Year 350 after the War of the Gods, Late Autumn

Dunvegen, Riverlands

As they reached Dunvegen before the fall of night, it betrayed nothing of the fate that had befallen Moore just hours before. Peaceful it lay atop a hill, only one road leading up towards small, stout houses, rather hills than real buildings, built from stacked stone, with small windows and thatched roofs or even grown over with grass and moss. They slowed down their horses. In front of them, a boy drove a small flock of sheep through a gate in the layered stone wall, down from the pasture and towards the village. They passed him and he gawked at them with wide eyes. A sheep bleated. The cold autumn wind carried smoke, the smell of fire and voices down the hill. Music and laughter; and as they came closer, the smell of food, of fat dripping into the fire, of fresh bread, of roasted onions and apples and garlic, of cider and berries. “Who’s up first!”, one girl shouted to another and began to run up the road, leaving the other alone with the geese. “Hey! Come back! I’m gonna tell mum!”, she called after her sister. That one only laughed. From the thicket between alders and hazel and a curtain of orange and yellow and brown leaves and with a lot of rustling stumbled two young men in fine clothing and looked up at Sara and Áed, surprised - caught out - and a little drunk. Áed greeted them with a wave. Then one of them laughed and pulled the other along towards the village. “Come on! We’re gonna miss everything!”

Áed remembered Moore, the screams, the blood, the dead. It was only a couple hours riding– It was a different world. The people celebrated. And Áed didn’t know how the reconcile both these realities.

“I grew up here”, Sara broke the silence, with just a hint of ease in her voice. She pointed towards one of the small hills with the small windows on the outskirts of the village, behind it a small fence, empty and dilapidated. “You see that farm back there? That one belonged to my parents. I grew up there between chickens and sheep. Those two running up over there” - she meant the two young men - “are Ciarán and Éanán– Don’t know whether they recognized me. My mother had thought Ciarán a good match for me back then. Well, I don’t think that would have worked out particularly well. But nice to see that those two aren’t butting heads anymore.”

Why she had left all that behind to join the Militia, Áed didn’t want to ask. Everyone had their reasons. “Do you still know many people here? Anyone you want to warn? Is that why we’re here?”, he asked instead.

“I haven’t been here for some years. I don’t even know who still lives here. Old Odhrán, maybe. Nothing’s gonna kill him; he’ll probably even outlive me. We used to listen to his stories back as wee children.”

At the top of the hill, on an open village square, there was a fireplace with glowing coals and a grate above it, and the cook was joking with an older man before hurriedly turning over a few skewers. There were people everywhere and they laughed and danced and ate and drank and they made merry and Áed wished he could be caught up in it all. The music interwove with the conversations and laughter and a fiddle traded off with voices, while a drum kept a steady beat and a flute hopped back and forth between them. They dismounted and led their horses through the crowd, but even so they still attracted a lot of attention. Some pointed at them - or at Sara? - and then began to talk to each other more quietly. “We’ll go straight to Odhrán”, Sara decided and left no room for argument.

One of the two young men they had met on the street was forced to listen to a long tirade - presumably from his parents - here, away from the crowd. Áed didn’t listen too closely, but he caught the most important points. “What were you thinking?” and “We’ve all been waiting for you!” and “Do you know how this looks?” Other members of the community discreetly moved away when they too realised what was happening.

“By the saints! Sárait?”, a voice slurred off to the side. Sara didn’t look at the man. “You got to be mistaking me for someone else.” He followed them. “No. No! It is you!” He laughed. “What brings you back to us?”

“Get lost! I don’t know who you’re mistaking me for– I don’t give a shit! Gread leat!”, she hissed at the stranger.

“Fucking bollocks– Just wanted to say hello”, he muttered to himself as he staggered back to the festivities.

Áed looked at Sara and raised an eyebrow. To his wordless question she responded: “I have absolutely no nerve right now for people who think they knew me as a wee child. Less so when they’re drunk.” When the stranger was finally gone, she pointed to a building that seemed quite large for the village. It even had stables. “Over there. Let’s hope he’s still alive.”

They led the horses to the stable and instructed the stable boy to treat them well - They had saved them from really fucked-up situations twice over now. Then they went back to the front door, above which hung a golden horseshoe. Sara pushed open the door and let Áed go first.

Four steps lead them down into a twilight tap room; only little light poured through the small windows, too little for the large room, and even the candles with their tamed flames were not enough to dispel the gloom completely. And so it seemed like night had already fallen despite the broad light of day outside. What Áed noticed to his surprise was how clean the place was: no smell of beer in the air, no sticky stains on the floor, the tables wiped clean, nobody lying around unconscious. Tables, chairs and benches were all neatly arranged and women hurried back and forth between them to fulfil the guests’ wishes. To the right of the entrance stood a simple counter; a plank over stone, piled like the walls around the fields outside. Behind it at the wall were shelves with various bottles and above it a raven’s beak. And in between, at the counter, there stood a bear of a man. Áed reached maybe up to his chest and was probably only half as broad. His grey hair was tied back in a ponytail and his face adorned by a bushy white beard. As they entered he was just laughing at a joke a girl had made. Sara headed straight for the bar, stood before the giant as if he was the stable boy from before, leaned on the polished counter and looked at him seriously. “Odhrán, we have to talk.”

