1

Coming up the long, dusty road past the even dryer and dustier bushes was a single traveler. He sat hunched in the saddle on a horse more apt for pulling a plow than carrying a rider, and his wide-brimmed hat nested lazily on his shaded face, doing its job with the least amount of effort possible. At the traveler's waist was a well-worn belt, and a hand-me-down sword, probably dull, that flapped against the tired old nag's side with every step of its uneven gait. Everything about the figure sitting astride the horse spoke of a long journey through far too much dust and heat. Every square inch of him was covered in it. It was stuffed in his wilting boots, clung to his shirt, crowded around his shadowed face and embedded itself in his shaggy hair, hair that had laws of its own. A leather pack, worn-out and bruised, bumped against the horses flanks, improperly secured so that the beast grunted in annoyance with every hard jerk on the saddle. The figure seemed not to notice, and occasionally a flash of white was seen under the enshrouding brim of his hat as he rolled his eyes at yet another noise his horse had made.

Gazing, or more like casually drinking in, from under that hat the figure saw the same landscape he'd been staring at for the last eight hours of plodding. There was a dusty road, a few forlorn fenceposts, maybe a barn or two with a silo or a windmill spending their time dreaming of a farm that actually had a purpose in life. Sprawling out on either side of the potholed pike were spiked hedgerows, leaves slowly dying from the hot, dry air of summertime, thorns too small to see but too large to warrant firewood, unless the fire-starter wanted half a dozen angry welts to contend with before the night was over. The sun beat down on the deserted landscape, causing the rider to slouch even more in his saddle and comprehend something to drink. Something without dust.

It had been a dry year, as always, made dryer still by the unending heat and the tax collectors that ravaged the countryside in their constant search for riches. The land was nothing but a shriveled wasteland, a piece of parchment aged too long, a tree stranded in a desert for so many ages that it had forgotten what water was, let alone how to drink it. For sixteen long years the land had gone without a single nurturing puff of ash from the fiery mount doom, the ash that seeded the ground and grew the plants, the ash the drove the wind and the rains and, above all things, kept the dust down.

The Magistrates said it was a blessing, the sign of the end of the Dark Days that the people didn't have to weather a week of sitting inside, choking on black, swirling clouds of ash. But that didn't matter. Without the clouds, there was no soil. Without the soil, there were no crops no matter how much rain the gods deigned to throw at the bare ground. And without crops, there was no food. And without food…

The rider reclaimed his thoughts. It wasn't exactly as if he was actually old enough to have seen an eruption of the great mountain, though in his childhood he had been teased as some sort of curse, for being born in the very year that the ash stopped coming. The rider smiled at that. "The harbingers of death" they'd call him, and all boys born the year the Dark Lords fell. But that was before, when Old Matilda would let him out into the village with the peasant boys.

There was a slight disturbance in the prickly hedgerows as two more figures immerged. The rider felt for them, crawling around in those bushes for more than an instant would require a suit of mail, a suit they obviously didn't possess. One of them cursed, shaking a bleeding hand at the other. Both held muskets, long and menacing, matches lit and drawn back so they wouldn't touch the powder, but could do so at an instant.

"Awright, hold it right there." One of the two figures chewed. Of course he chewed those words, and considering that even he himself couldn't understand them, he then decided to spit out the tobacco he'd been trying to process.

The rider groaned and sat up in the saddle, giving his horse's halter a slight yank to get the stupid thing to stop. However, this was not, in fact, the signal for a stop. Considering that the rider was right-handed and that his left hand was rather slow to respond to his command, he'd jerked harder on the right side of the reins, so his horse was actually receiving a rather urgent message to turn right.

The nag plodded to the right. Nothing about that horse was urgent.

