Prelude................................Lady Blaze

"The rain doth wash away many things

Within deep winter, vibrant spring"



Lone travellers in need of palatable victuals and sound rest did not usually frequent the Wolf's Den. Kell's mountains were not hospitable to those who dared traverse them without at least one other partner. Those who did manage to survive this far over the craggy peaks by themselves were a rare lot indeed. And if you happened to be out in the wilderness needing a place to stay for the night, sometimes it was better to brave the howling wind and stinging snow, than to pound upon the Den's heavy oaken door. They say the innkeeper takes great pleasure in playing nasty tricks on his guests. They say he hires mercenaries to terrorize random bodies deep in slumber, and poisons every tenth cup to pass over the scarred bar.

“Every tenth cup,” Traven exclaimed in between yawns. “Does he really count them?”

“Perhaps,” I said, grinning.

“What's the innkeeper's name?” I absently rumpled his dark mop as I thought up a name. “Garlum.” He immediately sat up and protested, “Aww, Mai, that's not mean enough. He sounds frightfully mean.”

“Oh, but he was more mean-spirited than deep down evil. Someone like him doesn't quite deserve a truly vile name,” I reasoned. “Alright,” he sighed, lying back on the quilt.

“Shall I go on?” “Yes, please.”

Garlum delighted in raising the price of the Den's food and drink every few months. Not by much, just a few pence here, a silver there. There was nothing his customers could do, as his inn was the only one in between the foothills of Kell and Broug's Landing, which was far off to the east, almost out of the mountains.

Yes, those who set foot into the Wolf's Den were either ignorant of the inn's reputation, very very sure of their skill with a chosen weapon, or too exhausted to care . . .











-- I don't even know if I'll finish this story. It's only half a dozen pages long so far, and everything's kind disjointed and made of excerpts the way I'm writing it - in sequential order, though; that's just how it came out, that style. But it's this strange thing that got birthed from half remembered dreams.

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