Disclaimer: This is a work in progress as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). You are reading the work product of a first draft writing session and not a finished product. Comments are welcome, but bear the first draft nature of the work in mind. Thank you and enjoy!
Chapter 6
The next several days of travel through the forest gave Cori a chance to think about her plans more. She had not liked lying to the farmer and his wife, and it settled poorly with her that they had realized that she was lying to them almost immediately. They were kind people and did not deserve to be lied to. She thought on this and determined that she would not lie about who she was if directly asked but she would only share information that was necessary to achieve her goals. She knew that this was still a lie of omission and wrong, but there was no way around it if she was to achieve success in her plans.
On the morning of the third day after the stay on the farm, Cori arrived at the great northern road that led from the Kingdoms of Rhodes to Padon. Padon lay to the northeast of Rhodes, and its borders also touched the barbarian lands held by the Krator tribes. It was said that the Rangers of Padon were almost as good as those of Rhodes at securing the frontiers of their kingdom. Once on the great road, Cori should be within a day’s walk of Gladestown. That was if she was correct in her reckoning. She had been supremely confident in her forestry skills when she set out. That enthusiasm had dimmed some as she learned how much she didn’t know on this journey. Cori realized that much of her traveling needs had been supplied by those who traveled with her. While her tracking and stalking skills were strong, she had not known much about setting up camp, seeking shelter or other essential skills. But, she was learning. Once she joined the Legion, they would teach her even more, and she would be a strong student and learn everything they had to teach her.
There were a few wagons that passed her on the road during that morning and afternoon on the road and when she asked one farmer with a load of hay how far off Gladestown was, he told her it was only a half day’s travel further. He offered her a ride in the wagon as that was where he was headed with his load of fodder. His name was Burton, and he told her he traveled to Gladestown once a month with a load of hay cut from the mountain meadows near his farm, bound for the inn’s stable in Gladestown. He asked her about her reasons for being on the road alone and she told him of her desire to join the muster of the Legion for the coming war. Burton had not heard of the war but admitted that he had not ventured off his farm since the last trip to town the previous month. He was glad he had not brought his two sons along. They might have gotten it in their heads to enlist in this war, too, which he thought was a foolish thing that didn’t have anything to do with them. Cori listened to this and realized that the people of the northern part of the province were a very independent sort who did not feel much allegiance to treaties and kingdoms not their own. Burton was loyal to the King in Rhodes, and to the Lord in Westgate, who kept the borders secure against barbarian incursions, but he didn’t see the need to help other kingdoms with their problems. She didn’t argue his point. It would serve no point to refute his beliefs and she didn’t think he’d care much for the opinion of a young girl he was offering a free ride to on the road to Gladestown.
The farm cart rumbled into the town near sundown and Cori got the first look at her final destination. The village of about fifteen houses and buildings was set in a valley with a backdrop of forested mountain peaks highlighted by the light of the westerly setting sun. The buildings were mostly made of stone and timber with steeply pitched thatched roofs suggesting a goodly amount of snowfall each winter. People here seemed friendly, and several called out to Burton as he drove his cartload of hay though the single road between the houses and shops. Cori saw a smithy, an outfitters, and dry goods mercantile along with a mill set next to a swiftly flowing stream with a slowly turning mill wheel. The inn called the Ranger’s Rest, sat at the edge of town and consisted of a large two-story inn built of the same stone and timber construction as the other buildings in Gladestown. It also had several out buildings including and stable, and storehouse and its courtyard seemed to serve as a sort of market square for the town. Cori saw several tables occupied by farmers selling vegetables and crafted wares from tables set around the courtyard. More greetings were called to Burton as he finally settled the cart next to the inn’s stable. A boy came up to hold the cart horse’s harness as old farmer climbed down from his perch on the bench. Cori climbed out of the back of the cart and gathered her belongings. She offered a silver coin to the farmer for the ride into town, but he looked at the coin and laughed.
“Save your coin for the innkeeper,” he laughed. “I was glad of your company on the long road, and the news you had about the world outside served as payment enough. I’ll have much to tell my family and friends when I return home. I wish you luck and safe travels, Cori. Don’t you get yourself killed on this quest for war, you hear?”
