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Having left Olostin's Hold behind them, Andraste tried to settle into her saddle for a long day of riding. If they took few breaks, perhaps they would make Calling Horns before too far after dark. The bay gelding she rode had been a bit prancy leaving the village, and keeping careful rein grew tiring. Ketheruil was lost in thought to her left, having already resigned to the journey to Yartar days before.
The hills of the Evermoors stretched away to the north, dark glistening bog water catching the sunlight. Sparse yellow grass lent a dead look to the region. She grimaced and looked away. The beautifully old trees of the High Forest to the south were much easier on the eye. Sometimes when riding this way, she tried to remember living there. What her parents—the flesh and blood ones—had been like. Had she had siblings? Where had their home been? Would she be able to see the road from the door? Or was it buried deep in the long shadows of the woods?
"What are you day-dreaming about?" Ketheruil's low voice broke into her thoughts. Glancing over, she saw he was still tiredly watching the road.
"I was thinking about where I grew up." Shifting on the seat, Andraste readjusted her feet in the stirrups. They always seemed to end up just too short or long.
'I thought you didn't remember that."
"I don't. Not really," she sighed. "But I like to wonder about it. It's better to have a story."
Ketheruil hummed. His dark curly hair was braided long down his back, a contrast to the cream linen of his shirt. He had shaved the morning they left Everlund, and the beginning of his beard was growing back in. The long-legged mare he'd bought on the Sword Coast was trodding on, a complacent mirror of her rider. Some of Andraste's bags were strapped to his saddle, in an attempt to relieve her bay of some weight. The gelding was still recovering from a strained muscle. She wondered which bag had the apples.
Day drew on, with the sun beating down on their heads. The pass between the moors and the High Forest had begun to widen, foreshadowing the descent into the Dessarin Valley. They had kept to the road, riding within sight of the dark treeline to the southeast. A few hours past noon, the elven bard pulled her gelding up short. Ketheruil swept ahead, before circling back and coming to a stop next to her.
"Let's get down for lunch," Andraste suggested. Sweat was beginning to get in her eyes, and she wiped one damp palm against her breeches.
"Where, then?"
"By the trees?" she gestured back toward the forest. "It's probably less than a half-mile. And maybe there's some nice shade. Or grass." Ketheruil gave her a flat look, sighing. He started his mare forward again. Taking that as assent, Andraste raced him to the tree line.
As she laid out her cloak on the grass, the elf chuckled to herself. "You're such an old man," she called to her companion, who was taking their food out of the saddlebags.
"Speak for yourself. You're older than me."
"But I've got 'woman', so that's a plus," Andraste teased. Happy with her resting spot, she stood and planted her hands on her hips.
"True," the man responded, walking around the mare to join her. "Among other things." They sat together on the cloak, backs to the north, with the road on one side and the forest on the other. Between them they shared a few pieces of dense bread baked with honey, and some fruit from a farm outside Olostin's.
As she licked the crumbs from her fingers, a low rumble in the earth caught the bard's attention. Pausing, Andraste glanced to the horizon.
"What?" Ketheruil asked beside her.
"Don't you feel that? Something's coming." The elf leaned forward to put her hands on the ground, feeling steady vibration beneath her fingers. Ketheruil raised an eyebrow and looked back the way they had come.
As she strained her eyes to the south, Andraste began to see dark shapes moving on the horizon. Blinking, she counted two. Then more. Then—
"Barbarians," she warned, jumping up to gather her cloak from the ground.
"What? Where?" Ketheruil got to his feet, turning in place to look around.
"There!" Andraste hissed, grabbing his arm and pointing toward the advancing figures. At least seven of them now, riding large elk in a pack.
The older man started, joining her as she moved quickly back to the horses and prepared to run. "Into the forest? Or the moor?" Ketheruil asked, already turning his mare toward the trees.
"We're closer to the trees. I don't know what they think of them," Andraste replied. "Perhaps they won't follow."