"I told you to stop," the man on the road said, his tone slightly more menacing. He was strong of build, with concealed muscles bulging beneath a heavy leather vest, pure torture during the hot summer day. He cradled his musket and burning matchlock like a baby, leaning slightly to the left side of his hulking form. His boots seemed new, far too expensive for someone of his ilk, and as the rider watched his mouth continue to chew absent –mindedly on thin air, he felt a pang of fear run up his backside.

"Sorry about that I was just… oh bugger," the rider muttered wrenching the horse's head back towards the front direction. The beast seemed to short-circuit for a moment, gave a prolonged fart and finally hobbled itself back on course. The rider sighed once more. It seemed that every time he turned his head to look at, say, a particularly gnarled tree, the horse decided it was time to turn around and run into that tree.

"Excuse me?" the hulking man said, taking a step closer. His companion had now forgotten about fumbling around on the side of the road and pulled himself closer, leveling his matchlock at the rider. This one was thinner, lanky, a man of all bones and nothing else. Whose limbs seemed to move on their own accord, and who fumbled with his weapon like it was made of nails.

"Just… the horse… that's all, they have a mind of their own." The rider replied, his Adam's apple bobbing furiously.

"Is that so…?" the hulking man said, making a slight motion with his weapon.

"Yes, course they do, only way they could… you know, walk and things…" The rider knew he was rambling. It happened often. When he forgot to pay his debts, for instance.

"Shut up!" The big man thundered, catching the rider off guard, "Now I want you to get off the horse, slowly… that's it, easy does it." The rider complied, stepping off the nag as slowly as he possibly could without killing himself.

He put his hands in the air, sighing as he waited for the moment when he would be picked clean. These men were probably just farmers, who after years of bad harvests and bad taxes had decided that it was better to relieve travelers of their possessions than to starve in the dirt.

"Search 'im Grimes," the big man called to his little companion.

The diminutive man sneered as he poked and prodded, rummaging about through the saddle bags, all the while, munching on an apple the rider had saved for later that day.

"So!" The big man proclaimed, striding up and down across the roadway like a lawyer ready to suck the debt out of a tax-dodging client, his matchlock held over his shoulder like a militiaman on guard. "Wot do we 'ave here?"

"A… farmer, don't you think. Spike?" the little man squeaked, infecting that rare, perfectly red apple with his raggedly shorn yellow teeth.

"No, to well fed for that, and who in these days owns a horse, even a nag like that, everyone I know's sold them off to pay the levy taxes. No… gotta be someone from the city then, someone worth somefing."

The rider grimaced under his floppy hat. Where would a farmer get guns anyway? They were rare enough as of yet. His father had purchased one recently, straight out of the forges of Isengard, though only the gods new why. They were noisy, inaccurate, and tended to blow up in the user's face at surprisingly regular intervals. And, unless someone was a particular friend of the White Wizard or bought in bulk, they were ludicrously expensive.

"Take off the hat." The big man commanded.

"What?" the rider dared reply.

"Oi said, take off the hat." This time, there was no protest and the rider swept off his hat immediately.

"Wot d'you think we'll do, Spike, boil'im in oil!? No, course not, he's worth moren' that, you always knew Spike, you always knew! We's gonna get rich!" The little man cackled manically.

But Spike didn't seem to answer. He was, rather creepily, it seemed, staring at the rider, "No," he said, his lips seeming to move on their own accord, "Let him go."

"Let 'im go!?" the little man screeched, "Wot are you mad!? I thought we agreed on this!"

Suddenly, Spike turned on the little man, his hulking form nearly blocking out the sun, his matchlock prodding his companion's chest menacingly, "Who gives the orders around here, me… or you."

"Y-you spike, always y-you," the little man stuttered, before slinking away into the bushes, his matchlock making a strangely hollow wooden sound as it bashed against the tangles of thorns. The big man, acting as if in a trance, didn't even notice the barbs.


"Alethorn! It is you!" A rough voice exclaimed across the creaking planks of the local bar.

"How could I ever miss this place?" the rider, Alethorn, called back.

"I can name a few reasons," the rough voice chuckeled.

