The TwiceBorn

Welcome To Gandoura

 The men moved away from her horse , and turned away from her dark eyes with a fear she'd come to know well.  She rode light and tense in the saddle.  She trusted no one.  Especially those claiming to need her help.  Loki jangled his bit, champing the silver, as it tightened in his mouth.  He halted and pawed the ground so Alora could study the men, her black eyes impatient.

She sighed inwardly and waited for someone to step forward and speak.  It didn't matter what anyone said, terror was more contagious than lung rot, sweeping from man to man like a brush fire and robbing their voices of sound.  A light breeze rustled through the nearby hemlocks, a delicate scythe sweeping dust and the scent of heatherblossoms before it.  She tilted her face, feeling its whisper through her dark hair.

                        For a brief moment Alora forgot who she was and thought of galloping across the grasses, wind in her face as she knelt low over Loki's sweated withers.  No where to be, no where to go, the responsibilities of her Clan resting on shoulders other than her own and when the sun set, the night was just the night.  A moment of togetherness and not something alive, something that needed to be worked and tended....

"You're the Twiceborn?"

The man had the reluctant look of losing the coin toss as to who should be the speaker.  Her eyes swept over him, and took in the thick leathers, and the war helmet crooked beneath a heavily muscled arm.  His face wore the hang-dog look of exhaustion.

"Yes.  I'm the Twiceborn.  Word reached me through Wulfgar  you needed me.  My services aren't free."

                            The man studied her through hollowed eyes.  She was nothing like what he'd expected, the tales he'd heard told ingrained on his memory like the passage of a well-loved book.  He found her slight build  unsettling.  He'd pictured her more like a warrior woman built like Garth the blacksmith.  Or a wild,screaming crone with hair as white as the moon.  Legends consisted mostly of strong brew and fanciful tongues but there had to be more than this....girl.  His daughters were tucked firmly away in his root cellar and this little slip could well have joined them, a thought he didn't find comforting in the least.

"I'm Sar and this is my a...army."  The quick stutter brought a childish flush to his face.  "Tomorrow we defend the people of Gandoura against those pillaging bastards in Lese."

Alora cocked one leathered leg around the horn of her saddle, her expression one of barely concealed boredom and watched, amused, as Sar fell silent.  Loki reached out an inquisitive nose and lipped the tightly clutched war helmet.  Sar jumped and began to speak again.  His words tumbled out feverishly.

"We can't afford much, we're not rich.  Many of my men lack weapons and mounts.  We're not warriors. We're husbands and fathers."  

She swept her black eyes over the motley crew huddled behind him and remained silent.

"Surely you can find some compassion..even you..to help me and my men."  Sar plunged on as one word tumbled over the next.  "We have 20 pieces of silver.  I k..know it's not much but there isn't much left, they've taken everything and its all..."

Alora held up her hand.  It was an old story, trotted out and dipped in desperation.  She knew the words by heart.

"  Spare me the sad tale.  Let's set our dealings straight: I have no pity for you. Ten gold pieces.  If you don't have this, I'll ride on."

The matter of fact tone of her voice caused Sar's face to flush a deep purple. Her nonchalance burned his skin like a brand. She simply didn't care. What was happening to Gandoura meant no more to her than the recent spate of rain they'd had or the rising cost of grain.  He stared at her as she lanquidly raised her arms over her head in an exaggerated stretch.