They rode into the shadows, beneath the tall trees of the old forest. The detritus and brush were tangled thick on the ground, slowing their horses. Andraste put a hand to her gelding's shoulder, hoping he would forgive any extra pain in his leg. To her surprise, the ground beneath the canopy quickly became a hill, rising up to a small ridge dotted with massive boulders. As far as she knew, there were no mountains in the area. She wondered what had left the large stones, and where they had come from.
"Over here!" Turning, Andraste saw the lean of a large fallen tree lodged against the ridge. Fallen branches and overgrown plants created a small bluff. With luck, they would fit.
Dismounting beside him, the elf followed her companion as he guided the horses back into the makeshift crevasse. They settled the animals first, then wedged in beside them.
"Do you hear anything?" Ketheruil whispered, peering out into the trees.
"I don't know. Wait a moment," Andraste replied, placing her hand against the ground again. The rumble had faded, but she still felt ripples of movement deep below. "They slowed down, whatever they're doing. I don't—"
The sharp hiss of torn air struck her ears just before she saw the arrow fly past. Cracking against rock, the shaft shattered on the earth a foot away from Ketheruil's startled face. He ducked back in a hurry, partially obscured from her vision by horse legs. "They found us," he exclaimed quietly.
"Yeah, I think so," she quipped, dropping her reins to grasp the rapier at her side. Torn between drawing it and wanting to keep quiet, she tried to spot the barbarians among the trees.
"Come out, and won't die today!" a deep voice brayed somewhere to her right. She considered this with a furrowed brow.
"Do we just chance it?" Ketheruil asked in the humid silence. "I can't see them."
"I haven't yet either," Andraste complained, twisting her grip on her rapier's hilt. "I don't want the horses to bolt."
With a jolt, another arrow thwacked against their makeshift cover. She barely concealed her jump of surprise. The elf felt more than saw her companion reach for the light crossbow tethered to his saddle. Unable to make out the attackers, Andraste reached deftly into the pouch at her belt, feeling around for a small glass vial within. Drawing it out, she uncorked the small tube, shaking the piece of foxfire within out into her open palm. Concentrating on the glowing fragment, the bard suddenly crushed it in her fist, lifting her clenched hand to her lips. The elf breathed out sharply, "Ivae!", unfurling her fingers to propel the foxfire into the air. Shifting colors began to form in the spaces between the trees, twisting together and moving in a giant cube.
"Now!" She called to Ketheruil, as she darted out of their hiding place, drawing her sword. In the dim beneath the trees, she caught sight of the first three large, black-haired humans; each stone-still and staring up into the air. Their eyes shimmered with the shifting light of her spell. They wore thick hides, adorned with sharp shards of antler. Movement drew her eyes to the right, as another barbarian barreled toward her through the trees, unaffected. Behind her, she heard the snap of what must have been Ketheruil's crossbow as she raised her sword. The large human reached her in a few strides, swinging his axe toward her middle. Deflecting his blow, the shock of his strike vibrated through her arms and caused sharp pain in her shoulders. Suddenly he roared in her face, and she fell back, unsure of what would happen next.
Before he could swing at her again, she felt more than saw a black crossbow bolt fly over her and plant deep into the man's muscled shoulder. Abruptly, the tall body crumpled to the forest floor. Gasping at the close call, Andraste turned to yell at Ketheruil to be more careful.
"What was that?" Andraste yelled to her companion. Crossbow nowhere to be found, he was thrusting his shortsword toward another one of the barbarian warriors. As they fought, she saw another two large human figures coming toward them through the trees.
Ketheruil rotated his wrist, flipping the blade to the side and slashing quickly toward the warrior's throat. A red line of blood suddenly poured down the human's chest, and the fur-clad barbarian stumbled a bit. But the older man wasn't finished. He kicked into the enemy's midsection, knocking him backward. "What was what?"
"Did you shoot at me?"
"At you? I—" His words were suddenly cut off by a grunt as another of the barbarians reached him, and he had to duck to avoid a wild greataxe swing.
