II.
She cursed, glancingup at the trees and shielding her eyes against the rain.She hefted her patched skirts to her knees and trod through the mud and underbrush, the soft ground squishing between her toes as she slid and struggled to keep her balance.In her haste, she had left behind her beaded leather boots and though her callused feet endured whatever terrain she walked upon, she never had cause to try them on an untamed forest floor.She considered her skirt, already so abused by the weather, and decided it would be a worthy sacrifice, the hem already brown a good hand high.She tore strips from it and tied them around her feet, trying to save them as best she could.
She called herself a damned fool for leaving hervyardin.What matter a dead horse or broken wheel when it offered shelter from the raging storm?But she little trusted that the inhabitants of the village may surrender their search for her even in such weather.It was pointless to retrace her steps for the illusory safety of her cart.She disliked the notion of abandonment, hoping that if the villagers curtailed their pursuit of her, then tomorrow she could find somewhere to get a new wheel and a new horse.Without a horse, there was no other choice but to find shelter off the road, even if she could not leave the customary offerings before entering.Still, she longed for the dry sanctuary thevyardinoffered.
She hunted for a thong tree, signposts from her ancestors, to indicate natural wells of magic where she could find fresh water and a variety of fruit-bearing vegetation.She could use the tree for shelter if she managed to find one.But nothing.The forest offered little in the way of workable material.Though thick, the foliage provided inadequate shelter from the rain and the few branches she attempted to gather would not leave the dead bulk of their trunks.When she stepped on a broken branch attempting to move another, she stumbled and fell.She cursed again as she extracted herself from the muck and addressed her foot.
She pried a piece of wood from the wound.The blood poured through the torn flesh.It would require proper attention when she settled so that it would not fester.She tore another strip from her skirt to use as a bandage.Blood would attract predators and she wanted no additional complication to an already unpleasant set of circumstances.She pushed herself up to stand, favoring her injured foot, determined to press on and find a place where she could settle in safety.
She trudged through the undergrowth until ruins loomed ahead of her.Her heart thudded against her ribs, afraid a fevered imagination conjured the walls in her frustration and despair.The ruins intimidated her — the stonework dark and stained by weather, the tower collapsed upon itself, the vines overgrowing most of the facade, the massive walls disappearing into the forest beyond.Surely, ruins boded well even if they appeared forbidding.Perhaps, if she could find an entry through the wall there would be some structure, however in disrepair, where she could rest.
She passed through an opening.Had the collapsed towers once been the gatehouse?She inspected the tower to find a way inside, but if there had been doorways, they were blocked or destroyed.She stumbled her way through the trees looking for old and abandoned buildings.A crumbling outer curtain wall indicated significant age and neglect.Stones and bits of metal work littered the forest undergrowth.Foundations half-filled with water served as the most intact signs of former civilization.
A new line of dense forest ahead exhausted both her hope and her stamina.
“I should have stayed with the caravans,” she lamented.“I should have stayed in thevyardinand tested my luck.”
No one lived long counting on luck, but she should not have left to find alternate shelter.She cursed herself once more for making one poor decision after another.She pulled the drenched hair from her face and considered her inadequate options.The darkness ahead resolved, not into a line of denser forest but into vegetation covering yet another set of ruins.
Hope swelled again.If this was another section of outer curtain, she could look for another tower section.If not the outer curtain, then this was the inner curtain and she could look for the keep or perhaps another more secure structure where she could settle in for the duration of the storm.
She hurried to the ruins to begin her search.Unlike the other wall, this one had no collapsed battlements or crumbling towers, no piles of rubble or gaping openings.The ivy clung to the masonry, holding the blocks together where mortar crumbled.Her fingertips trailed over the walls, searching for an opening.Pushing aside the hanging branches and vines, she did not take long to discover an intact entry to the inner gatehouse.She could shelter there, making herself comfortable on dry paving stones and a structure that buffered the wind.Once she stepped into the archway, she beheld an even greater sight.
“Dear gods,” she breathed, marveling at the forgotten edifice of former splendor.