“Thank you, sir,” Cori said. “I will endeavor to keep myself safe in the coming conflict. I wish you a good harvest and a long life.” She picked up her bow last and strolled off across the courtyard to the inn’s entrance. The interior was a large common room with tables and benches set about the large stone fireplace set on one wall. The room was full and bustling with people and noise. Cori pushed her way through the room up to the bar set against the far wall. There were stairs up to the second floor to the left of the bar. She was looking forward to getting a room and a bed for the night. She leaned up against the bar and waited patiently as the portly woman working there worked her way down the patrons clustered there, filling their drink orders and bantering with them in a friendly tone. She arrived down at the end where Cori stood waiting after a few minutes and stared appraisingly at her before speaking.
“What’ll it be that you want little missy?” The innkeeper said looking Cori over.
“I’d like something for dinner and a room for the night, please, Ma’am,” Cori requested.
The Innkeeper laughed, not in a mean tone but a loud, joyful laugh as if Cori had told her a good joke. “Look around you missy. I can certainly feed you, but with all this talk of war and the summer trader caravan being in town, I don’t have any rooms. I assume you’re here to enlist with that Legion sergeant who is in town?”
“How did you know?” Cori asked.
“You have the look the same as the others. Eager and ready for anything, though I don’t think you know what anything means,” the woman said. “I have put the lot of you up in the stable’s loft. I’m charging five copper pennies for the loft and two meals, supper, and breakfast, take it or leave it.”
Cori was disappointed with not being able to get a room. She suspected if her father were here, they would find a room for him and his family, but she was not about to play that card. Besides, she was excited to meet other recruits in town for the Legion muster. “I’ll take it, thank you. May I take my supper meal now?”
“You may,” the woman said with a smile. “Take a seat on that bench and table over there. You’ll find a few others like yourself there. I’ll have one of the girls bring your stew and bread over. Is ale alright for the meal or would you like to purchase something stronger?”
“Ale’s fine, thank you,” Cori replied, and she headed over to the table and benches in the corner.
There were several other young people there sitting and eating their meals. There were two women and three men seated at the table. She eyed them up as she approached. One of the women was in her mid-twenties and had a nasty scar down one cheek. She was attractive otherwise, with dark, tanned skin and dressed in black leather pants and a black cotton top, she wore a sword and dirk on her belt. He long black hair hung down to the small of her back. The other woman seemed a complete opposite to the first. She was younger than the first woman, perhaps only a year or two older than Cori’s sixteen. Her fair complexion and red hair along with her rich clothing with fur-trimmed cloak and embroidered dress showing she came from a wealthier family. She too had a sword and dirk at her belt, but those were the only similarities. The three men were each different, as well. One boy had to be close to her in age, his dark brown hair pulled back and tied at the nape of his neck with a tied kerchief covering his head a rough white cotton tunic shirt belted at the waist and buckskin pants. He had no weapons she could see. Another boy, also close to her age was extremely broad shouldered, had sandy blond curls close-cropped atop his head. He laughed aloud as she watched him interact with the group. He wore a black leather vest tied at the front with leather thongs. His arms were bare, perhaps because they showed off his muscular build. She was certainly impressed by his size. The final man had to be near thirty in age. He had the look of a farmer but a poor one. His hair was shoulder length and brown. He wore a simple cotton shirt with long sleeves and a v-neck, laced up to a broad collar at the top. His pants were simple brown woolen leggings that she might have seen on any of the farmer back home at Westgate.
Their conversation stopped, and they looked up as she approached. They looked her over much as she had already done for them on the approach. The red-haired girl smiled and slid over, offering Cori a spot.
“I’m Erin, Erin Sparrow. You must be here for the Legion muster, too.” The red-haired girl said as Cori leaned her bow and backpack up against the wall nearby and sat down.
“I am, I guess,” Cori said. She was a little uncertain now that she was here. “I’m Cori, uh, just Cori.”
“Well Cori Just Cori, our other lady friend here is Katina Carlisle,” Erin said. She gestured to the others and introduced them as well. “These other prospective Legionnaires are Kieran Peal, Declan Hymers, and our elder member Gebhard Hawken. There are a few others around, but these are the ones staying in the loft over the stable. I assume that is where you’ll be staying as well?”
“Yes, I guess so, hello all,” Cori said. A tavern girl of about eighteen came over with a large bowl of stew and a generous hunk of bread along with a flagon of ale. She set it down in front of Cori.
“I’m Shelby,” she said. “Let me know if you need anything else. Mistress said you wanted to stay in the loft with the others and include breakfast. That will be five copper pennies.”
