These Old Bones

24-1

24

They rode for ten miles, or so, doubling back, heading in different directions, circling to ensure no-one had followed. After a while, Brorzjav saw the bulk of a broken down ruin of a fort, up ahead, it's only tower crumbling and listing to the side and the faint light of a fire within. With caution, he and Garuth approached hoping for the best, expecting the worst.

"You can come out." Some twenty feet from the broken gate of the fort, Brorzjav reined in his horse and gazed in to the small thicket of trees and bushes to the side.

A young man, wearing the colours of the Maraki city guard, stood and left the thicket, his bow readied, an arrow pointing at Brorzjav. Upon seeing the figure of Garuth upon the other horse, the man lowered the bow and jerked his head towards the fort, moving in silence ahead of Brorzjav and Garuth. The two dismounted and followed, leading their horses.

Within the courtyard of the fort, some dozen Maraki guards stood as Garuth and Brorzjav entered, each bowing as the two men passed to tie up their horses with the others in a rickety stable. Keeping their voices low, the guards took turns to greet Garuth as the archer headed back outside to carry on his watch.

Brorzjav recognised several of the guards. Ones he had fought alongside within the city. They nodded with respect to Brorzjav, taking his hand in turns. The others looked him up and down, keeping a respectful distance. He could see word of his bloodline had spread within this small grouping, heard the hushed whispers passing between the men and women that had chosen to believe the truth of the attack upon their city.

"Let's get one thing straight." Brorzjav moved into the centre of the group, catching the eye of each and every one in turn. "I'm no king. I'm no lord. I'm not here to bring your enemies to justice, nor to prove who did or didn't betray you. I'm here to find the two girls and that's it. If I happen to help you along the way, that's fair enough. I'm not your leader, Garuth is, but if I tell you to do something, you better beg the forgiveness of the Patrons if you don't listen."

To a one, the entire group dropped to bended knee, bowing their heads in silence. Brorzjav tried to run a hand through his hair, foiled by his lackadaisical braid, and frowned towards Garuth. The young man grinned, tapping one woman upon the shoulder and jerking his head towards a pile of packs beside the stable.

"They hear the words, but certain actions have proven different, My Lord." Garuth had a cheeky look in his eyes and Brorzjav thought he detected an element of mischief in Garuth's pronunciation of those last two words.

"Bloody idiots." Brorzjav muttered as Garuth led him to the side to meet up with the woman, now holding a heavy looking sack.

Garuth crouched down, untying the sack as the woman bowed to them both and returned to her place at the camp fire. Once Garuth untied the sack, he stood, inviting Brorzjav to see the contents. Raising an eyebrow, he dipped down and rummaged through, pulling out a tabard and staring at it, astonished.

"Many years ago, one of our Princes decided to honour all the great moments in our history. The wars, won and lost, the peoples conquered, our conquerors, enemies and allies." Garuth took the tabard, holding it up before Brorzjav. "He made replicas of armour from years long gone, pennants, tabards, all to the proper specifications, to line the walls of the Great Hall. Later Princes cared little and stored them away. Maraki remembers. Barely, but we do. We remember House Indūrzj and those great kings that protected us in the worst of times."

Brorzjav gazed at the tabard, white with a spread-eagle upon a yellow sun emblazoned upon it, and remembered the tales his father would tell of the days of kings, of their bloodline and what they had lost. His father also said they were better for the time of kings ending, too. He pulled out pieces of armour, good, strong steel, each with the spread-eagle carved into the surface. A helmet, the face plate resembling the beak of an eagle, with wings trailing backwards, each pinion carved into it with painstaking care. He took the tabard back from Garuth, took a long look, then crumpled it into a ball, stuffing everything back into the sack.