After leaving the watch post, they rode northwest to the Dancing Mare Inn, within the Royal District of town. It was getting on toward late afternoon and the inn was likely starting to fill up with men and women who had just completed a hard day’s work and travelers looking to bed down. Dawyn brought Shadow around to the side of the inn where the stables were and the stable boy, Dylan, took Shadow. Dawyn flipped him a silver mark, which he accepted with a bow.
As they approached the door to the inn, Dawyn nodded to Bruno, the bouncer at the door, who nodded back to him and tipped his hat. “How are you tonight, Bruno?” Dawyn asked.
“Oh, I’m right fine this evening, Sir Darklance. How are you?” Bruno was a short, older gentleman who was quite large and muscular. Although the Dancing Mare didn’t see many disputes of any sort, if one happened Bruno would ensure those involved didn’t stay for long. He carried a cudgel at one hip and a dagger at the other. Dawyn had heard that he once was a mercenary attached to a traveling merchant, until his leg was wounded and he could no longer walk for long distances. He had retired from that life and come here, where things were simpler.
“I’ve been better, Bruno, but I’m glad to be here,” Dawyn replied as he and Anwyn entered the inn. He spotted the innkeeper’s wife, Elizabeth, rushing by with a platter of plates heaped with meat that looked like lamb, and waved at her.
She set down the platter and served the guests before returning the wave, a friendly smile on her face. She did not fail to notice Anwyn and he was sure she would be over to be introduced shortly. She was a plump middle-aged woman with graying hair on the sides, and she was one of the kindliest women he had ever met in this great city, so long as you did what she told you to do. Even as he watched, she gently slapped one of the serving women, her daughter Rose, on the butt to get her to move faster.
Running an inn was generally a family affair – it just made good business sense. The father typically did the bar tending, while the wife ran the kitchen and helped with serving. The older daughters would help with serving and the older sons with carrying heavy barrels of alcohol. The younger children would help in the kitchens or muck out the stables. Sometimes aunts, uncles, and cousins would be involved, if the inn were large enough. This inn required the whole family.
The Dancing Mare was one of the largest inns in Tar Ebon, and one of the original inns, if the stories of its owners could be believed. The inn was six stories tall (which was almost the limit of modern stonework architecture without support), took up almost an entire city block and boasted one hundred guest bedrooms. Legend said that, over a thousand years ago, one of the Founders had created the Dancing Mare Inn from nothing but the earth. Dawyn didn’t know much about architecture, but he had noticed that the walls of the inn appeared seamless, as if no mortar had been used in their construction. Perhaps there was some credibility to the story.
Elizabeth strode over to Dawyn and Anwyn and gave Dawyn a big hug as if he were her own son. “Dawyn my boy, it’s been too long!”
Dawyn hugged her back. “It has indeed, Elizabeth. How have you and Paul been?” Paul was Elizabeth’s husband and co-owner of the Dancing Mare.
“Oh, you know, Paul’s up to his same old tricks and I’ve had to keep him in line. I swear that man is losing his mind. Did you know that just last week he forgot to order more dark ale? Then, just yesterday, he forgot to bring a new keg of house beer down from the warehouse and we ran out! That caused some angry customers for a time. You try telling a bunch of drunken men and women that they have to wait while we go fetch a keg of beer! It wasn’t pretty, let me tell you. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”
Dawyn just chuckled. “Your husband is just about as stubborn as you, Elizabeth. I’d sooner tell the sun not to rise than try and tell either of you what to do or make you see sense.”
Elizabeth smiled at the comment and turned to Anwyn. “Where have your manners gone, boy? Pray tell who this pretty young woman is.”
“Elizabeth, this is a new friend of mine, Anwyn. Anwyn, this is Elizabeth Pritchet. She and her husband own the Dancing Mare Inn.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Anwyn replied as she bowed slightly and smiled. She still did not seem to be quite over her ordeal, though that came as no surprise to Dawyn. It caused her to speak very little.
“The reason we’ve come, Elizabeth, is to ask for a huge favor,” Dawyn said.
“Name it, my boy,” Elizabeth replied.
