The three-week trek from the Crow’s Nest had been a grueling task wrapped in layers of paranoia. The trio moved with the grace of a proud stag through the tall grass, their ears twitching with the imagined thrumming of Gorr’s outposts. The first encounter with the bandits left them slinking away from a collection party of twenty men near an unnamed settlement. Ryan and the elves cautiously led their steeds on foot through a dry creek bed for half a day to avoid being spotted. Then, a few days later, a mountain cat stalked the perimeter of their camp for a night, its eyes twin embers in the dark. It was only due to Tru's magical wards that the three of them woke the next morning.

  A week before arriving in the dwarven realm, a pack of wolves trailed them for several days before giving up the chase. The trio weren't starving, but the ceaseless scouring of the brush left Serenity little time to hunt, and their hastened pace often flushed their own prey before they were upon them. The thin, biting air of the late autumn winds had left them shivering and hungry.

  As the carved gates of Fjalls-r?tr finally rose to meet them, the familiar sounds of axe and hammer rang throughout the valley. The eyes of the massive, carved stone fortress of the dwarven city were watching from their posts, high above the gate. The bolt of a crossbow pinned itself to the ground at the feet of Ryan's mount.

  “We cannot house any more refugees,” shouted a stern, grizzled voice from above. The sharp, metallic clack of a winding crossbow echoed out from the watch post. “Turn around; go back the way you came.”

  Ryan lowered his hood, offering his face to the watch. After a tense silence that felt eternal with the crossbows at the ready, the massive fissure in the rock face groaned open, admitting them into the halls. It smelled of damp earth, cold stone, and worked iron; familiar, but not his home.

  They dismounted from the horses and handed the reins to a stable lad who had met them at the gate.

  “See that our items arrive at the home of Yami,” he instructed the boy, handing him a copper coin from his purse.

  The dwarven boy smiled brightly. “Right away, mister.”

  The trio left the lad, and Ryan led them through the labyrinth-like halls of the dwarven home with the ease of his twelve years spent beneath the mountains. They arrived at an unmarked wooden door. He pulled the latch and entered.

  “Ryan?”

  The voice was rough, like gravel shifting in a stream. Ryan looked up to see Yami standing near the hearth of the central gallery sipping a cup of ale. He looked older than he remembered from his childhood; the weight of leading their people in this stonewalled exile, in Johan's absence, had carved deep lines into his face, but his posture remained as straight as a spear. Beside him stood Aunt Gerty, her hands stained purple from grinding mountain-sage, a bright-eyed smile wrapping her face.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  He saw the way Yami’s hand rested naturally on the small of Gerty’s back; it was a quiet, domestic intimacy that had been there as long as Ryan could remember. Seeing them now, Ryan’s mind drifted to the smoke-chilled morning twelve years ago when Yami had first placed it there. He could still feel the weight of his mother’s skirt clutched in his trembling eight-year-old hands as Yami knelt before him, holding the sword of Johan.

  "Your father is with the Creator now; you’re the man of your house," Yami had said, his voice a rasp of grief as he pressed his father’s heavy sword into Ryan’s hands that were yet too small. Yami stood and pounded his chest twice with his sword hand before stepping back to Gerty's side. In an act of respect for the friend he had lost, and not one of established tradition, his father's captain had looked at the boy. “With your permission, I would like to marry Johan’s sister.” He guided Gerty a step forward and waited for a response.

  Yami had told him years later that he had spent years avoiding how he had felt about her, but after the events in Twin Peaks, he refused to let Gerty spend another second alone after their world crumbled behind them. In the four months Ryan had been away, that bond seemed to have only deepened. Ryan's daydream brought a smile to his face and was suddenly interrupted by Gerty wrapping her arms around him and kissing him like a hen pecking grains.

  “You're a month past due,” she scolded, before taking a step back, wiping the wrinkles out of her skirt, and noticing the two women behind him for the first time. “Who are your friends?”

  “I'm home,” Ryan rasped; his throat was parched and in need of water. He wiped the dampness from his cheeks and motioned towards the table. “Let's sit.”

  Ryan took a cup from a shelf and dipped it into a water barrel, gulping its contents before plunging it in for another helping. He motioned to Serenity and Tru to do the same. He turned to face his aunt and uncle, cup in hand; he wiped the spilled water from his fledgling beard with the other. “Where's mother?”

  “She took the children to the market,” replied Gerty; she spoke happily and lovingly, but with a sharp hint of irritation at her own question being left unanswered.

  Ryan took a breath as he sensed the tone in her voice. Shaking his head and waving his hands in front of himself, he said, “All in time; I want to introduce them properly. Do you have anything to eat? We haven't broken fast since yesterday.”

  "You're a tad early for supper, Ryan," she said, her voice still holding that sharp edge of scolding. “I'll fetch the three of you something to tide you over until then.” Her voice was less sharp and more motherly as she left the room.

  A quiet rap came at the door. Ryan moved to open it. The dwarf child smiled as he pulled it towards him.

  “We brought your items as you requested.”

  “Thank you, young Erik. You did well,” he said, stepping aside to allow them passage and gesturing to a spot in an empty corner of the room. “Put them there.” When they had finished, he handed them each a copper coin. Ryan knelt down in front of the young stable boys and asked, “Do you recall my mother, Celeste?”

  Erik piped up, grinning. "The tall lady with graying hair?”

  “Yes,” he replied, hiding half a smile thinking about how his mother was a hand shorter than himself, but to a dwarven child she would be considered tall. “Don't mention the color of her hair around her,” he chuckled. “I've got another copper for the one who fetches her from the market, and an extra one if you can get her here before sundown.”.