Something unexpected

The winding road led down into the foothills, the going easier but more alarming as the ill made cart stressed the harness. The ill tended track wound directly through a dense cluster of silver oaks, their leaves starting to yellow as the summer came to a close. Looking forward to some shade the mules pulled even faster and and Hump had to trot to keep up with the ill tempered beasts. Hopefully the seep his father showed him was still running clear and he'd be able to refill his empty water skin when he reached it. And it would be nice to wash the acrid dust out of his mouth, maybe even take a nap in the cool shade.

As he approached the gully bottom where the seasonal stream bed lay the well worn side track made it obvious there where others here before him. Unhitching and using a few well placed branches to make sure the corn was still there when he got back he led the smelly pair down to see if there was enough for them to drink as well. Careful not to loose the path he pushed his way through the thick underbrush that had grown up around the water way.

First Steps...

Dearest Jody,

I know it's been longer than I first thought since I've written you but things have been a lot more...eventful than I first thought. I traveled to Brindol to sell the mules and left over corn like mama told me too but on the way things happened...

It was a crisp fall day and although a hint of the coming winter could be scented in the air the early afternoon sunlight was bright enough to make one squint. The road was more dust than gravel and constantly teased the young man's nose as he guided the compliant mules and their creaking cart of produce on their way. The lightly forested foothills where silent except for the irregular crunch of the ill made cart's wheels and the ever present hum of insects.

Hump Greenhand had traveled this path a half dozen times before with his father, taking the grain and any surplus livestock to the hamlet of Brindol, but never before on his own. The bright sunshine and understated beauty of the rolling foothills belied the evil that recently been taking it's tol on the area's inhabitants. Folks had gone missing, folks Hump and his family had known all their lives. Hump was here by himself, his father and brothers back at the stead with it's stout oaken doors and rammed earth walls. The other children, even those on the cusp of manhood safe with them.

No one would tell him why the old Wainwright place was a smoking ruin but in his mind's eye he could see his father's skin turn ashen under it's weather worn facade when he put his militia sword in his son's hand and bade him good luck on the journey to town. Lamp oil, salt and new seed was essential if the Greenhands where to make it through the desperate winter and replant their land come spring, so here he was with this stupid rickety cart and stinking mules going to Brindol with nothing covering him but a sword that had been sharpened and resharpened so many times it was barely thicker than the knife he used to cut the hogs.