfyr south, alone through the wilds, to warn him - my Mentor.

Tavern - voices rumble up through the floorboards. The indistinct muffle pierced again and again by a bellowing laugh, some snatches of a merry fiddle-tune, friendly cat-calls.

heh.

That went better than i could have hoped for.

Duresen't start out well, though. Master Oldgrove brings me ter the Bridgetown... an' up pops more of them grim northerners ... and then... that old bastard hisself, the helm-giffer. I realises master Oldgrove is an even better liar than me.

'You be safe with me lass' he says.

Curse it all!

I swear, I'd give my right hand to the fire had I the foresight to stay out of this whole affair. Thinking back to it now, I see the folly of my acceptance to their "quest". What was I thinking? What was I expecting? It was clear from the beggining there was more at work here than I suspected. Or later feared.