#troupe1

Emerging from the birthing canals of the mountains was hardly the deliverance Iskaldrik’s people had hoped for. The light they’d yearned for was blinding and flesh-scalding as it reflected off the hardened snow. The air here formed in heavy, violent bursts that split lips and knuckles. The land stretched on into an unending wasteland rarely punctuated by trees or the odd jut of volcanic rock. The caravans shambled through the Stygian badlands, feet falling heavier and stomachs growing louder with every wagon wheel’s rotation.

The night was lethally cold, so camp was made early before the sun could slip the leash on them. A cluster of camp fires spit high in the air, their smoke channels buffered by the shiplike crag the Witchers had found refuge in. The interim king squirmed in its shadow. At least on the plains we’d be able to see danger coming. Worries soon to be surrendered to exhaustion. Ormir attempted to warm himself by a fire, fighting to undo the cold, even as it gorged on the remaining sensation in his extremities. The mead, what little they had left of it, was a necessary balm for the pain. He drank deep, and lowered his cup to find that a flickering figure had manifested on the other side of the flames. Beneath its layers, light struck upon armor of a make Ormir did not recognize.

Alarms immediately bellowed between his ears. An assassin? After a hair of thought, he shrugged the foolish notion off. Every second before the badlands would have provided an easier mark. He searched for the Guild’s heron brand on the stranger’s blade, but stopped short as he didn’t find a weapon to search on. An odd, conspicuous kind of mercenary?

The Raven-feeder closed the distance to investigate further. His fingers brushed the reassurance of his hatchets nestled at either hip. “You’re a long way from home, are you not?” Ormir started, congenially. Just another lost soul sharing purgatory. “You must have earned the wrath of a wicked god to have been sucked into all this.”

Rarely does Valdís venture as far inland as Feronia, the region too far from the ocean she is familiar with to be comfortable. There is no denying the temptation to explore the Northern coast of the Wildlands, but her fleet has yet to reach that far. It’s a rarity for Valdís to take a Standing Stone deeper into Lysara, but she can’t help the curiosity. She knows the refugees and their welcoming party gather at the edges of the odd magical bubble, and she wants to know more. Not enough to venture too close to the barrier, though, not when she is sure there are plenty of eyes on them. Instead, she finds herself in Feronia’s pub, sitting at the corner of the bar as her eyes lazily flicker through the crowds, trying to gather anything of note. Deep in her musings as she is, she doesn’t react much when a pretty stranger sits next to her, only raising a brow in amusement at the entrance. 

“Let me guess, you saw me across the room and liked my vibes?” She asks, an amused smirk on her lips as she raises her ale to her lips. “Or did I fail a vibecheck, and now we are honor bound to duke it out?

The livery reeked with horse manure and mold. Everything steamed in the pre-dawn chill; the wet hay, the wafts of breath, even the hackles of the lanky, 17-hand workhorse that quivered at the mere suggestion of a saddle. Clearly, these horses didn’t see outside of the stables much. But Ormir was itching for a change of scenery, if only a brief one. Just to find some perspective among the thinning trees. No one knew. He just had to be efficient, had to make it back before anyone asked after him.

Only, he hadn’t dressed his own horse in nearly two decades, not since his steed trampled gore into Astorian soil. Most of the process came back as long-drilled muscle memory, at least until the second-guessing began to snowball over his judgment. He fumbled over his gloves by candlelight, and strained his eyes against the dark until his brow ached from held tension. Even the horse grew impatient, tossing its mane and scraping leaden hooves into the dirt. Ormir murmured softly to the beast, stroking his great neck to quiet him. 

He’d just about set things right, to his best approximation, when he heard the soft crush of dirt underfoot. Shit. He turned, bracing for questioning. A familiar figure cut through the dark, and the dread faded to relief and awe. “My Jarl,” Pleasant surprise read in his voice. He knew Freydis well enough to trust she wouldn’t spill, at least he was almost certain… Reaching discreetly behind his back, Ormir tugged a tie loose from the undercarriage. A small thing, hardly notable to the untrained eye, but he trusted that she would find it. A smile lifted his features. “By the gods, I’m glad to see you’ve made it.” 

“Be my second pair of eyes, would you?” Ormir huffed, stepping aside to allow space for her astride the hulking animal. He massaged some feeling back into his cold-numbed fingers through the gloves. “It would be some irony to have gone this far just to die by forgetting how to tie a saddle properly.” The king-killer, breaking his own neck taking a tumble from his own high horse. No doubt, the gods would lick the plate.

The Taravallan maps he’d studied burned behind his eyes when he closed them, down to the numbered peaks of the Highlands and the small inconsistencies in the maker’s fontwork. They would need to move the pieces soon, before someone else decided to jostle the board. Iskalrdik’s prideful were corralled here like animals, bleating and fighting to be fed through the slaughter-doors. They were butting up against the edge of the world, and would soon find it if they didn't change course.

Their meal tonight was a ‘stew’ that consisted mainly of white sinew and tubers bobbing in a pale, watery broth. It had been ladled out sloppily by a Nornwatch man equally as stringy, pale and mirthless. Clearly, the imposition of refugees had worn their few resources ragged. When dropped from a spoon, the brine was translucent and nearly odorless. Just like ma used to make, Ormir half-joked bitterly to himself. The Huscarl had grown accustomed to the droning of his own stomach, and his appetite did not move him as it should’ve. Starving wouldn’t do them any favors, he was well aware, but insisting something through the tangled knots stress had made of his stomach would only heighten the discomfort. He craved a glimpse of home. A palliative. Without lifting a bite, he rose from his seat and went to go find it.

Just to see her breathed some small lightness back into him. Ormir greeted the princess with a curt bend. A faint malaise followed the gesture, the same that touched each reliquary habit born in Yggrasdildal’s High Hall with an aftertaste of grief.

“Have you eaten?” Ormir asked, though he’d already set the bowl before her and was moving to take up a seat opposite. A single shoulder shrugged. “It’s mostly gristle, but it’s warming.” No use in sugar-coating the waxy film that already stained their teeth. “Well- cooling quickly.”