Crodas paused in folding the canvas freight covers for his buckboard and squinted off into the distance. He could see the storm clouds rolling in from the East. The horses were already getting a little jumpy. It wouldn’t be a pleasant journey for anyone undertaking the Handelsbourg run, not if they were leaving today. But he was in a fortunate situation. He had promised no one anything. This last bit of business had paid him well enough so that he could take a room and stable his team at the Crow and Eagle for a day or two until the weather blew over. And that what he decided to do.

As he finished tying everything down the hopped back up on the wagon, the teamster reflected on his circumstance. When a man entered their 40’s, it was the beginning of the slow descent into middle age. At 48, Crodas Alvendahl was fast approaching the last marker on that path, the trace of Elven blood in his roots doing nothing to aid him there. And really, what did he have to show for it? A wagon, four horses, a small flat he never slept in on the outskirts of Garvolby, and not much else. “It was a few coppers short of a coin given his birthright,” he grimaced inwardly, scratching his rapidly graying beard. He snapped the reins urging the team into motion. He wanted to be inside when it started pouring.

“I’ll take a bowl of beef stew, some bread, fresh if you have it, and a refill of this tankard,” he told the barmaid Ambri when she glided up to his table a short while later. The horses were stalled and fed, his buckboard was in the large shelter the trade town had purposely built to house such vehicles, being on the edge of the Krastuval Peaks as it was, and he had secured himself a bed in a four man dormitory.

He glanced around the establishment from the periphery of the common room as he slowly ate. He wasn’t the only caravan man who had decided to wait out the weather. He could see a few that he knew dotting the tables. Some huddled together in camaraderie, the general hubbub of conversation spiked with occasional laughter rising from those places. Others, like himself, quietly kept their own counsel. But they were not the only ones present. The locals had also found a perch within. They were easily enough spotted. The sashes they wore to reflect the station they held among their own gave them away. And then there was the odd patron that didn’t fit either group. Dressed in a finer quality of clothing than those of his ilk but foreign nonetheless, he suspected that they were last in line to get a room at the Blue Pearl down the road and had ended up here instead. A few had adapted to their predicament, but most looked decidedly uncomfortable having to mingle with the likes he dealt with every day. He shook his head. “In some ways, I’m better off for it,” he mused swabbing up the last of the stew with a piece of bread.

“There is someone who would re-fill that tankard a third time, but only if you were to drink it with him,” a voice spoke from his right. The Elf-blood glanced over and saw a thin faced man with dark hair dressed similarly to himself but wearing a golden sash that marked him as a local merchant.

“You mistake me, friend,” Crodas retorted. “My trade is not the one you think it is.”

“Oh, I assure you, Alvendahl, no mistake has been made,” the stranger replied tossing a clinking pouch on the table. “That is yours just for taking a walk to the private dining room behind the curtain. There is more if you listen. At no point will anyone ask you to remove any clothing or other such actions,” he then added with a hint of amusement.

The teamster fingered the leather on the table open and peered inside. Well, if they wanted to rob him, they certainly weren’t in it for the gold. There was over half of what he was carrying on him in there. He leaned back and fixed the newcomer with a analytical gaze, then drained the last of his ale. “If he was going to get it filled anyway, it may as well be empty,” he figured. He nodded to the other and picked up the pouch. “I’ll see your man.” As the pair weaved their way through the crowded common room, a couple of his road brethren caught his eye with inquiring looks, to which an equally ignorant shrug was his only reply.

In all of his years on the road, the 48 year old had never been behind the curtain at the Crow and Eagle. To be certain, he had dealt with his share of questionable individuals. When you moved goods from one place to the next, they couldn’t be avoided. As the man who had paid him turned the lever on the door, he suspected he’d be facing the same here. Still, as far as experiences went, technically, this was a new one. He found the chamber more functional than opulent. It was kind of disappointing for all of the mystery surrounding it. The furnishings were better than those in the main room, but only slightly. An anonymous tapestry of a harbor somewhere hung on the wall. It was as if Lao, the inn’s proprietor, felt he had to have a room like this but didn’t want to part with enough gold to inspire someone to use it more than once.

Two others were already in the room when he was lead in. The first was a bald, chiseled man hard of muscle and of facial lines with narrow eyes. His grey sash marked him as a blade for hire. Like the one who had approached him, and himself for that matter, he too had a long blade at his hip. But his expression spoke of neutrality, not impending violence. He knew the type, he’d spent over two decades fighting alongside ones such as these. It had been the only life open to him at the time. The teamster nodded slightly in greeting and turned to take in the second individual, likely the one who wanted to speak with him, sitting at the far end of the long table.

He seemed older than the other two, who he estimated were some 10 to 15 years younger than he. This one, unless he missed his guess was approaching 60. He was already in the dusk of his lifetime whereas Crodas could still see the sun high in the sky of his. His gold sash marked him as the first, but unlike the other, the clothes he wore had a somewhat better quality to them, though they remained understated. Still there was little doubt by his demeanor that the clean shaven man with short silver hair was the one in charge.

“Sit, sit,” he gestured. “Crodas Alvendahl is it?” He probed as an opening.

He glanced to either side of him at the other two armed men then studied the last briefly before accepting his invitation. “I believe you were already aware of my name before I entered this room, were you not?”

