A child sat with her feet dangling over the edge of a bridge that spanned a brook. Its timber revealed it to be newly built within the last few years; as for the girl, she was around three and occupied with placing a worm onto a tal hook attached to her fishing rod. Once complete, she threw the result into the water, only for the hook to hit the sheet of ice covering the water.
Looking down at this conundrum, clearly an unexpected obstacle to her, the little girl frowned, her feet swinging back and forth in their boots. But before she could solve her problem, sounds coming down the road caught her attention, and she looked up again.
“It is no sha to ask for directions. We have left the Imperial road, after all.” The speaker was a woman, sounding patient, as if speaking to a child.
“I grew up here. I lived here until a few years ago. I’m just not used to approaching from this side. I rarely had reason to go south beyond the brook,” the other voice argued, belonging to a man who sounded anything but patient. “And with the snow covering everything…”
“I would assu the landscape remains the sa.”
“Sure, but that bridge, for instance. That wasn’t there last ti.”
“How did you cross the brook?” she asked.
“Well, there was a different bridge,” he claid. “This one’s new.”
“Or we are in the entirely wrong place, and your bridge is sowhere else.”
Their voices mingled with the sound of hoofbeats. Standing up, the little girl saw a pair of riders, along with a third horse carrying their belongings. They both wore leather clothing and warm cloaks, red in colour. The woman had a sword by her waist, whereas the man seed unard in comparison, except for a dagger in his belt. The girl stared at them with wide eyes as they approached.
“Just to prove I have no qualms about asking directions…” The male rider halted his horse. “You there, child. Is this the road to Engby?”
She nodded eagerly. “It is! I live there!” She bent down and picked up her fishing rod. “I’m fishing! My father made it!” Her other hand grabbed the tal hook, dangling in the air with half a worm on it. “He’s the smith!”
The man gave her a scrutinising look. “What’s your na, child?”
“Tora!”
He exhaled slowly. “Well, I have business with your family, in that case. Would you like to ride in with us? I don’t think you want to miss it.” He leaned forward and extended a hand towards her.
The child furrowed her brow. “Alright!” She accepted the hand, which swung her into the air and onto the saddle in front of the rider.
“Oh, careful with that hook.” The sharp tal, which had been swinging wildly, froze in the air, as if grabbed by an invisible hand, and Tora stared at it in awe.
“How did you do that?”
The rider carefully plucked it with his physical hand and placed it in hers. “Maybe I’ll show you later. Best you hold that. Don’t think the horse would enjoy being hooked. It doesn’t much like the taste of worm.”
The girl giggled, clutching the mane of the animal with her other fingers, and they resud their ride. “Who are you?”
“We’re travellers. We’ve co from Morcaster, but I was born up here, sa as you,” he replied.
Tora looked at the mageknight riding alongside them. “You have a sword! Are you a soldier?”
“I used to be, yes,” she said.
“They let girls be soldiers?” The child’s eyes stared at her in shock.
She smiled. “They make an exception now and then.”
“My uncle is a soldier!”
The rider, one arm holding the child firmly in place, stiffened. “Is that so?”
Tora nodded eagerly. “Yes! Uncle William. I don’t rember him. But grandma cries when soone says his na.”
“I see. But your grandmother is alive and well? Other than the crying.”
Tora wrinkled her nose. “Sure.”
“How about your father’s sisters and other brother?”
“Who?”
“Your uncle and aunts. John, Juliet, Mira?”
“Oh! They’re fine.” She added nothing further, instead inspecting the mane of the horse underneath her fingers.
He looked at his companion on the horse next to him, who shrugged. “That is what you get from interrogating a little child,” she told him.
The small town was not far from the brook. A cluster of trees obscured the sight from the dirt road, but as they cleared them, the buildings suddenly appeared close to hand’s reach. It contained three tis the number of structures compared to the village where the travellers had celebrated solstice, and although small, the temple stood built in stone, its purpose clear with Asterian letters carved across the entrance.
In addition to the sanctuary being different from the remaining buildings, two houses looked greater and newer than the other residences in town. Together, they all surrounded what could generously be called the town square, which the small travelling party now entered.
Lowering the small girl carefully down onto the ground, the rider watched as she ran toward one of the newer buildings with the speed of a Khivan bullet. “Ma! Pa! People! With horses!” The sound of hamr strikes against an anvil ceased. While the travellers dismounted, people from the whole town braved the cold to step outside their hos and stare at them. The female rider glanced around in every direction, taking it all in; the man stared only at the newly built smithy.
One of the townspeople, a woman of forty-two years, erged from that house and burst into tears. She almost stumbled as she crossed the small square to fling her arms around the traveller. “My boy! My son, my son! I thought you were dead!”
He returned the embrace; she barely reached up to his chin, and he had to stoop down. The battlemage who had defeated armies and been nad imperator of all Asterian lands struggled to speak, and when he finally did, his voice was thick with emotion. “Mum. I’m ho.”
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