“Well, I would like to ask for lodging for Anwyn. She’s new in town and could really use a place to stay until she can get back on her feet. I would pay for it of course,” Dawyn added hastily. “Oh, and we’d also greatly appreciate a bowl of hot chicken noodle soup and some of that lamb, if it’s fresh.”
“Oh Dawyn, you needn’t even ask!” Elizabeth exclaimed. She turned to Anwyn and took her hand in her own. “Any friend of Dawyn’s is a friend of ours. I just so happen to have a room that I keep open just for occasions like this. Let me show you,” and she guided Anwyn toward the stone staircase that led upstairs. “Dawyn, Paul is in the cellar bringing up some more barrels. Do you mind seeing if he needs a hand?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t mind at all,” Dawyn replied, as he made his way to the door of the basement and descended. At the bottom of the stairs, he found himself in a dimly-lit cool cellar where the alcohol for the inn was stored. It looked like a catacomb down here only, instead of bodies, there were kegs of ale and beer and bottles of wine.
As he was wandering around, he saw a light coming down the hall toward him. He moved toward the light and ran into Paul.
“Dawyn! By the Founders, you nearly scared the life out of me, man!” he exclaimed, as he set down the keg he had been carrying and shook his hand. “Let me guess, Elizabeth sent you down here,” he said. “That woman has been telling everyone I’m losing my mind! She probably sent you down here to make sure I hadn’t gotten lost.”
Dawyn simply smiled. “Well, she asked me to come down here to help you bring up some kegs, but perhaps that was her ulterior motive.”
“Bah, women. Can’t live with them, can’t hardly live without them,” Paul said half-heartedly. Everyone in town knew that Paul and Elizabeth were madly in love. It was believed that the back and forth jabs were one of the secrets to their long successful marriage.
So Dawyn proceeded to help bring up kegs to the pantry where they would be brought out as the night progressed. By the end of it, both he and Paul were sweating. Paul walked over to the beer tap and poured two tall mugs of the dark brown liquid for each of them to enjoy. Paul raised his mug. “I propose a toast. Here’s to lovely women, a safe home and our health.” Dawyn raised his mug in turn and they slammed their stoneware together loudly before taking a long swig.
While the men talked, Anwyn and Elizabeth came walking down the stairs. Elizabeth had transformed Anwyn. She now wore a long dress that accentuated her figure, hardy walking shoes and her hair and skin looked like they had been washed. Dawyn hadn’t noticed how dirty Anwyn had been until now. She looked stunning. Her brown hair was straight and flowed down to her mid-back, while her dark-green eyes looked hypnotizing with the powder and make-up Elizabeth had applied to her face.
Paul whistled when he saw the ladies come down the stairs. “Is that pretty lady with you, Dawyn? If so, then I must say you’re one lucky man.”
Dawyn smiled. “It’s complicated. She’s with me but she’s not with me, if you know what I mean.” He found himself blushing, despite being a middle-aged man.
“Ah, I do understand. Yes, I certainly do.” Paul gave him a wink and went to introduce himself.
A short while later, Anwyn and Dawyn were seated in a private dining room off of the kitchen, a warm bowl of chicken noodle soup and a hot plate of lamb before each of them.
“By the Founders, I’m starved,” Anwyn said, slicing into her large haunch of lamb and eating faster than Dawyn had seen almost anyone eat before.
“I bet you are,” Daw
yn replied. “As we discussed, what happened to you? How were you captured? What are you doing on this side of the White Mountains?”
Anwyn chewed for a bit and swallowed her bite of lamb before replying to him. “It’s a very long story, and one probably for another time, for it would take a day or more to tell it in full. But the short answer to why I crossed the White Mountains is that I was exiled in accordance with a prophecy.”
Exiled? Dawyn had thought the druids were civilized. “Exiled,” he asked aloud, “in accordance with a prophecy? Why did they choose you? Were you named in the prophecy?”
“Not exactly,” Anwyn said. “Every sixteen years since the days of the Founding, a female druid above the age of sixteen but less than thirty-two is chosen randomly from a lottery. That woman is exiled and sent beyond the White Mountains. There is a prophecy that says that, at some point, the saviors of our world will come and that a druid will be instrumental in their victory over ‘the enemy’. The enemy isn’t named, nor does the prophecy say when these supposed saviors are going to appear. The druids were tasked, some say by the Founders themselves, to follow this prophecy faithfully. Druid women are sent across the mountains where they become medicine women or seamstresses or other professions, while they look for the signs that will point to the saviors’ coming.”
