Back to Harm

Hrothgar and Enelye leave the library, knowing that more awaits them, even though no doors were found in the room.

They travel back through the scriptorium, over the hallway trap and to the cellar. They climb out of the cellar to find the day to be mid afternoon. Standing on the ruined tower they can see the stream they crossed to climb the hill to the tower, the thick grassland, rolling until it gets to the River Ox. And beyond that the rolling forested hills. And beyond that, the last bastion in the West, the Village of Harm.

If they hurried, they would be to Harm by dusk. Just in time for supper.

Even with as battered as they were, and as sorry they were at the loss of Rhian, it felt good to be out of the ruins of Udd. And breathing fresh air helped.

Hrothgar walked down the stairs and began his journey to Harm. "Come on Enelye, we can make it by supper time, then a soft bed, and tomorrow, we sell this stuff and find some more people who would like to help us clear out this tower."

~

The trip back to  Harm was uneventful, as both had hoped. The crossing of the River Ox in May was no easy feat, but they had both survived and now were back about to cross under the makeshift wooden gate that marked the entry to Harm. The gate and the wooden pallisade were the latest precautions the village leaders and merchants had taken to protect their interests and themselves from the ever increasing banditry and maurauding humanoids and beasties that now roamed the countryside. It was never like this when the Kings Frontier Forts and Garrison Towers were out west. Now only one fort remained, and none of the Kings army remained in the west. Untold numbers of towns, and villages lay in ruin, or were just unihabited as the people streamed back to the Kingdom, right on the heals of the retreating armies. It hadbeen 2 generations since the Exodus.

So Harm decided to go it alone. Because its leaders and merchants and business men and religious leaders hoped one day it could be the City in the West. So Harm has encouraged explorers and adventurers and warriors to come protect it, and better yet, to take back the West.