Horn Crown

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The rain fell with sullen persistence to make one’s travel cloak a sodden burden weighing upon the shoulders, even as fear can weigh heavily on heart and mind. Those among us who were simple and unlettered, who had never stirred far from the fields they tilled or the herd pastures known to their long-kin before them, muttered together of Glom the Weeper and looked upon the gray sky as if they expected moment after moment to see her two welling, tear-filled eyes above us, her sorrow hanging as heavily as a curse.

Even those who were lettered and learned could be disturbed by the thought of curses and condemnation after this exile came to us.

Were our Bard-Sages right to use their knowledge so that when we passed through the Gate, household by household, lord-kin by lord-kin, we not only left behind us our homeland, but also a part of all memory? Now we might question for a while why we had come to ride this rain-washed, dreary land. However that questioning diminished as we rode north. That the reason for our flight was dire we carried ever in our minds. Not only did Sword Brothers ready for instant alarm ride before us to scout this strange land, but a full company of them were the last at the Gate as a rearguard. With them were Laudat and Ouse, whose singing had opened that world portal and who now closed it with the clack-clack of their spirit-drums so that there could be no retreat, and perhaps, mercifully, no pursuit.

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