The old tavern reared up before me, a weather-beaten edifice clinging stubbornly to its last shreds of dignity whose better days had long since been pilfered by time and neglect. Its sign swung from a single rust-ravaged hinge, creaking a lament in the chilled breeze. Its windows clouded with a grime that had long ago declared war on the notion of cleanliness. Here, dear reader, was a place that had soaked up countless tales whispered into the sticky wood of its tables—a haven for regrets and those small, persistent hopes that cling to life against all odds.
But I digress. For here, dear reader, was my first port of call: the tavern, that most reliable of waystations for a Roadman such as myself. Where better to take the pulse of a town than in the company of those who had naught to do but drink and gossip? The ale would be as poor as the cheer, no doubt, but even sour spirits can sweeten the pot of a discerning listener. I have long since learned that the most valuable currency in any village is its secrets, and secrets, like ale, are best poured out where folk feel safest—or drunkest.
The door yielded with a groan that echoed the complaints of its weathered frame, and the tavern greeted me with a heavy air, thick and ponderous, as though it had forgotten how to breathe freely. Smoke curled lazily through the dim room, mingling with the sour tang of spilled ale and the faint, desperate scent of herbs warding off who-knows-what. The fire in the hearth sputtered, casting a weak light that only served to deepen the gloom, and shadows clung to the rafters as if invited guests reluctant to leave. The patrons hunched over their mugs, speaking in low voices that carried the unmistakable cadence of shared unease.
Behind the bar stood a man built like a bear, with shoulders broad enough to carry the weight of the world and a face that had taken its share of life’s punches. He looked at me with the cautious eye of one who hath seen enough trouble to know it when it comes calling, though his mouth remained fixed in a grim line. I approached with my best blend of charm and harmlessness, the kind that says yes, I might be trouble, but I’m terribly polite about it.
“Good day to thee, innkeep,” I called, the words bright enough to catch a few eyes. “Wouldst thou have any ale that hath not been cursed thrice over, or must I brave whatever mischief lurks within thy finest cask?”
The man’s brow furrowed, and for a moment, I feared my jest might be lost upon him. But then his mouth twitched, ever so slightly, into what might have been the ghost of a smile. “Ale’s ale, stranger,” he rumbled, each syllable thick as river silt, his accent rough with the cadence of one born and raised in this part of the world. “Drink it if ye’ve a mind to, but don’t be cryin’ to me if it sits poorly. An’ mark my words, make no trouble while ye’re here. We’ve shadows enough ‘bout, we have, without ye addin’ yours to the lot.”
I inclined my head, for I have found that a touch of deference can open doors where brute force fails. “Trouble, you say?” I replied, a grin playing about my lips, dancing perilously close to impudence. “Why, trouble and I are old acquaintances, but I assure thee, she hath no quarrel with me today.”
The innkeeper, for all his stern demeanor, gave me naught but a grunt, and I took that as leave to order my drink. The tankard he handed me sloshed with an eagerness that made me question the wisdom of drinking it, but I accepted it nonetheless. I have tasted better brews from rainwater puddles, yet one does not come to places such as this for the quality of the vintage. I found a seat in a corner where shadows conspired and secrets felt safe to whisper.
Now, dear reader, let me paint thee a picture: The tavern was a relic, a place where the memories of brighter days hung about like ghosts, and laughter, when it dared surface, was thin and brittle, a thing shattered easily. The fire sputtered as if insulted by its own inefficacy, and shadows clung to the rafters like brooding ravens. The villagers’ faces were sallow and worn, as though the weight of waiting for something dreadful had leeched the color from their lives.
Welcome to the edge of despair, I thought, savoring the irony of my own arrival. Baldric was likely resting in the stable, charming the stablehands with his dignified silence, while I, ever the incorrigible fool, sought to unpick the miseries that haunted this place.
I had just taken a sip of the so-called ale—an experience best described as mildly regrettable—when the tavern door burst open with such force that even the surliest drinker fell silent. In stumbled a young man, barely more than a boy, his eyes wide as full moons and hair as wild as the bracken for which the village was named. His hands shook, and his voice cracked as he spoke, as though he had been running from nightmares made flesh.
“The shadows,” he gasped, his voice thick with terror. “They move, they whisper! Harrick’s sins have drawn ‘em down upon us, an’ they mean to take us all!”
Ah, yes. Right on schedule. Thank you, fate, I mused dryly, for keeping things predictable, if nothing else.
