04-15-2017, 01:06 AM
Amid the darkening twilight I stalk the streets of Harnburg, home to Castle Harnburg and capitol of the duchy to which it lends its name. The town is shaped like a crescent teardrop (a form which will in time prove to be devastatingly appropriate), narrow at its northern end but widening as it curls around the lake towards the ducal fortress which lies at its heart. What began as a single cobblestone road, a paved continuation of the path I followed to reach this place, soon forks into three wide avenues. They present a drastic change from the packed-earth wagon-trails I've traveled until now, lined on either side by two and three-story thatched-roof buildings wrought of dark bricks and ruddy stone. Wooden signs hung above the doors and windows offer a variety of services, an enticing glimpse into a complex universe of interconnected trades - taverns, smithies, inns and glassmakers, seamstresses and butchers, carpenters and masons.
I'll visit these establishments later, to observe them in operation and learn about their customers in greater detail. For now, though, something else catches my attention: Large (for tiny human values of the word) men wearing chain-mail shirts, red tights, and open-faced helmets have begun to appear on the streets, patrolling at long, irregular intervals. They've all got smallish metal discs fastened to their forearms with hide straps, lanterns in their hands, and small swords sheathed at their hips. At first I think they're simply lost, but they're all too much alike for this display to be coincidence.
I try to stop one of them - very soon after they appeared they became the only people around - but they seem to be making an effort to avoid me, hastening around corners and ducking into alleyways. Finally I manage to corner one in a broad market square paved with wide, flat flagstones, trapping him between a pair of shuttered wooden stalls that abut the outer fortifications of Harnburg Castle. For all that he's near my height, he looks very small and alone standing in he shadows with his little lamp and his little shield, looking at my hide blazing bronze in the light of his lantern and trying to decide whether or not to draw his weapon.
"What," I ask him, my voice dripping with cold curiosity, "are you doing?"
I'll visit these establishments later, to observe them in operation and learn about their customers in greater detail. For now, though, something else catches my attention: Large (for tiny human values of the word) men wearing chain-mail shirts, red tights, and open-faced helmets have begun to appear on the streets, patrolling at long, irregular intervals. They've all got smallish metal discs fastened to their forearms with hide straps, lanterns in their hands, and small swords sheathed at their hips. At first I think they're simply lost, but they're all too much alike for this display to be coincidence.
I try to stop one of them - very soon after they appeared they became the only people around - but they seem to be making an effort to avoid me, hastening around corners and ducking into alleyways. Finally I manage to corner one in a broad market square paved with wide, flat flagstones, trapping him between a pair of shuttered wooden stalls that abut the outer fortifications of Harnburg Castle. For all that he's near my height, he looks very small and alone standing in he shadows with his little lamp and his little shield, looking at my hide blazing bronze in the light of his lantern and trying to decide whether or not to draw his weapon.
"What," I ask him, my voice dripping with cold curiosity, "are you doing?"