Cori counted out the coins carefully and added another copper for the waitress. Shelby nodded her thanks and turned back to the busy roomful of customers. Cori was surprised how hungry she was, and she dug into the stew right away. While she ate her dinner, the others went back to their conversation. As she listened and ate, she learned a lot about her new companions. Katina, the girl with the scar on her face, was a caravan guard who had left the service of the caravansary to join the Legion. Erin was a merchant’s daughter who didn’t want to spend her life figuring accounts for her father. She had left him when he refused to take her on his travels and teach her his business. The boy with the kerchief was Keiran, and he was a local farm boy who had heard of the war and the muster and wanted to go out and see more of the world than just this tiny village. He talked of the big city of Westgate which made Cori smile. Westgate was hardly a city when compared to Rhodes or the sprawling cities of the eastern empire. Declan in the black leather vest was a former blacksmith’s apprentice. He, too, wanted to see more of the world and knew that he would eventually have to strike out on his own since there was only room for one blacksmith in town who had sons of his own to take over that business. Gebhard, or Geb as he preferred, was indeed a farmer as she had suspected. His farm was having trouble, and he figured he could make enough coin with the enlistment bonus to help support his wife and two small children while he went off to find a better fortune on the road to war. Cori was doubtful of the wisdom of that plan, but she knew that the Legion paid a silver piece to each who mustered for the war. That money would go a long way in these parts to help support a small farm.
Her new companions seemed all nice enough. Erin was the chattiest of the group and seemed to lead the conversation as she learned everything she possibly could about each of them. Cori suspected she was frustrated by her refusal to tell them much about herself. She merely told them she was from the south and sought to join the Legion and serve in the war that was coming. Interestingly, they all leaned in when she provided them details of the war, what little she knew. Apparently, they didn’t even know of the invasion of Verona, or the treaty between the four Free Kingdoms to mutually defend each other in the event of war. They only knew that a war had been declared, and the famed Legion of Solon was seeking recruits. Cori found it unusual that none of them knew of the history of the kingdom or the previous war a hundred years before that had formed the Free Kingdoms from the Empire’s western provinces and frontier. They ate up her knowledge like she was a bard telling them an epic tale. Each kept peppering her with questions about what she knew, and she found herself describing her father, without letting on who she was, as Lord Westgate in his leadership of the Legion to put down the barbarian incursion to the north a generation before. They were fascinated to hear what she knew of the man they all called “Lord Logan” who was to lead the Legion off to war. Cori chucked to herself at the thought of “Lord Logan.” He would not like the moniker, but she supposed it fit him well enough since he was the lead captain of the Legion of Solon now.
Cori asked them about the muster here in Gladestown. Erin told her that a ranger sergeant had come to the village a week before and nailed a proclamation from the King and Queen in Rhodes that the muster of the northern reaches would begin as the kingdom was at war. He was supposed to return here in a few days to gather those who wished to try and join the Legion. He was traveling across this part of the province and was picking up recruits for his company commander. When he returned, he was going to test each of them in turn. If they passed the tests, they would be allowed to sign their mark, take the silver crown and take up arms as a Legion recruit. Cori noticed, Shelby, their waitress standing nearby listening to them whenever she could. It made her wonder if there were others around the town who would decide to enlist in the Legion when the sergeant returned to town.
When the meal was done, she followed the others out to the stables, and they showed her where they were settling to sleep each night. The stalls were all full with the caravan in town, so they had taken to the hay loft above on the second story of the building. Cori shouldered her pack and bow and climbed the ladder to the loft. The prospective recruits had turned one corner of it into a little slice of home, and the innkeeper had sent out some spare blankets. Cori was able to gather some of the hay and create a makeshift mattress with one of the blankets. Using her pack as a pillow, she lay down on the lumpy pile that was her bed for the night and settled in to go to sleep. It was welcome despite the lumps after spending the last two nights on the trail sleeping on the ground. The others settled into their spots and soon Geb was snoring away in the corner. It was another new experience for her. She had never shared a room with anyone before, and here she was sleeping in a loft with five other people. She heard some other noises and shifted in her blankets a little to see in the dim light what it was. She realized it was Katina and Kieran together under their blankets at the far side of the loft. She was horrified when she realized what was going on. She stuck her fingers in her ears as she struggled to think about other things while she fell asleep. Eventually, her exhaustion took over, and she drifted off to sleep thinking about what the testing would be like when the sergeant returned to check out the prospective recruits.
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Disclaimer: This is a work in progress as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). You are reading the work product of a first draft writing session and not a finished product. Comments are welcome, but bear the first draft nature of the work in mind. Thank you and enjoy!