RP Session 1: "A Hart's Errand"

Captain Oeniel looked between the two men, her expression a mask of practised neutrality. "My lords, as the knight says my remit is to keep Roesone's waters and this ports against invasion. My discretion to step beyond that is limited, especially when your prisoner has described a craft that attacked this city still in Roesone's waters."

"If you can obtain orders from Proudglaive - and I am certain you can if your oath is of importance to the crown - then I can serve you in whatever way my commanders instruct. Otherwise I can spare you ten of my best marines until sundown. Should you flush out more foes then it will undoubtedly fall within my duty to lead a counter-attack, though I will be diverting men to ensuring that ship is indeed departing our waters. Were there a greater force in the city, then I cannot think they would stand idle while you held their fellows on the docks."

She cast her eyes down respectfully - though her commission suggested that Oeniel must herself be the scion of some minor line, it was clear that refusing her betters was an uncomfortable situation. "You can, of course, avail yourself of the protection of the barracks for as long as you need."

It took less than an hour for the marines to be assembled and disguised as best the supplies of Salien and his escort would allow, especially those tattered and bloodied by the mornings desperate melee, others in uniform pretending a guard column to make up the numbers. On horseback they rode out of the barracks bound north not long after Haelyn's noble radiance had reached far beyond the whispering canopies of the Erebannien.

Perhaps a quarter of an hour later the real band of travellers left, endeavouring a far lower profile. They wore the sailors garb of the Royal Marines over their own finery, and led their steeds by the reigns. They travelled in twos and threes, never more than a shout apart, but stopping at stalls to leapfrog ahead of one another, in an effort to appear separate.

Above them, Tovrunn stalked the port's rooves in the guise of a sleek black cat, lean and glossy. It was said that the Baroness Marlae Roesone could see through the eyes of her cats, and the animals were protected by law so a great many felines roamed with arrogant impunity through the streets of every Roesonian town. One more would afford no notice at all.

Abbadiel was not a large city - it was scarcely worth of the name - and the port's "walls" were little more than a half dozen fortified gatehouses linked by a ditch of spongy earth and brackish water, just wide enough to slow a man down. As a result it took them less than a half hour, even at a meandering pace, to all exit the city. In that time they were able to narrowly evade no less than two patrols of brutish looking men, the first disguised as a merchant and his guard and the second in the uniform of the city guard.

The first were given away by their nervous watchfulness, but only Tovrunn drawing close enough to overhear their conversation revealed the second group. Even then she was scarcely able to scamper back to the rooftops and give Breuddwyd a breathless warning, whereupon the sidhe had mere moments to redirect the dispirit parties of nobles without so much haste that they drew attention to themselves.

The guardsmen passed so close to Aeric and Breuddwyd as they pretended to examine the wares of a redsmith that they could smell the reek of daily-worn armour and hear the clink of mail and the grumbling of lowered voices. Only after they had gone did the young magician realise he wasn't breathing.

A glimpse at their inn of the night before showed a group of rough looking folk in the garb of commoners making a show of repairing damage that the building had not sported mere hours before. No less than forty men were about in the city, and that was just the number that crossed their path. Had any group been alerted there would have been no fighting. Flight would have been all that would save them from a meeting with the rider and a long walk through mist and shadows.

As the last of their party - Salien and Corson both in the full attire of Royal Marines on duty - left the eastern gate the shared sigh of relief each of the Roesonians breathed was almost palpable though they couldn't risk glancing back at one another. The ill-kept road ahead that snaked into the forest a mere mile or two away where inly logging camps offered an excuse to hide a large band, looked more like salvation than the first step of a long journey.

And yet though she could see nothing, Tovrunn couldn't shake the feeling that they were being followed. It was the feeling of eyes on here now and then, the occasional motion of something slipping into an alley or behind a cart that yielded nothing upon investigation. The fact that now and then the fur on her hackles rose unbidden despite the protection of the dizzying height of rooftops.

Once as she scampered across a busy avenue, Tovrunn even thought something snatched at her, but when she looked back no one was there, and she couldn't be certain it wasn't merely the unfamiliar sensation of a tail.

The party sped up as much as they dared without demanding attention from any who might be watching the gate. Though moving to a trot complicated things, Chwilen was well used to Breuddwyd working magic from the saddle. A glance around revealed no magic at work in the range of his spell to the sidhe's sharp eyes, and his entreaty garnered no response. Then again, if it were the wizard from the Prowl lurking just beyond the range of his spell the man had not appeared to speak their tongue when first they met.

With Abbadiel shrinking at their backs the party sped to a canter and closed ranks. Anyone seeing them now would take too long to mount up to present a threat. It was foes that might lie ahead and not those behind that were the greatest concern now.

Closing the mile or so distance an outcry did indeed come from the city just as the riders reached the forest's edge, but whether they were spotted or some other hapless person had fallen foul of the hidden brigands was unclear. It likely did not matter. As the emerald embrace and dappled shade of the Erebannien took them they were hidden and gone.

The woodland was a familiar ally. Home to Aeric and Breuddwyd, Lancaelad had spent time enough in its secret glades and to Tovrunn any woodland lay close to Erik (or Aeric as these southerners insisted) while Corson's order had called such lands home when once they rode the Southern Coast. Only Salien seemed on edge, his eyes flitting over the hidden recesses of the undergrowth.

It took some persuading, but Aeric knew the lands that he called home better than even the sidhe and he managed to lead the group down a rough looking logger's trail. Though the overgrown and muddy track looked at first to loop back to the coast it in fact proved an equivalent but far less trafficked route. Were there ambushers hidden on the main road they would never have thought to guard this path.

When eventually they returned to the main road to rejoin Lancaelad's servants (who confirmed a group of suspicious and watchful huntsmen on the road proper) the knight's pride had mended sufficiently that he'd had time to put himself into the shoes of his foes. Had his father Traese had held his share of commands in Lan's youth, and the young knight knew enough to try to anticipate what lay ahead. If he had a small army at his disposal, which their pursuers seemed to, then he'd certainly anticipate flight by the river or the woods.

Their pursuers likely did not know the nature of the entourage sent from Proudglaive, or the fight at the docks would not have been so evenly matched. That being the case they had not anticipated a druid of Erik nor a Sidhe native to these lands. The woods were their ally for now. But as word of their party's composition spread this would become the obvious route to any pursuer. An ambush was most likely as they left the woods, and those would only strengthen the longer they tarried.

As the knight pondered the sound of a muffled hoof-beats in the packed earth and the jangling of a wagon came from around the next bend in the trail. Hiding could be a fool's errand, they were so many and with horses, but making ready for battle risked tipping their hand when their disguises may yet hold.