The red and gold flags standing proud atop the outer walls of Windgrad marked a striking contrast against the jet black stone they were founded upon. They fluttered in the mid morning wind, reflecting the powerful sun with their own version of radiance. Noah's eyes drifted down the stone wall. Carvings were made into its side, things he thought he could make out at one moment as some type of script, which then evaporated from his understanding into some sort of pattern design meant only for beauty. Along the great wall, spires divided it, one rising up every three hundred feet or so. He observed their design to be similar to the ones seen at the cliff's bottom.
He found himself stepping to the left and right, leaning far in each direction as he did so. To his amazement, the wall before him appeared to glitter, even if just slightly. Not like a precious jewel might, in its glassy way. Rather, it seemed to him that the wall itself held some forms of lights within it that were ignited by the sun. Each one distant and weak, like a single star in the night sky, but together forming a dazzling canvas of glittering beauty. He repeated the movement several times.
"Stop that." Rebbi gave him a slight nudge. "You will make us look like a band of fools when we get to the gates." While the tone suggested her contempt towards him, he knew a softness lay beneath this show.
"Why? Is it anything better than a magic wall?"
"Stop calling all things you don't understand magic, fool." The name she had originally given him in anger, now stuck as a badge of a growing friendship, though he knew she would never phrase it in such a way. "And yes, they are." She spoke the words confidently, despite never being there before herself. Indeed, all she knew of Tovoran she did because of her father's stories. In reality, though she put on a face of pride and dignity, she did not feel too different from her companion. The two walked on at the back of the pack, some notable distance from them. Side by side, they made their way along the wall.
"They don't say much, do they?" Rebbi looked over at her companion to find him craning his neck back, looking directly up. She joined. High above, poking beyond the wall, she spotted little dots. Every few seconds one of them would pull back, vanishing from view, and then another would replace it. Soldiers, she had guessed the same as him, watching their party move down the road towards the gate. "I suppose it makes sense though. Not paid to chat with us. Only to make sure we don't try anything funny."
"We would never do that." She said, looking over at him with indignation. "My people are not like some common band of brigands. We only deal fairly and return what we are given. It is our way." Noah did not look away from the heads peering down at them.
"I have no doubts about this. However, I think all of the kingdoms of our world have had people tell them something similar before slitting their throats."
Rebbi felt stunned by the bluntness, and wisdom, of what she had just heard. For the time that the two strangers had been traveling with them, this one had seemed more than a bit naive. So, to hear this from him, made the logic all the more portent.
She looked up again, with new eyes. A sinking feeling came into her stomach. She had seen many kingdoms in her recent travels over the past six months. The majority of them, great nations of men, spilling over with wealth and power. Each time her people stopped at one of these places, they were welcomed by the nobles and given a treatment she could only describe as what she imagined royalty to be like.
When they had passed the mountain walls and entered what her father called, "the most ancient of kingdoms", her hope for the future travels left her tossing and turning each night with childlike excitement. What she had found within the mountain walls dimmed her views considerably.
"Are you sure they will keep him safe?" She looked at Noah, who let out a long sigh. No doubt the question, which had been repeated to him many times since their conversation on the ramp, left him regretful of ever telling her the information.
"There is no real way of knowing, Rebbi. He is the one who went there. Perhaps Giles knew something about the North that we don't. Besides, you have spent more time there than me."
"Yes, but only long enough to watch the Behemoth start its migration, may he be blessed." She touched her forehead after saying this, nodding as she did so. Noah only shook his head.
"Then there is simply no way for us to know. The best we can do is our mission, and hope that we can reach its end before anything else happens to him."
"Yes. Yes, that is true." She looked forward and quickened her pace. The knowledge she learned on the ramp, that Giles had been framed as some sort of assassin to a young prince, was simply beyond her understanding. She hated the thought of it.
When her caravan had come upon the ruins of his tribe's village, her heart felt it might become the very ash she looked upon. Dead upon dead lay strewn about. She knew none of their faces, but those older among their party went forth with a great wailing. Even her father, a man she had rarely seen solemn before others, knelt to the ground and bowed his head before letting the tears flow forth.
For three days they accounted for the dead, giving them the proper rituals of burial and recording their names into the scrolls to later be passed through the other nomadic tribes. They would all be informed that each member of the Namreo tribe had been wiped away, and their lineage forever gone from this plane of reality.
On the third day, she saw each dead face looking back at her, as her family walked by them holding an incense burner over the dead. All cold, and all soulless. In such a moment, at the end of the row of three hundred men, women, and children, she felt a spark of hope.
For many years, she thought of him. In their youth, the last time his family crossed paths with her own, she had met the boy named Giles. Clever and charming, he had formed a distinct version of himself within her mind, and a face she could never forget. His was the only one not seen among the dead.
"Of course he escaped." She told herself, the words becoming a daily mantra as time passed. "He was always so smart. Always outthinking even many of the grownups. It would be impossible for him to have died too." Though this did little to keep her heart from feeling just as broken as if he really had been lost forever.
From that moment on, she held onto a secret prayer, words of protection for wherever he might have escaped to. And, as they traveled, she looked upon every passing face, hoping to see his gleaming eyes shining back at her from under some hood of secrecy. Even if just for a moment, before he passed on into the night and out of her life forever, if only to give her the closure of knowing he indeed was alright. But this never happened. And with each passing day, her hope grew weaker.
So, when the two strangers came to their camp, bringing the morning with them, and speaking of the name Giles, her passion resurged. She could no longer be pining away at simple hopes and prayers. Now, she had to become a player in this game if she wished to ever find him again.
"Is that the gate ahead? It's massive." Noah's words brought her back to the present. The company ahead of them stopped, the long caravan line waiting patiently. She could hear her father conversing at the head with someone whose voice she did not recognize.
Far ahead, jutting out from the black stone like a growth, the gate presented itself. Its amazing arch reached only halfway up the wall itself before curving back down. However, the size of this still impressed even those older among the tribe who had visited the city once before. She thought back to the walls of the mountain pass, and their strong impregnable gates dawned with oak and iron. They were dwarfed by the two hanging doors before them.
Red and yellow they had been painted in the pattern of two bucks facing each other. Not only iron, but also gold and silver had been woven through the wood to outline the animals. In the light of the clear sky, she noted glistening jewels dazzling where the eyes ought to be. Down from the arch's top, the red and golden banner hung, its sigil of an antlered face looking down at her. She swallowed hard, and unconsciously took a step back.
Beyond these gates lay an ancient city. A place of old stone, winding paths leading to lower and upper districts. A place of study and tomes. A place where those who lived held their heads with great pride as the first born of Tovoran. This all according to her father's stories, made her fumble with the cuffs of her sleeves as she started to feel underdressed. However, more than any of this, if what the man next to her had said was to be believed, the one who had framed her childhood love sat somewhere within its walls scheming their next plot against him. That is, unless she could find some way to intervene.
"I wonder if they will suspect anything." Noah looked through the people ahead of them, and Rebbi followed his gaze. Ahead, Thomas was walking through the caravan, coming straight for them. In his hand a small piece of yellowed paper hung. He walked close, halting just inches from his friend.
"They are on the lookout for us." He handed the paper to Noah, who read it carefully before giving a fearful look to his friend. Rebbi's eyes darted between them.
"How do they even know we were coming here?"
"Does it matter? If we go with them all the way to pay their tribute, we will be found out for certain."
"What do we do?" Thomas rubbed his face and looked back to the gate.
"I don't know yet. But we need to think of something fast. They are about to send guards out to check each of us."