Andraste swept her surroundings quickly, looking for any sign of a shooter. She had only a moment before the other warrior reached her as well. Not to mention the three that were still standing charmed in the trees. There was nothing. Just shadows and dark wood.
Dropping her sword-arm to her side, the bard reached back into her component pouch, grasping a textured, light stone. Andraste rolled it twice in her palm before opening her hand, glancing down at the soft-colored mica. She took a breath, tossing the stone in the air and intoning, "Dalsein!" in a pure voice.
A sharp, piercing ring cut through the clearing, growing quickly in intensity. To her ears, it felt insulated, walled away by an invisible barrier. Two of her charmed barbarians suddenly bent double, clutching their ears, while the one that had been about to assault her clenched his eyes shut and stopped to shake his head. Blood began to flow from his nose, and then his ears.
She was shaken from her concentration by Ketheruil's cry. Her companion looked eerily like the human warriors, clutching his ears and bending toward the ground. "K!" His name burst from her as she darted toward him, guilt crashing over her in her carelessness. She didn't notice the remaining two warriors were following behind her.
As she reached her friend, she heard the snap of a crossbow bolt flying over her head and the heavy thud of another body hitting the forest floor. Andraste dropped her center of gravity, holding her sword out and turning to look for threats. Three barbarians were still standing, blocking off the south and west—some looking worse than others. Ketheruil was kneeling now, and he let out a groan as he pressed a hand against his temple.
"Sorry," Andraste panted, feeling paranoid and wanting to find the hidden sniper.
"Not dead yet," Ketheruil replied, looking up from under heavy brows. He reached for the sword he had dropped in pain, dragging it back into his grip.
For a moment, the warrior to the west hesitated. Those to the north split up, circling in to close off any exits. Before them, the black-haired human stepped over his fallen comrade, stopping a few feet in front of Andraste and Ketheruil. "Drop weapons," he said, holding out his axe. "I won't let play long." His common was terrible.
Andraste grit her teeth, while beside her Ketheruil asked calmly, "And who are you?"
"Rond Thunderer, Elk Tribe!" the man yelled, slamming a fist into his own chest. Before he could continue, another crossbow bolt flew between them, and sank into the midsection of one of the other Uthgardt warriors. The man managed to stay upright just barely, as he stumbled to the side. Rond let out another roar. Andraste slapped her hand to Ketheruil's shoulder, and channeled her energy. "Go!" she urged him, as his form was erased from view. She saw dead foliage on the ground crunch and brush aside as he moved away. The elf raised her sword, lunging toward the warrior to her right as Rond suddenly pitched forward from an unseen blow.
The metallic clang of weapons filled the forest as they fought the remaining warriors. Andraste dodged a swing of a barbarian's axe, darting in to stab at his chest. Abruptly, an unbearable pressure filled her left side, turning her ribs to ochre jelly. Without air to power it, her cry of pain was silent.
Stumbling back a few steps, she swung out blindly with her blade in an attempt to get space. There was a flash of colors in her vision, and the barbarian turned away from her. Andraste drew a shuddering breath, steadying herself to continue the fight.
From somewhere behind her, she heard Ketheruil call out, "Andraste! Get away!" Focusing her eyes, the bard realized someone else had engaged the barbarian. A slight figure clad in black had the warrior's axe trapped in a double-cross of blades. She quickly registered the white hair, pointed ears, and dark skin, and thought in confusion, 'Drow?'
An invisible hand gripped her forearm, and she heard Ketheruil speak beside her. "We have to get away from here, this isn't good."
"What about the others?" She asked, as her friend began to pull her toward their horses.
"I killed Rond, and wounded the other. It's those two and that dark elf. We should run."
"But why is he helping us?" Andraste looked back, as the warrior that had wounded her suddenly lost his head.
"This is not the time for you to take out your books and start researching!" Ketheruil chided, sounding truly bothered.