"Always good to see you, Stendarr," Alethorn said, trotting over to the "bar", rather a large plank seated on a couple of well-worn barrels, a grin the size of a dwarve's beard stitched to his road-weary face.

"And you too, lad. Looks like you've had a rough journey," Stendarr said, pouring a mug of the Green Giant's Best Ale.

"I was robbed," Alethorn admitted.

"Hard not to be in these days. Should've carried more than that pitiful excuse for a blade," the big orc sniffed, glancing down at the chipped and rusted sword stuck in Alethorn's belt.

"Cheapest in Morgoth square… late at night, wanted to get home…"

"Wanted to commit suicide, that is," Stendarr inhaled again, and his unfortunate companion felt the monumental tug of a man whose nostril's rivaled the largest fire-drake's maw for size.

"It's good to be home."

"Speaking of which," the massively muscled bartender commented, "have you been to see your father yet?"

"First thing on my list," Alethorn lied, taking a swig of the truly excellent brew, "doorman said he was away though, hunting deer or somewhat something."

The great suck of air rose again, sending little ripples scurrying for cover within the half-drained pint. Alethorn could swear that every dust mite in deserted interior of the Green Giant Inn and Alehouse had just broken at least one limb.

"Come on Alex, me lad! Andrei doesn't hunt anymore! Besides, there's no game to be found within a hundred miles these days," the tavern keeper sighed, releasing the thousands of unfortunate critters from their painful suspension, "He really wants to see you."

"Uh-huh," Alex said, his voice low.

"It was a misunderstanding, Alex. He meant nothing by it, just…"

"I don't want to talk about it." Suddenly, there was a chill. Alex whipped around, searching for the source of the draft, but there was nothing to be found. It was in the mid-90's out, unbearably hot, so why would he be feeling cold?

"And that's your last one!" Stendarr bellowed. Alex stared, wide-eyed, at the figure seated in the corner of the room. It was unbelievable. Even with patchwork job of thatching that left threads of roof dangling down into the interior and the murky light created by an innkeeper who didn't dare to light a fire on such a sweltering day, the man must've been bloody invisible to be that unseen. It was like he'd sank into the shadows. It was like… it was like…

"I had no idea this was a dry town," the shadow spoke, the words rising from the his dark cocoon and floating up to the rafters, where they seemed to explode into a hundred tiny fragments and reverberate with a strange eco that could in no way be created by one man's low whisper.

Stendarr threw up his massive paws, flustered. There was obviously no moving this man.

"W-who are you?" Alex stuttered, the shiver creeping down from his neck across his spine, wracking his whole body with slight convulsions.

"I am a man who has his secrets, Alethorn of Sarabad, though Alethorn Garadvas would be more appropriate, as you are no more of this place than I am."

Alex gaped, his jaw seemingly unwilling to scrape itself off the floor. There was a flash of white from the depths of shadows, and Alex took it as the creature, whatever it was, smiling.

"How do you…" Alex started.

"Know your name? Lucky guess, I suppose," another flash of light. It must've been terribly amused.

"Awright, mate, that's enough of you, clear out, you've had it for today," Stendarr said, still obviously shaken.

"Yes, I suppose you're right," the creature said, its silken tongue slithering its way to its intended targets, "I do feel a bit… tipsy…" Another sly grin crept across the canvas of darkness.

With that, it stood, the shadows rolling back into their rightful place behind him- yes, it was a he, a man-shaped creature wreathed in a heavy cloak that seemed to pick up a trickling breeze unknown to the living. Its face was obscured, save for the occasional bright flash when it found something funny, and another two pinpricks of white that seemed to be its eyes.

"Been meaning the fix that door," Stendarr commented at the last fell creak of the man's departure, his voice far too loud for the surrounding company, his vocal cords seeming to have a bit of a shiver.

"Right," Alex said, shoving the thought of the man in black out of his mind with a final parting shudder.