The entire tavern seemed to stiffen, every weary eye turning to the poor lad whose terror spilled into the room like a winter wind. The brittle silence that had occupied the space shattered, replaced by a heavy unease. Farmers, traders, and laborers, all who had been quietly drowning their worries in bitter ale, exchanged uneasy glances, but not one rose to offer the boy comfort or reason.
The young man was a spectacle of dread and disarray. His cheeks were flushed from more than the cold, and he reeked of fear and spirits, the kind one finds in a bottle and the sort that creeps from the dark places of the mind. He stumbled forward, eyes darting, as if he expected something terrible to manifest from the very shadows he feared.
I set my tankard down, sighing as though fate had burdened me with yet another tiresome task. Aye, dear reader, this is the life of a Roadman. Trouble, it seems, hath a fondness for finding me, even in the most innocuous of places.
The boy’s wild gaze landed upon me, narrowing with sudden suspicion. “You!” he spat, his voice quivering with a blend of drunken fury and terror. “What brings thee here, stranger? Come to mock us, have ye? Or be ye in league with the darkness itself?”
The other patrons held their collective breath, as though one loud exhale might shatter what little calm remained. I rose slowly, deliberately, offering a smile that might soothe a skittish horse but was laced with enough humor to suggest I was not to be trifled with. “Peace, friend,” I said, raising my hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “I assure thee, I am neither specter nor villain. Merely a traveler with a penchant for poor ale. Come now, I’ll even buy thee a drink if thou wouldst take a seat and spare us the drama.”
A faint ripple of uneasy laughter flitted through the room, but the boy’s expression twisted, his fear giving way to something more volatile. He staggered forward, his hands balling into fists, and the air seemed to thrum with the tension of impending violence.
I made a show of reaching for my waistcoat pocket, where a simple calming charm lay waiting. Old habits, you see, are hard to break. The charm, wrought from copper and whisperwood, would ease his troubled spirit with but a whisper of magic. Yet I hesitated. The villagers were already teetering on the brink of superstition; and the last thing I needed was to make matters worse with a show of spellcraft.
No, best to do this the old-fashioned way.
“Now, friend,” I tried again, speaking as one might to a horse ready to bolt, “there’s no need for this. The shadows trouble us all, aye, but thou dost not help thyself by raging at strangers.”
The boy’s eyes flashed, and he lunged, upsetting a nearby table and sending ale sloshing in a golden arc. The tavern erupted in motion, chairs scraping back, patrons muttering and shifting away from the outburst.
I sidestepped his clumsy swing with practiced ease, cursing inwardly at the waste of perfectly poor ale. The lad’s strength, driven by fear and too much drink, was no match for my agility. I moved with a grace more suited to a dance floor than a brawl, part dance and part defensive maneuver, sidestepping his wild blows and thinking, with a sigh, that I much preferred waltzing with highborn ladies to dodging drunkards.
With one swift motion, I caught his arm, twisting it just enough to unbalance him without causing harm. He stumbled, and I took the opportunity to guide him gently to the floor, easing his collapse so that he lay sprawled, wide-eyed and breathing heavily, confusion overtaking the rage in his expression.
The patrons watched, holding their collective breath. I released mine, satisfied that no bones were broken and, more importantly, that I hadn’t needed to use magic.
“Enough now,” came a calm, measured voice from the doorway. I turned, half-expecting to see some stoic village elder or another stern-faced farmer. Instead, to my astonishment, there stood Thaddeus Wright, the last man I’d expected to find in this benighted corner of the world.
For a heartbeat, I could do nothing but stare. Thaddeus—rugged as ever, though with a few more lines etched into his weathered face—looked right back at me, his familiar gray eyes flashing with a mixture of surprise and bemusement. His healer’s satchel hung at his side, worn but well-kept, and the tired set of his shoulders spoke of a man who had seen far too many midnight calls and ungrateful patients.
Who is Thaddeus, thou dost wonder? A fair inquiry, and one that might well require a tale unto itself—though not this day, I fear. Suffice it to say that Thaddeus Wright is a healer of uncommon skill, a man whose hands have mended more broken bodies than I dare count, and whose patience hath seen him through trials that would break a lesser soul. Our paths first crossed some years ago, when the whims of fate—those mischievous and meddlesome weavers—saw fit to entwine our threads upon an ill-fated adventure. Picture, if thou wilt, a village stricken by plague, a miserly lord more concerned with his coffers than his people, and a cursed relic that left scars upon us both. His marks are gentler, for he hath always been favored by the kinder graces of the world, while mine… well, mine are a tad less forgiving. We were companions then, bound by necessity and a shared taste for wry humor in the face of calamity, and though I departed that place before the cock’s crow, as is often my wont, never did I expect to find him here. Yet here he is, tending to another benighted village with that same steadfast resolve. And so, dear reader, thou dost have the measure of Thaddeus: the one man in Brackenbridge who knows me well enough to mock me with impunity and to mend me, when needed—though he doth both with equal skill.