"Just wait!" Andraste brushed off her arm, feeling his hand fall away from her. She looked across the forest to the last warrior. As Ketheruil had claimed, he was bleeding and looked enraged, limping toward them as he was. Fifteen feet away, the drow stood ready, the dead barbarian at his feet. Andraste tucked her hand into her pouch, pinching a small iron bar between her first two fingers. "Ueche!" she demanded, extending her hand toward the last warrior. Immediately, the barbarian's axe began to glow white-hot. The man cried out, trying to drop the weapon. As it fell from his hand, it drew away melted flesh, and as it hit his feet he yelled again, dropping to the ground.
She glanced over to the dark elf. He was clad in black leather armor, tightly fitted and engraved with silver writing. His shoulders rose and fell minutely, giving away his breathing. But what caught her attention was his mismatched eyes - one blue, and the other a faceted orb of orange.
The last enemy had fallen still on the forest floor, and all was quiet. She could practically feel Ketheruil's anxiety beside her. They stared at each other: the elf and the old man, the drow. After a few heavy seconds, the stranger broke the silence.
"You're good?" the dark elf asked, his common accented in a way she couldn't remember hearing before. His tone was carefully neutral.
Andraste nodded without thinking, while Ketheruil's sword hand twitched. "What do you want with us?" her friend demanded.
"Nothing," the drow quickly replied, reversing his grip on one of his blades so that he could hold out his open hand. "I heard yelling about someone dying and thought I would see what was going on."
"Out of the goodness of your heart, I guess," Ketheruil bit back, angling slightly to stand between Andraste and the stranger.
"Ketheruil," she cautioned, laying a hand on his forearm. "He hasn't done anything. Calm down. Let's see—"
"Have you lost your mind?" The older man looked her incredulously, not standing down.
"Please," Andraste cut in, annoyed at being interrupted. She pushed Ketheruil aside and took three bold steps forward, extending her hand toward the stranger. "Ignore him. I'm in charge, really. He's just senile. I'm grateful for the help."
She heard her companion give a huff behind her, and decided she would apologize later. Probably. The dark elf eyed her hand for a moment before meeting her eyes directly. "I am not what he expects," the drow said quietly, motioning toward Ketheruil with his chin.
"I'm sure," she smiled. "I prefer to ask questions, rather than assume. Are you traveling or do you live here?"
Something changed in the dark elf's posture, and Andraste realized he'd been on edge as well. He began to wipe off his swords. "Traveling. Toward the coast, ideally. I'm out of a place to live."
"Well—" Andraste began, smiling in what she hoped was a friendly, disarming way. Her brain was beginning to kick into gear as she catalogued the many, many questions she really did want to ask, very soon.
"Andraste, n—"
"We're headed that way." The redheaded elf also put her sword away, taking a few more steps toward the stranger. "I'm Andraste, as he was saying. That's Ketheruil. If you're looking for traveling company, we could keep looking out for one another."
An understated smile bent the drow's lips, and Andraste caught a brief flash of his white teeth. "Callyss," he introduced himself simply, walking closer as well. "And yes, I would appreciate the company."
---
The drow, as it happened, had no horse. The first few days, Andraste couldn't completely overcome the warning looks Ketheruil kept throwing her way. So while they did travel together, the friends kept to their horses and the stranger was on foot. The dark elf kept his hood pulled low, and Andraste rarely saw his eyes before dark. But otherwise he was quick on his feet and mostly silent.
Slightly before sunset that first day, Ketheruil had pulled them up and climbed down from the saddle. There had still been a few hours of travel before Calling Horns. He declared that it was as good a time as any to make camp, and walked away toward a sparse grove of trees off the road, horse in tow. After a moment's indecision, she urged her gelding to follow after him. She had been looking forward to a soft bed that night to soothe her bruises from earlier.
They tethered their horses to the trees farthest from the road. Andraste grimaced as she slipped her fingers beneath the newly loosened saddle, brushing through the horse's sweaty coat. With a heave, she pulled the saddle down and walked a few steps to set it down where she intended to (try to) sleep. Callyss was walking through the trees around them, gathering fallen wood fragments.