Puzzled, he looked at her. “Sara… Where did you leave your arm?”

She didn’t seem to have an answer ready for that. For a long moment they just stared at each other. Until the corner of the man's mouth began to twitch and it finally burst out of him. He laughed so loudly that some of the guests looked over at him in surprise. Apparently the girl at the counter didn’t understand what was happening any more than Áed did. And it seemed Sara was weighing the options of shouting at the giant, slapping him or storming back out through the door. “What on Indeera's sacred flame is this fucking bollocks? I come round here after years and you make me think you've gone half-witted in your old age?”

The giant wiped the tears from his eyes. When he was finally able to breathe calmly again and with a bright red head, he replied: “Lassie, let me have some fun. Yes, it’s been some years. It’s nice to have you back! Come on, let’s give you a proper welcome.” He came out from behind the bar.

“Right might be the absolute worst time for jokes”, Sara replied sullenly.

“Oh come on”, he dropped to one knee and held his arms open wide. “I’ve missed you.”

“If you promise me to cut the bullshit…”

“I promise, Sara.”

At first she hesitated, but then closed the distance to him and wrapped her arm around him and he hugged her tightly. “You could have written to me more often, you know? I was worried. And you’re pale, too.” Then he looked over to Áed and seemed far less pleased than before. “And I see you’re still hanging around with the Emperor’s bloody bastards. Please don’t tell me–”

“What the–”, Áed began. How dare that old sod! Sara stopped him.

“Calm down you two. Odhrán, he is a deserter. Just as me. That’s why we’re here.”

The giant still eyed Áed suspiciously as he stood up. “Damn. All right. That doesn't mean I trust him. What's going on? What finally brings you back to me after such a long time?” He went behind the bar and started tapping beers. “We should at least drink together. Who knows how much longer I’ll be here.”

“Stop talking rubbish”, Sara reprimanded him. “But I’m serious: we need to talk. Do we have some privacy in the kitchen?” And with that, the gravity of the situation seemed to finally get through to him.

“Zofia, would you take over the bar for me?” The girl nodded in response. Then they went back into the kitchen. A small room, an open fire, a pot above it and a table on the opposite wall. It smelt of fire and smoke and stew. “Caelan, get out. I have to talk with these two.”

The cook put down his knife. “Then you better handle the stew. I don’t want my reputation to suffer from this.”

“Yes, yes, allright. Get out of here.” Odhrán nodded towards the door and Caelan went outside. “Good, and now you two tell me why you look as if the earth is about to open up at any moment and drag us all down to the hells.”

Sara took the initiative and Odhrán drew a sip from his jug. “Odhrán, this is Áed. We were stationed together on the frontier. Áed, this is Odhrán, the Giant of Kynvell.”

“I should have never told you that story. Please let that name die already. I’m Odhrán the landlord. Nothing more and nothing less”, he replied.

Áed nodded to him. Though he didn’t know the name. Maybe somebody the folk here out west knew. “We’re here, because we have to evacuate the village”, Áed explained.

“We’re here, because I wanted to warn Odhrán”, Sara corrected him.

Odhrán raised both hands to stop them. “Wait, wait, wait. Please start from the beginning. You still haven't explained anything to me.”

And so they explained. Told of the day when Cruidín had fallen and hell had broken loose on them. Of their escape, their capture and their escape again. He listened to them. Silently. Nodded. Drank. Listened to them talk about Moore, where probably no one was alive anymore. And his face didn’t budge. When they finished, he exhaled heavily. “The gods won’t even let me have my peace in my twilight years.”

“Saints damn it, Odhrán! Not the time for jokes! Everything out there is going to the dogs. You have to get away from here. All of you. You have to convince them. People will listen to you. And if not– Then you at least”, she pleaded with him.

Áed couldn’t read anything in his expression. Didn’t he have anything to say about it, damn it? “If you can move the people like Sara says–”, Áed tried to draw a response from him. Some kind of reaction. Like made of stone Odhrán had sat there until he interrupted Áed. Which didn’t exactly help to raise Áed’s opinion of him either.

“If that is true, then you'd better pray that the gods have mercy on us. It's only a little over a day from here to Moore.” Deep wrinkles furrowed his brow. “You couldn't have just visited me like that, could you?”

“That’s all?”, it burst from Áed before he could stop himself. “That is everything you have to say about it?”

Odhrán looked at him contemptuously. “Lad, at least give me a moment. I can’t just go about shouting for people to leave their homes. We’re going to the Túath; they should hear your story.”

“You got too much faith. Who is it? Still the same?”, Sara said to the giant.

“Well, what do you think?”, he replied. She snorted.