“All right, well, this place has been entertaining,” Tric says as they pass through Merriver’s front gate back into the common area of Dollyd. “Thanks for that fortifying brew. Mmmm. That really felt good. But I tell you, her bones are a lot stronger than that poor old necromancer’s.” He gives his injured wrist a shake. “This stings! She’s got an iron jaw, I swear.”
Heppa nods, not surprised. “I heard the crack. And it’s not good to shake it like that. Do you want me to…?”
“That’s probably a good idea.” They pause on the way back to Sir Rugg’s homestead so that Heppa can examine his injury. Tric cannot contain his excitement, exclaiming, “I dueled a horse lord! And won, I guess. I won, right? I won!”
“Are we friends? Are we enemies?” Heppa asks, uncertain about the meaning of the duel’s outcome.
“I think it’s settled. And I think she’s going to keep doing what she’s doing.”
Heppa applies a salve around the injured wrist to decrease swelling in the joint and begins wrapping it. “I wonder what we should tell High Lord Volas,” she says.
“Oh, he’s definitely going to hear all about this!” Tric replies with a giant grin.
“I’m not clear on the diplomatic message,” Heppa clarifies.
“She’s raising an army, nominally to fight orcs beyond Wesnoth’s borders.”
“That’s all so confusing,” Heppa murmurs.
“I agree,” Tric admits.
Heppa binds Tric’s hand to his chest in a sling, cautioning him that he will need to keep the wrist immobilized in a splint for at least the rest of the day. When she then goes to dab some ointment on his bruised cheek, he jerks his head back out of the way. “No, no, I need to look like I was in a fight and won,” he insists.
“If I don’t sew up that cut on your left cheek, it will leave a scar.”
“Perfect!”
Heppa packs up her medical equipment. “That whole thing was so intense,” she says. “She’s a lot like Mother.”
“Yeah,” Tric agrees, letting out a long breath. “Let’s go fill in Terwaen. Then she can decide what she wants to do with this information.” They resume their walk to Rugg’s homestead.
“I’m kind of curious to see the look on her face when you tell her you dueled Dame Merriver,” Heppa admits. “That’s a big deal, isn’t it?”
“Her head might break.”
“Maybe be gentle when you tell her.”
“And to be fair, Merriver challenged me to a duel,” Tric points out.
* * *
They find Terwaen inside the stable, brushing down Gloam. Tric bounces into the large open space surrounded by stalls. “Hey, how’s your day going?” he asks brightly.
Terwaen looks up from her horse and is startled to see the condition of his face. “Oh my!”
“I know, right?!”
“He wouldn’t let me heal him,” Heppa explains.
“It seems as though your day has been rougher for you than mine has been for me,” Terwaen observes.
“You know, you can’t make a fire without burning some wood,” Tric says reflectively. “Is now a good time to chat?” He glances around the stables. “Is this a good place to chat?” Terwaen makes a move to put away her brush, but Tric offers to help her finish taking care of Gloam first. Heppa remains in the doorway of the stable, quietly waiting, curious about how things will unfold.
When they are done brushing her horse, Terwaen lets the black stallion out to graze. Tric then broaches the sensitive topic. “So, we talked to Dame Merriver. Sir Anyc got us an audience.”
“Oh! You were able to learn something?” Terwaen asks hopefully.
“Yes. She is assembling a… militia, she called it. The nominal purpose is to fight orcs north of the Great River because that’s beyond the borders of Wesnoth and horse lords do not have permission to cross that river to fight. Is that right?”
“Hmmm…. Our patrols are limited to the edges of the country, it is true,” Terwaen tells him.
“So I believe she is arming a force to address that. But, in the course of our conversation, she did refer to other nobles in Wesnoth as people with little castles. A bit of a disparaging comment, I’d say. I don’t know if that quite qualifies as rebellious, though. Maybe she’s referring to Earl Gweddry personally, I don’t know; she didn’t mention his name directly. But she complained that her shipments of weapons had been stopped. Presumably because the captain of the guard in South Tower knew the shipping route and in investigating it determined that they needed to be stopped. I guess, if nothing else, she was shipping weapons without paying taxes on them. It might just boil down to that. That’s what we found out.”