As she returned to the horse's side to give a bit of a brushing, she saw Ketheruil beginning to do the same, all the while tracking the drow with his eyes.
"He hasn't stabbed either of us yet," she whispered, voice thrown carefully across the horses. The redhead bent over to brush the horse's belly.
"Yet." Ketheruil echoed quietly. "You're not ignorant. You should know better than me what...they're like."
"Well maybe I'm curious," Andraste replied, catching her voice before it rose to a normal volume. She could barely hear the dark elf's light footsteps in the grass behind her.
"Don't let it get us murdered," Ketheruil chided, meeting her eyes sternly before turning away to go through his pack.
Shortly after they had sat down in the grass, Callyss walked back over and dropped his small pile of wood. Using his boot, he tore up some of the grass to make an empty circle of dirt before dropping the spare branches onto it. Then with his back to the setting sun, he sat down with a small distance between.
Andraste absently nibbled a bit of the bread from their bags. She watched the dark elf take the traveling pack from his shoulder and dig through it for a moment, before taking out some sort of smoked meat. The three of them ate in silence as the sun continued to sink below the horizon.
"You first, or me?" Ketheruil asked as they finished, looking to the Bard. Dusting off his hands on his pants, he reached back to pull the length of his dark braid over his shoulder. Untying the end, he began unraveling the plait and running his fingers through it.
"I'll stay awake." Andraste sat up straight to unclasp and remove her heavy leather belt. Setting the entire thing—pouches, scabbard, and all—beside her extended legs, she scooted back a bit to lean against the side of her saddle seat. It wasn't the best, but the thing was decent back support with enough pitch to look up and wait for the stars to appear.
Ketheruil nodded to her, dark eyes glancing meaningfully at her sword and back up to her face. After piling his hair on top of his head and securing it, the older human laid down in the grass beside her and covered his shoulders with his cloak. Twilight continued silently, except for the occasional heavy breathing from the horses and the valley's night noises.
Everything had been so still, Andraste nearly jumped out of her skin when Callyss reached up to push his hood off his head. The sun was well and truly gone by then. As was Ketheruil.
"He's anxious," the dark elf remarked quietly in his oddly accented Common.
"A bit," Andraste agreed, looking over at her sleeping companion. "He thinks you're as likely to kill us as continue to be helpful."
"I noticed." Callyss pulled his traveling bag to his side, shifting his body to lay down in the grass, feet away from her. "It's smart."
"Why, planning something?" the redhead smirked, pulling up a few blades of grass to twirl between her fingers. Stars were coming out to shine brightly overhead, with the moon just a small sliver in the night sky. She liked how all the colors started to meld together in the night. Except for the white of the drow's hair. That was still shining to her darkvision in the faint light.
"No. But most people are." Callyss crossed his right ankle over his shin, perhaps stretching. "He could be more subtle about it."
The elf snorted at that, resisting the urge to give her sleeping companion a poke in the back. "Does the sun hurt your eyes?"
He was silent for a long moment before looking over at her. "Direct. Yes it does."
"Well," she shrugged to herself, trying to think of a pattern to weave the grass into. "I'm used to asking questions. It's practically my job. And you were hiding your face all day so I wondered. That, or you just sunburn easily."
"Sunburn?" Callyss asked, an odd tone in his voice.
"It's..." Andraste twisted her lips up. "I've not had to explain this. There's too much sun and your skin gets all red and painful."
His reply was nearly too quiet to hear. "There's always too much sun," Callyss commented.
"What are you doing up here, anyway? I'd been led to think this didn't happen often."
"I'm no paragon of my race," the dark elf replied, switching position to rest the opposite ankle stop his extended leg. "It's not that important."
"To leave home for another world? Seems important."
"If you want it to be dramatic, it is," Callyss responded, sounding almost like a disapproving teacher. "I wanted things, so I took them. Just so happens I had to leave the Underdark to get them. Leaving wasn't as important as the afterward."