Thaddeus bent to his work with the same calm precision I remembered well, his hands steady as he set about mending the poor lad who’d caused such a stir. The charm he employed, a small bundle of herbs bound with thread that glimmered faintly in the dim light, exuded a gentle magic, soft as a lullaby sung by a mother over her restless babe. His voice, low and soothing, carried the quiet cadence of a healer well-accustomed to taming both pain and fear. Under his ministrations, the wildness in the young man’s eyes began to fade, replaced by a weariness that seemed all too familiar in this place.
I must admit, dear reader, that watching Thaddeus ply his craft hath always inspired a certain admiration. 'Tis a rare gift to mend what others cannot see: the hurts of the heart and mind, the wounds that fester unseen. And while I am far more practiced in the art of making trouble than in soothing it, even I can respect the gentle power of a healer’s touch. I knelt beside him, lending what aid I could, steadying the lad’s trembling shoulders and offering a flask of water to his parched lips. “Easy now, lad,” I murmured, my voice gentled as one might address a spooked horse. “Breathe, and know thou art safe—for the moment, at least.”
With the boy—one of the farmer’s sons, if I guessed rightly—settled and calmed, Thaddeus at last turned to me, and for a moment, the weariness in his eyes was brightened by something like astonishment. “Cass?” he said, his voice tinged with disbelief, and mayhap a touch of that dry humor I have always cherished in him. “By the gods, is it truly you? Starting brawls already, I see.”
I confess, I was caught off guard, and that does not happen often. Yet a grin split my face, a genuine thing, born of years and fond memory. “Thaddeus Wright,” I declared, sweeping into a mock bow with all the flourish of a jester before a king. “Never thought to see thy weary visage in so grim a place. Pray, tell me, what cruel fate hath led thee here? Hast Brackenbridge stolen thee from fairer towns and finer company?”
He huffed a laugh, though the sound carried the weight of sleepless nights and burdens too heavy for one man to bear. “Life’s full of surprises,” he replied, shaking his head with a rueful twist of his lips. “And here I thought the shadows would be the strangest thing I’d encounter today.”
But the matter at hand could not be left to humor alone, and my gaze returned to the young man who now sat slumped in a chair, cradling his head in his hands as if to ward off memories that threatened to tear him asunder. Thaddeus, ever the healer, knelt beside him and murmured soothing words, the same gentle cadence he might use to calm a fevered child. Ewan—as I heard Thaddeus call him—breathed out in great shuddering gasps, as though struggling to exorcise some terror that still clung to his bones.
I approached with a touch more caution, for the boy looked as though he might fly apart at the slightest disturbance. “Ewan, is it?” I asked, my voice adopting that low, measured tone one uses to steady a spooked beast. “Tell me, lad, what hath brought thee to such a state? What didst thou see in the shadows that left thee so troubled?”
Ewan raised his head, and in his eyes, I saw a wildness yet untamed, a fear that refused to be soothed by reason or warmth. His words came tumbling out with a nervous haste. “I-I weren’t imaginin’ it, if that’s what ye think,” he stammered, his gaze flicking from me to Thaddeus and back again. “The shadows… they moved, they did. Followed me like livin’ things, whisperin’ things I couldn’t rightly hear but… but felt, deep in my bones. As though they knew me, knew somethin’ about me I didn’t even ken myself.”
I exchanged a glance with Thaddeus, who arched a brow but said nothing. “Whispering shadows,” I mused aloud, careful to keep any judgment from my tone. “And where wast thou when this occurred? Near the woods, perhaps?”
Ewan swallowed hard, the color draining from his face. “Aye,” he managed, his voice dropping to a strained whisper. “Near the Brackenwild, but not in it. Never in it, for I ain’t daft. I was tendin’ to old Farmer Goodwin’s sheep, see? They’d wandered too close to the treeline, and I thought to fetch ‘em back. But then… then the shadows came. I swear to ye, it was like the woods themselves reached out to grab me.”
The room seemed to grow colder, or mayhap ‘twas only my imagination. I steepled my fingers, pondering his tale. “And these whispers,” I pressed, leaning forward slightly, “did they speak aught of sense, or were they but nonsense and wind?”