“Alas, you have caught me in a lie good sir, I did,” he admitted. “I’ll endeavour not to do so again.”

“Lie?” he asked, “or let me catch you doing it?”

“Both, Master Alvendahl,” he chuckled, “both.”

“What should I call you then?” the older man queried.

“Jurna, my good man. Jurna will do,” he replied easily. “We did promise a full cup for your time and an additional pouch for your company. Maldur, if you will,” he waved to the other gold sashed man. “We have wine here if you’d like to try it, a good vintage from Waelloun,” he offered pouring himself a goblet as a second pouch was tossed on the table in front of him. “But if you prefer ale we can fetch some.”

“I’ll stick with the latter, thanks,” Alvendahl demurred still unsure of his footing within the room. The man called Maldur then nodded and turned to leave. “Order some of the salted bread they serve here as well, the ones with the meat in them.” A second nod of acknowledgement confirmed his had heard the other and he made his exit. The remaining merchant turned back to wiry half-breed. “So you are correct. We are well aware of who you are Crodas. We know of your story.”

“Yes, it seems as if you do,” he sparred verbally waiting to hear the reason for his presence.

“But we would like to hear you tell it,” he finished with a smile.

“I thought it was you who was to do the talking here,” he countered.

“I did promise you that I would not lie,” he reminded him with a flash of mirth in his eyes as the door opened and Maldur returned with a full tankard of ale. “And to my credit, I have not. He did.”

“Mead,” the dark haired man quietly noted sharing the first’s amusement. “An apology if you will.” Turning, he then informed his superior, “The bread will be a few minutes, Jurna.”

“Accepted,” Crodas returned once more fixing his opposite with a studious stare. “Very well then. You wish to be entertained with tales best left forgotten. You are paying for it, so why not? Where would you like me to start?”

“How about when you first found out about your birthright,” Jurna suggested.

“I first found out about it when I was 11,” he began, “from my mother. We lived in Istwania, as I’m sure you are aware. When the man I thought to be my father passed away in a fishing accident we journeyed to the capital Rogurvaar so we could find work. We had been in the city but three weeks. That’s when I first saw him.” He paused to take a drink of the beverage he had been given. “The second son of King Bethelryn IV, Falkurn. He rode right by us with his retinue and some hounds, likely on his way out for a hunt. I had no idea that he held any significance to me at the time. I didn’t even know who he was. I just thought he was some well dressed fop who had far more than he needed and wasn’t afraid to let others know about it.”

The teamster pulled out his pipe then and glanced towards the older man for his reaction. Upon receiving an idle wave of approval, he produced his pouch and proceeded to fill the bowl. “‘I need to tell you something about that man and me when we get back to the flat Crodas,’ she said at the time. I was puzzled as to how there could have been a ‘that man and me’ with her. He was a noble, she was a fishwife, and I had an 11 year old’s naivity. But she explained it once we were behind closed doors. About the war between Istwania and the Thurvor Republic, about how she used to live in the latter, about how some soldiers of the former had gotten trapped behind enemy lines, and about how she had given shelter to one of them while her husband was off fighting. She bade me to hold my tongue, not to tell my father, or at least the one whom I believed to be that. And while I did as she asked, I didn’t see her the same way after that. I was 11 after all. I had a lot to learn about life.”

Maldur pulled a candle out of the wall sconce and offered it to him. Alvendahl nodded his thanks and lit his pipe before dripping a bit of wax on the table and planting the cylinder upon it. “It took a few summers of seasoning before I learned about emotions, loneliness, and life in wartime, but by that time she was gone. But before she passed she did leave for me a letter, a letter than proved what she said all those years ago was not a lie. It was apparently written in Falkurn’s own hand. I couldn’t really say for certain as I had never seen anything else written by him, but it did bear his seal. In it he had pledged a better life for my mother and the child she bore him once that child came of age. All they needed to do was present this letter to the Steward at his estate in Moradrang and he would see that the child was acknowledged and her needs seen to.” Crodas drank then inhaled on his pipe once more before continuing.

“As I mentioned, by the time I came of age, my mother lay beneath a small stone on a plot I could barely pay for. I took what coin I had at the time and journeyed to the Mora Vale. By the time I arrived, the weather was beginning to turn cold. The prince was not there; rather he was still in the capital. Being the fool that I was at the time, I had not bothered to find that out before leaving. The Steward took pity on me and set me to work as a stable boy. It was enough to earn me room and board over the winter. I never ate at their table but I practiced swords and bows with his two sons in what spare time I had. But still Falkurn never showed, not even in the spring. By that time war had come once more and I thought, ‘Well, it was how my mother met him, why not me?’ So I signed up to fight in it.”

“I turned out to be pretty good at it. There was a time when I commanded 50 men. Over the years I saw him a few times, tried to move myself into his command more than once. Each time however, I was rebuffed. At first I thought it happenstance, but as the reasons for these repeated refusals became less and less credible I came to an understanding of what was taking place. Whatever else I might have accomplished on the battlefield, the only thing that concerned the Prince was this letter I had shown his staff at Moradrang all those years ago which they apparently had told him of. A few roundabout inquiries all but confirmed my suspicions. Despite his promises, despite everything I’d gone through to put myself next to him, despite my worth at war, Falkurn had no intention of acknowledging my presence much less my birthright.”