There was a discreet tapping on the outer ridgepole of the tent, and a man entered with a platter of roasted meat and some freshly-cooked bread. When he had left, Cara took out her bone-handled belt knife and casually cut half the meat, slapped it on a slice of bread, and began to eat. She chewed, looked at me meaningfully, then swallowed. “Well, go on,” she said, gesturing at me with her bread. “Tell me everything!”
So I took a breath and told her.
Nine days earlier, I was woken by a voice calling my name. I sat up, only to find that I wasn’t in my chambers in Thane Johan’s castle at Saxehold. Instead, I was standing upon a grassy sward overlooking green hills. It was a hilltop, and there were ruins, old bits of stone sticking up out of the grass in a rough ring, as if a tower had stood here once. The sun was high in a bright blue sky, and it was warm, warmer than I’d ever known Saxehold to be.
Sitting on the remains of a section of wall was an old man dressed in a tattered gray robe, with long gray hair and a scraggly gray beard. He looked like a hermit in his humble clothes, with his bare feet drumming against the stone. On the wall beside him there was a drinking cup and a piece of bread. He looked up as if he had only just seen me, and then jumped off the wall and hurried over. The grass was up to his knees. Despite how vivid the scene was, I was convinced I must still be dreaming, so I simply stood and waited for him as he approached.
“There you are at last!” he said, sounding harassed. “I’ve been waiting for... well, I don’t quite know how long, but I’ve been waiting.”
“What is this place?” I asked him. “Who are you?”
He stood with his hands on his hips, his long beard wagging from side to side as he shook his head disapprovingly.
“You mean to say you don’t know who I am? You’ve never seen me before? You young folk are all the same, no memory of... what was I saying? Anyway. I am one of the Keepers. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Keepers.”
I was trying not to laugh. He was dressed like the lowest kind of beggar, and yet here he stood glaring up at me, berating me as if he were a high lord and I was a disobedient child. I decided to humour him.
“Ah, the Keepers!” I said, knowingly, though I’d never heard of them before.
With incredible speed, he darted forward and struck me on the arm with much more force than I would have thought possible from such a wizened old fellow.
“Don’t give me your cheek!” he said, wagging a finger at me. “This is no laughing matter. I have a quest for you, a job which you must do. A test, if you will, to measure your... abilities.”
That piqued my interest. “I’m listening,” I said.
His brow furrowed, and he turned to look out over the pleasant view.
“The Festering comes,” he said, and the light faded for a moment, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. “On the western border of your land, the Festering has taken hold of an ancient relic of enormous power.”
“What is this relic?” I asked.
“It is the helmet of Theodoric Ironside, a great warrior of the ancient world. In the old days, powerful warriors bound their essences to enchanted items, but then the Festering came, and corrupted the joining between the great warriors and their items. The Festering draws on the power of the ancient ones to feed itself and spread its corruption all over the lands. It has bound itself to this relic, and you, Leofwine, must travel to the heart of the Festering and free the Helm of Ironside from its torment. Go to your Thane, and tell him what you have seen here. Tell him he has a role to play; he must choose you one companion, and you must accept his choice.”
Then he reached out and placed his gnarled hand in the center of my chest and pushed me gently backward. The scene faded, and I woke for a moment in the familiar surroundings of my bedroom in the Thane’s castle. A strange dream, I thought, then turned over and went back to sleep.
Cara was finishing her meal as I concluded the tale of my strange experience.
“But you told the Thane?” she asked after a moment’s silence.
I nodded. “When I woke in my bed the next morning, my arm was bruised where The Keeper had struck me, and there was grass stuck to my feet. It was clearly more than just a crazy dream, so I went to Thane Johan immediately and told him the whole story. When I told the Thane, he took it very seriously. He told me this was the legendary Call of the Keepers, and that it was imperative that we should obey. He would choose a companion to go with me, as instructed, then he told me to gather my warband and go immediately to Grimwood on the border between Saxe and Westmarsh and wait there for the companion whom he would choose. That’s the whole story. I had no idea who he would pick, but I’m glad it was you. The thought of running a mission like this with you is pretty attractive.”
She grinned at me. “You’ll be glad to know I feel the same. I was getting a bit bored with goblin raids from the northern mountains, and someone needs to do something about the Festering. It’s never been this close to Saxe before. Also, I understand why Thane Johan picked me. I’m one of the
