The Crossing at Thornford
Reeds part like wet parchment around your knees, and then the spear-tips part the reeds. Six Castrelin scouts. At their head stands Captain Iorek, mud to his cuirass, eyes the color of riverstone — eyes that have buried brothers.
You raise empty hands. The scroll rides against your ribs in its oilskin, warm as a second heart. Four hundred years, you think, and it comes down to one soldier's willingness to listen.
"Speak quickly, heron," Iorek says. His voice is tired, not cruel. "And speak true."
Iorek is a man of his own language; what he hears in his mother tongue may strike deeper than any argument in yours.
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