"Which was?" Andraste leaned forward to rest her elbows on top of her thighs, slowly making a fairy-sized mat out of grass. She wished she hadn't trapped her notebook in the bottom of her pack.
"Maybe if I don't kill you in your sleep, you'll find out." He wasn't looking at her anymore, but she was certain he was smirking.
"Cheeky," the elf shook her head. "Tell me something else then. I love to learn. And here I am with my possible murderer. I'm on the edge of my seat."
"Your friend thinks I worship the spider goddess."
"Obviously," she quipped.
"He's wrong. You know the Seldarine, as a good elf from the night above. We have our own gods. We don't all worship the spider bitch."
"No?" Andraste sat her tiny mat on her knee and twisted backward, trying to reach for her saddle pack to find that notebook. "And who do you worship, then?"
"There are eight," Callyss continued, face tilted up toward the stars. "Lolth, Ghaundadaur, Kiaransalee, Malyk, Zinzerena, Selvetarm, the Masked Lord, and the Dark Maiden Eilistraee. Should I repeat those?"
Andraste had been about to shake some ink through her pen tip, but she paused at the ribbing. "Bastard," she muttered, drawing a practice line on the top corner of her notebook. She wanted to be sure she could see it clearly in the darkness before she started writing anything in earnest. "Elis—?"
"Ei-lis-trae-e," he repeated, leaning heavily on each syllable. "Are you some kind of wizard? Or librarian?"
"Mm," Andraste hummed, as she copied down her memory of the gods. "Practically. I sing too. It makes people like me. What do you do?"
"I dance. Some of the murder. Occasionally, I write. It doesn't have the same effect as your talents, usually."
"You're not the worst I've heard." Andraste smiled to herself, adding a date and vague location to the top margin of her page when she was finished with the list. "How do you spell your name?"
"I speak Common, I don't read it."
"Really??" the elf nearly dropped her pen, and she found herself staring at the dark elf's silhouette.
He turned his head and looked back at her, eyes flashing in the starlight. "I've never had much use for it until recently. If I read anything it's not in common."
"That's completely unacceptable," Andraste huffed, shaking her head at him. "If you're going to have a real life up here you have to be literate."
"I am literate," his expression fell flat.
She grimaced at him, before turning back to her page. "Well, given how you say it, there'd be a K or a C, and then A-" she traced out both versions, one on top of the other. "An L? Two maybe. Then a U, or something..." As she wrote out the possibilities, her considerations flew faster than her narration and she trailed off. There were at least eight.
When she looked up again, he was still watching her silently, waiting. "It should probably be a Y, not a U," Andraste decided, "Or it sounds like an unfortunate pun."
Callyss pursed his lips before giving a small shrug. "As you say," he agreed easily, looking back up to the stars.
The night had continued that way, until Ketheruil woke some time past midnight and told her to take a turn. Eventually morning came—the three of them all still living—and after breakfast Ketheruil was first to start saddling the horses again. "He knows you're losing your mind over this," Andraste remarked casually, glancing over to where Callyss was bent over adjusting his right boot.
Ketheruil's head had whipped around as he was reaching up to his saddle. "You—"
"He heard everything. I'm not that surprised," she chuckled, waving at the older human. "Go on, get up, I know it's hard this early in the morning."
The man grumbled incoherently at her, climbing atop the horse and settling with a sigh. "I know you want to adopt every stray monster you find, Andraste. But really, be careful here." Despite his controlled posture, he had lowered his voice a bit in response. "Some of them belong in the ground, not in a museum."
"Yeesh," Andraste raised an eyebrow, turning away to mount her own horse. "Remind me to ask about your dark history with the dark elves some time."
"Do you have to be so loud about it?" Ketheruil had asked, a hint of the petulant teenager he had once been peeking through.
"I can hear you, loud or not," Callyss' voice suddenly cut through the brisk morning air. Andraste burst out laughing. Ketheruil began muttering again, and with a shake of his head he trotted off toward the Evermoor Way.