“What signs are you supposed to be searching for?”
Anwyn sighed. “That’s the most frustrating part. I don’t know. The prophecies are very vague. If the Founders truly did give these instructions to my people, these prophecies would seem to be evidence that they were not omnipotent or so capable of predicting the future, as many legends claim.”
“Hmm,” Dawyn said, “and how did you come to be captured?”
“I was working as a medicine woman’s apprentice in a small town named Aralon, in the foothills of the White Mountains, near Ghyver Pass, when word must have gotten out that I was a druid. The woman I was apprenticing under, Alayna, was also a druid. One night as we were preparing to close up shop, several men came into the store. They sought to overpower Alayna but she transformed into a wolf and fought them. She killed two of their number before she herself was killed. They came for me and I tried to transform but something was holding me back, as if there was a barrier in my mind that wouldn’t let my body do what I wanted it to. A man came in, one who I believe was a mage, and began casting some magic. I felt myself shifting against my will and soon found myself as a bear. They tied me up and placed the collar around my neck. Once the collar was on, I was helpless. No amount of trying allowed me to return to my human form. I had been in the form of a bear for six months before you rescued me.” She looked away, “I think I was on the verge of going mad and would have lost myself if you hadn’t found me. I have heard of druids who lose themselves if they remain in animal form for too long. They start to think like the animal and lose part of their humanity forever.”
Six months, Dawyn thought to himself. Oh, how this poor girl has suffered. “Do you know who was responsible for this crime against you?”
“A name was repeated quite frequently while I was caged - Lord Garik. Apparently, he was in charge of these bandits or ruffians. They transported me across the land and showed me off. I think I even went before Lord Garik once, though that time is fuzzy.”
Lord Garik. The name of the mysterious new leader of the criminal underworld had first come to the king’s attention six months ago, when several local assassins’ guilds lost their leaders to a veiled assassin claiming to serve Lord Garik. Since that time, the assassins’ and thieves’ guilds across the kingdom and, reportedly, in all of the lands between the Valorian Ocean to the east and the Aryian Ocean to the west, had all come to serve Lord Garik or die. The number of assassinations had begun to spike. The leaders of several cities and towns in the kingdom had written to the king reporting that their city watch could barely keep up with the number of deaths. Curfews were put in place with little effect, and the army of Tar Ebon was too cumbersome to be deployed against this enemy. The numbers of thefts across the lands were up as well, with riches being stolen from affluent lords' and ladies’ homes and wealthy merchants. Warehouses were raided and food and rare luxury items stolen to be sold on the black market.
“By that look on your face,” Anwyn said, “I’d say you’ve heard of Lord Garik?”
“Yes, I certainly have. The rising number of deaths and thefts throughout the kingdom concerns the king. Before now, there was always a sort of balance in the underworld. Assassins’ guilds preyed upon one another, thieves stole from other thieves, that sort of thing. Common citizens were rarely the victims of assassinations or thefts. You could almost say that the underworld stayed true to its name and did not draw much attention. Now, with a consolidation of power under a single leader, the guilds have no one else to kill or steal from except the common people. The underworld itself is spilling out onto the streets and causing havoc throughout the kingdom and beyond.”
Dawyn sat back in his chair. “I actually have a meeting later today regarding the matter and what action we will take. The council of lords is placing increasing pressure upon His Majesty to take decisive action. We will see what is decided.”
“I will not hold you any longer then,” Anwyn said. “You should go to the king, as this is important. I will be here when you finish. I cannot thank you enough for what you did. I saw dozens of people walk right by as I fought for my humanity but only you did the right thing.” She stood up from her chair, walked over to Dawyn, took his head in her hands, and kissed him on the lips. The kiss lasted for what seemed like quite a while and his passion almost overtook him but, at last, she pulled away, smiled at him, and strode from the room.
What a woman, Dawyn thought, looking after her.
Chapter 8: Meetings