It has been a long journey south for the Highlander, one where he was harried every step of the way by the men sent by a Northern chieftain to exact revenge. Galin had killed a man in a fair fight but the relatives of the dead man were powers in the North and they sent their men and hired blades to take his head. After his hall was burned and his livestock was stolen and slaughtered, Galin knew that he would be next. So in the dark of the night he made his way to the standing stones that marked the edge of his property and dug up a small iron-bound chest with whatever silver he had left. It was enough to replace the arms he had lost to the flames of his burning hall and to buy provisions for a few days. So, penniless and hunted, Galin turned south, trusting that his blades would see him through as he traveled to rejoin his companions from the War. His shield-brothers would welcome him, he thought, and the idea of being welcome was a balm in those first days, but even that hope began to sour as the miles stretched on.
He had been unable to find a horse, as he kept to the mountain tracks and away from the fertile valleys where the beasts were pastured, so he was forced to pick his way through the paths on foot, slowing him and sapping his resolve. Once he made it through the mountains and the stinking hell of the rainforest, he found himself on the veldt of the Bohari plain. Farms dotted the sea of grass and Galin made for the nearest one, eyes always watching for the feared, mounted tribesmen that wheeled in great herds about the plains. The farm was a better prospect, he thought, where he could find food at least. His provisions were running low, even after he had gathered more in the rainforest. He left the coin purse on his belt swing nearly effortlessly with every step and he knew that he would need to find some silver before long as well. So all through the evening he crept around the boundaries of the farmstead, looking at the small outbuildings and the main house to see if there were occupants that might thwart his ambitions. An old couple and a younger woman, he decided, would not be a worry to a trained warrior. So during the night, as the farm slept, he sharpened his blades and secured the straps of his shield before dozing in a copse of trees behind the farm’s main building. He would, he decided, come with the dawn.
As the first rays of light began to spill over the horizon, he pulled his boiled leather cuirass over his head and belted his long and short blades around his waist. Slipping his arms through the loops of his shield, he scanned the farmstead and it just began to stir, with cockerels crowing to greet the dawn. Satisfied that nothing had changed, he grabbed the ash shaft of his spear and set off at a jog for the farm, staying out of sight behind the barn as he approached. Once the young woman was in the yard, feeding the chickens, he struck hard and fast. Lowering his shoulder, he slammed through the rear entrance to the home, his spear low by his side as the light wooden door gave way under his weight. Staggering slightly, he recovered and moved into the kitchen where the elderly farmer and his wife had just sat for their meal. “Do not even think it, old man,” Galin growled as he saw the farmer’s eyes glanced at the wood axe near the hearth. “You’ll be dead before your fingers touch the haft, and then who will stop me from butchering your wife and… daughter, I assume? Be smart, old man.” The farmer nodded slowly, his shoulders slumping as he accepted defeat, and grasped his wife’s hand in his old, gnarled one.
“I need food. A mount if you have one, and silver. And if you try and plead, I will take your hands off with that axe and then take what I want. Do we understand each other? Good. Now call the girl in, and if you value your life and hers, don’t spook her.”