Across the inner bailey of this wall sat what might have been a keep.She possessed little functional knowledge of these antiquated fortresses, but she had seen the modernized remains of them in many towns.This structure, compared to the keeps of her experience, resembled something more of a palace rendered in heavy masonry and far too massive for a modest village.Someone of quality and status must have once dwelt here, although their family and holdings must have been destroyed for this vestige to remain buried in the forest.Some family’s misfortune would be her blessing tonight.
She wandered almost dreamlike over to the foliage-covered facade.She would never have been welcomed at the front doors during the golden age of this estate.Here she was, a bedraggled storm-soaked Rivani fleeing from self-righteous pillars-of-the-community villagers, her clothing drenched, torn, and mud-stained, her feet shoeless and abused, hair in disarray, standing at the impressive arched front entry of a place that once would shame the residences of the gentry for the whole of the area.If this had been a functioning fortress, she would have been lucky indeed to have even been let in at the servant entrance.The prospect, however absurd, of climbing those moss-covered crumbling steps filled her with a moment of strange giddiness.The intention itself would be about survival and sanctuary, but the act, even if no one witnessed it, would be an act of protest and defiance.Her heart fluttered with the feeling of doing something unprecedented.
The archway of the threshold provided shelter as she turned around to survey the bailey before her, empty save a few trees and low vegetation which gave her a view of just how massive this fortress had been.Her heart pounded in her chest, some from the exertion of getting here, but mostly with the strange sensation of doing something forbidden.She could pretend for a moment that she lived here, that she had somewhere to settle down through the winter, somewhere she would be safe from the outside world, somewhere she could invite the caravans of her people to rest and retreat without engaging others or hoping that they showed enough goodwill to let the Rivani keep to themselves.
“If I could get myvyardinin here, I could not imagine a better place to winter.”
Without a horse, she could not manage the cart on her own on the main road.Guiding it through the undergrowth to here would therefore be impossible.Still, the thought offered respite from the fear and worry that plagued her journey through the forest.
She turned to the doorway and began prying the ivy away from the object that blocked her path inside, but she paused there too.Despite the argument of all reason and the clear illustration of decay, she struggled with the realization that the only artifacts blocking her way into the fortress were intact wooden doors.Perhaps she would have understood if they had been made of iron, oxidized and unyielding due to their permanent forgotten sentry to this keep.And yes, there were iron components — the strap bracket hinges, riveted straps larger than her arm, door rings each one the size of the entire door to hervyardin.But wood untouched by rot or decay?Nothing indicated the type of age or wear that the rest of the fortress displayed.
An uneasy sensation passed over her.
Hunger, cold, and heart-sickness overpowered her misgivings and she threw her weight against one of the doors.It resisted, groaning and creaking with her exertions.She shivered and cursed at it, trying again with her shoulder, launching herself at it with a few more forceful shoves until it squeaked open.That was enough.She slipped within, oozing around the door, pressing her back against it so that nothing could creep up on her as she paused, allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the dark.The shaft of pale light from the cracked doorway offered the only illumination.
“Hello?”Her voice echoed in faint ripples from the rafters, but no other reply came.
Light debris lay strewn about the floor although there should be more.With a door so well intact, it would make sense that if the fortress had not lost its roof, the interiors might still have some trace of their original furnishings and finishes.Finding anything else in the dark proved treacherous with her first few steps into the fortress.The few architectural details she could discern in the gloom suggested refitting after the initial castle build, much of it in better repair than she could imagine for a structure so old.The front doors entered upon a great hall, and though she might have contented herself with settling there, with her dampened hair and burdensome soaked outer layers, the prospect of a hearth lured her onward.
Gathering up the bits of wood she found strewn about in the great hall, she constructed a sizable pile before she found her flint strike-a-light in the folds of her underskirt, setting a single piece of kindling alight and using it as a torch to explore the nearest rooms.She also grabbed a shard of glass and bound its end in strips of cloth from a damaged wall hanging to keep as a tool.
She poked her head in the first doorway she found and let out a strangled gasp.A pristine room greeted her.The unease that settled upon her earlier returned.She expected a few extant finishes and furnishings but in disrepair and only hinting at the wealth that the occupants once enjoyed.Although little in the way of furniture, woodwork built-ins lined the far wall and a worn upholstered chaise occupied the space in the center of the room.
She shuddered at the irrationality of it all.
