** WATTYS 2018 WINNER **
Not one person in the history of the world ever said being Deathsworn was an easy thing. Fun, sometimes, and completely your fault, but never easy. You have one rule that you obey, unless, of course, you want to die.
Your l...
The walls of Hammar were as formidable as Bard remembered. Raised in the Age of Magic, they were, unfathomably thick and protected by the steep bank that hugged their foundations. The city rose around a natural hill beyond the walls, wide and busy and structurally beautiful, as all works of the Mountainmen tended to be. The jagged black rock of the Hammar keep, high on the hilltop, was visible, a daunting blot of a fortress. This would not be a place to assault, Bard mulled.
Fortunately, they didn't have to assault it. We might not even have to enter the city itself, from the looks of things.
Where his sole trip to Hammar left him with hazy memory, Bard hadn't recalled the place being suitable to host a big tourney. Maybe the Wisp Wood had been cut back some, possibly cleared a few years ago. A grand sea of pavilions washed over the fields running out toward them from the walls. The ground was greener and more hospitable than in the more western areas of Scavania. Puppet shows, ale-tents, and pavilions bearing the marks of smiths and tailors and the like were aplenty. Bard thought he could make out the spread of the lists amongst the convoluted palette.
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'There are so many men here,' Weasel chirped sullenly, from the back. He looked most ridiculous of all in an ugly patchwork doublet, quartered in green and brown. His hair had been lopped off around the edges and just above his ears so it bowled atop his head comically. It didn't help that the big black was dressed too, swathed in matching livery and hauling a wagon with the makings of their own pavilion.
'Aye, there are. And what are we, Weasel?' Bard led Oath out of the tree line and onto the field. His new destrier obeyed the tug on his reins and followed behind. He was a proud and muscled animal the colour of tan, cobwebbing throughout his coat. He made Oath seem ... less.
'We're Deathsworn,' Weasel replied. Bard assumed the lad cowed by the sight of so much wealth.
'Say that in there and we'll end up with our heads on spikes.' Taaj could have passed for a girl, a pretty one at that, what with his hair clipped and formed so it hung in two ornate loops. The men of status kept it like that in the Spice Port of Amla, Taaj claimed. Bard wondered if they truly wore such offensive colours as the dramatic red and yellow of the Zaffaarian's robes. He sat atop a tall and leggy sand steed that was comforting to the eye.
'What are we, Weasel?' Bard asked again. He was confident with the others. Weasel worried him. Weasel always worried him.
'We're here for the tourney to celebrate Orl Ejjar's fourth marriage. We've ridden a week to be here. You is Eran Oak, the son of Lord Ared Oak, heir to Oakhold on the small island of Woodrock, west of the Blue Hills in Green Country. Tall Toyne is the master-at-arms there, Bodkin is from your household-guard. Taaj is a rich merchant from the Spice Ports, with you cause he wants to see a southern winter.'
