Stones of Remembrance
Loshev settles its debt in houses, land and writs; the road west takes most of it back, a patron sent home, a soldier gone south alone, and a stacked-stone grave with two letters cut into its face
TL;DR
Loshev paid what it owed: Alex Westwood’s empty house, a lot of land in Westwood from Harad, a year of taxes from Forven, and a week at an inn they could not reach before the writ expired. Then west, and a bad road. Elliot was sent home as a liability, Jaden went south alone after her missing companions, and Harveen tried to desert under cover of escorting one or the other. A hobgoblin patrol out of Draazstone had them both tied up beside a fire, and agreed to guide the party to the goat pass. At the Amultans’ capture ground stood a cairn with two letters cut into it.
First seen
- Rakhzan: gap-toothed hobgoblin leading a Draazstone patrol
- Raerin Corvain: the Amultans’ officer, a gish of a noble house
- The cairn grave site: rocky ground east of the mountains, where the soldiers were taken
What changed
- The company holds property. An estate in Loshev and land in Westwood, signed for and taxed.
- Raerin Corvain is dead, buried under stone by Aldred, who then went.
- Elliot is off the expedition, Harveen has deserted, and Jaden rides east to Forven.
- Rakhzan’s patrol is guiding them toward the old goat pass through the range.
Left open
- Where Aldred went, and whether he is alive to be found.
- A second wound in a dead captor’s belly that nobody there could identify.
- Whether the man under the cairn is the man named on it.
Synopsis
The Council of Loshev sent for them the day before they meant to leave. Nikolas Rook presided and Nathan Fox read the papers, and what three towns owed for the breaking of the Ten Lashes came in four parts: the late Alex Westwood’s house in Loshev, forfeit for want of an heir; a lot of land in Westwood from Harad; the estate’s first year of tax paid by Forven; and from Haudh-Gwenn a week at the Color Stay on a writ that would lapse before they could plausibly get there. They signed. The house was stripped to the walls and sound.
Two nights of drinking, then out on the third morning: six travelers west, the three of them mounted, Elliot on a new riding horse, the freed Amultans Harveen and Jaden on foot, a pack-horse and a mule behind. The mark on Mikhail’s notes was a red circle in the western mountains: the Valley of Doom, where travelers are found torn apart or not found at all.
The first day undid the company. Elliot could not ride, had no boots for the country and no skill in it; Koa told him he would die out there, and Elliot agreed with what dignity he could hold on to. Harveen volunteered to escort him back, and Koa read the offer for exactly what it was (a man arranging his own desertion), and would not put Elliot in the hands of someone he could not trust in a fight. A long, sour day on the road followed, with Aldo and Koa close to blows over who had talked the man into coming in the first place. In the end they walked Elliot ten miles east to a proper trade road and sent him home on his own horse. Jaden, sick of the turning and re-turning, said she was going south for her lost companions whatever anyone else did, and went. For Mikhail she wrote out descriptions of the two missing men, in Golden by habit, then scratched it out and wrote them again in Peren so the party could read them. Harveen, his quiet exit gone, followed her sulking.
They turned around inside a day rather than leave the pair to die out there. Tracking south at dusk they saw a fire, and at the fire four hobgoblins in reinforced brigandine with Jaden and Harveen bound and gagged to one side. They were tied, the hobgoblins explained, only to stop the pair killing each other. Their leader gave his name as Rakhzan. His band walks the mountain edge out of Draazstone and trades with trappers; told what the party was after, they turned out of their own road to guide it toward the old goat pass.
Harveen recognized the ground where the Amultans had been taken, and they went east to search it. Aldo found the cairn: stacked stone raised in the western manner, with what Jaden took for the dead man’s effects buried under it for his passage, though nobody lifted a stone to look, and a monogram cut into the face in the formal Golden hand: RC. Jaden read it and came apart. Under the stones lay Raerin Corvain, the gish who had led them, of the Corvain house, who had wanted to carry Amulta’s case west rather than run from it. A second body lay nearby, rotted and riddled with knives and one still in it, in leather stitched in the Peredhel military manner, one of the captors the soldiers had killed. It carried a strange second wound in the belly that nobody there could identify.
The rest came out badly. By Jaden’s account Harveen had put the idea of leaving in Raerin’s ear and kept it there, though the four were taken in their sleep and not through any noise of his; what he did was try to break free once they were held, which is when the captors turned violent, and later cause the scramble on the night they got loose. Jaden, hearing it, went for him and had to be hauled off. She searched the grave without disturbing it, found nothing that pointed anywhere, and settled on riding east to Forven to learn whether Aldred (who had buried the man and gone) had passed through it. One of the hobgoblins blessed the cairn in G’lin, praying to Drozom and pouring water so the winter freeze would hold the soul solid and strong, and offered to burn the captor where he lay.
Aldo and Mikhail said quietly to one another what neither wanted said louder: that nothing but two letters and Harveen’s word put Raerin under those stones. They left it alone rather than open a grave to settle it. On watch that night Aldo caught Harveen at the horses, taking nothing that was not his. He said he had wanted wine, and then he said he was leaving. Aldo let him go.