Now Tric springs his big surprise. “Dame Merriver, understandably, was kind of upset that we brought this up. She challenged me to a duel—the honor of being challenged to a duel by her!” he cheers gleefully. “She wouldn’t do that to just anyone, right?”
“She didn’t challenge me, but I didn’t say as much as you did,” Heppa observes.
“Like, who was the last person she challenged to a duel?” Tric asks eagerly.
Does Merriver know that Tric is my brother? Terwaen wonders, though she keeps the alarm she feels off her features.
“Anyway,” Tric plows on, “she put up a good fight. I swear, that lady’s got an iron jaw! But I managed to get the best of her, with a little bit of…” Tric makes punching gestures with his left fist only, since the right one is immobilized in a splint against his chest.
“You fought her with fists?”
“Well it wouldn’t be fair to fight her with a bow and arrow, the chosen weapon of elves. She challenged me to a duel, so I get to choose the weapon, isn’t that right?”
“Usually one simply chooses a lance or sword.”
“This one,” Tric says, poking his chest with his left thumb, “did not choose a lance or sword.”
“I don’t think Butterbell could handle a lance,” Heppa interjects.
“It wouldn’t be fair to her to choose a bow, and I don’t own a sword, so that’s not fair to me,” Tric argues.
“Magic?” Heppa suggests.
“Magic wouldn’t be fair to her, either,” Tric says.
“Would it?!” Heppa asks, intrigued at the thought. She still has all her paladin questions… maybe Merriver can do their kind of magic.
“Dame Merriver is no mage,” Terwaen objects.
“Would it be bad for me to tell other people here that I dueled Dame Merriver? I can just say there was a diplomatic faux pas, and it was settled.”
“There is no shame in fighting duels,” Terwaen tells Tric.
“I understand there’s no shame, but would it create difficulty or tension to have a guest of your house who dueled Dame Merriver? Maybe don’t say it at the dinner table?”
“Boasting of duels is inappropriate behavior, and you certainly seem boastful.”
“All right, but if someone asks about my face, I have to say something. She has a very mean right hook, as you can see,” Tric says, tilting his head to show off his damaged cheek. “Phew! But her jaw!” He taps his right fingers against his chest, the only movement that injured hand can make since colliding with Merriver’s face. “I knocked down a necromancer once. That hurt, but this—whoo! She is hearty and hale. But I managed to get the best of her, and that settled it.”
“We think,” Heppa adds.
“Well, that settled it personally between the two of us,” Tric clarifies. “So I feel like we’re good now. Of course, she’s going to do whatever she’s going to do.” He offers his sister a sympathetic look. “Again, I don’t want to put you in an awkward situation, but I feel like it’s better to be informed than not informed.”
“Will you carry a letter to Mhaev from me?” Terwaen asks.
“Absolutely! Of course. Anything. And let me apologize for dragging you through this. This is more than I knew it was going to be back at that dinner in South Tower. But you are a knight of the Horse Clans. Maybe not a horse lord yet, but a horse lord soon. All your training has prepared you for not only riding a horse and fighting in battles, but also for addressing situations like this and taking action,” he encourages her. “It might not seem like that, but remember, there can be more than one path out of a forest.” As he weaves words to instill his sister with confidence and conviction in what she chooses to do here, he echoes his refrain, “Not a horse lord yet, but a horse lord soon.” With each repetition, he magically reinforces that she can handle this situation. He has already told tales of Windrider Terwaen at Dune School in Dan’Tonk, so he has material prepared. Now he adds, too, her recent triumphs against the orcs in Estmark Province.
Terwaen takes everything he says to heart. On the morrow, when she hands over her letter for Mhaev, it is with faith in herself and everything she has written there. She will back her decision with her horse and her sword, whatever may come of it.