The boy shivered, wrapping his arms about himself. “Not sense,” he murmured, “but not nonsense neither. Words I can’t recall, but they scratched at my mind, like claws on old wood. Made me feel… small, like somethin’ greater and older was watchin’, judgin’.” He trailed off, his eyes glazing with remembered terror. “An’ then I ran, for what else could I do? I ran an’ didn’t stop ‘til I reached here.”
I tilted my head, studying him with a gaze meant to be both kind and discerning. “Ran, thou didst indeed,” I said, my voice gentle but probing, “but I wonder, Ewan—what made thee seek solace in the bottom of a bottle? Thy fear alone, or did something more drive thee to such desperation?”
Ewan flushed, his hands fidgeting as he avoided meeting my eyes. “I… I needed somethin’ to calm my nerves,” he admitted, voice cracking with shame. “Thought a drink or two on me way might settle the shakes. But it didn’t help. Made it worse, if I’m honest, for the shadows crept closer when my wits weren’t sharp.” He swallowed hard, the guilt and terror warring within him. “I weren’t tryin’ to cause trouble. Just… tryin’ to forget, even for a moment.”
I softened my tone, nodding with understanding. “Aye, fear doth drive many to poor choices,” I said, casting a brief glance at Thaddeus, who watched Ewan with that healer’s blend of compassion and concern. “But know this: thou art not the first to seek such comfort, nor shalt thou be the last. The important thing now is that thou art here, among friends, where shadows hold less sway.”
Thaddeus laid a gentle hand upon Ewan’s shoulder, his touch full of that quiet magic only healers possess. “Thou didst well to seek shelter,” he said softly, though I could see the worry lurking behind his composed facade. “tell me, lad,” I spoke, “hast any other in the village spoken of such shadows? Or doth thy tale stand alone?”
Ewan hesitated, his eyes darting nervously about the room. “Others have seen things,” he admitted, voice low. “Strange lights in the woods, shadows where there shouldn’t be none. An’ folk speak of dreams—dark dreams that haunt ‘em, even in the daylight. Some blame the Harricks, sayin’ they brought this upon us.”
Ah, there it was. The name Harrick, surfacing like a ghost from deep waters. I made a mental note to prod that particular lead further, but for now, I let my smile soften. “Thou hast been most helpful, Ewan,” I said, my voice warm with a sincerity I rarely employed. “Rest easy now, and leave the shadows to those who know how to deal with them.”
Ewan slumped back, exhaustion pulling at him, and I stepped aside to allow Thaddeus to offer what small comfort he could. As I straightened, my mind whirled with possibilities, each one darker and more convoluted than the last. Shadows that moved and whispered, dreams that did not end when one woke, and a reported curse that clung to this village like a sickness. ‘Twas a mystery worthy of my attention, and yet I could not shake the feeling that I had stepped into a game where the rules were written in a language I did not yet understand.
I let out a slow breath, the weight of the unknown settling upon me like a cloak stitched with unease. This village, with its ancient fears and whispered omens, demanded more than a quick hand and a silver tongue. It required patience, observation, and, mayhap, a measure of trust shared between old friends. Thaddeus, for his part, seemed to sense my disquiet, for he straightened with a weary but determined look, as though bracing himself for whatever tale I might weave. Together, we moved to a table in a quieter corner, the firelight painting long shadows across the aged wood, and for a moment, we let ourselves be those two old companions who had once braved curses, storms, and miserly lords together. Aye, there was laughter, and we spun memories like old yarn, recalling our misadventure with that thrice-cursed relic in Heathermoor, and the following wretched winter spent huddled in the northern hills, surviving on little more than sheer stubbornness and the ill temper of a mule named Horace.
Yet even the warmth of old camaraderie could not stave off the chill forever, and soon enough, the weight of Brackenbridge pressed upon us once more. Thaddeus leaned forward, the lines of worry returning to etch themselves upon his brow. “You always did have a knack for showing up where you’re needed,” he said, a fond exasperation coloring his tone. “Whether folk want you there or not.”
I chuckled, though I deflected his praise with a jest. “Aye, and what doth that say of thy judgment, that thou art still willing to keep company with such a vagabond as I?”
He shook his head, but his smile was brief, for the weight of Brackenbridge’s troubles pressed heavily upon him. “The village,” he said softly, “is in a dire way, Cass. The forest hath twisted folk’s fears into something near tangible, something that sets shadows to creeping and voices to whispering in the dead of night. And the name Harrick—'tis oft upon their lips, though none know the whole of it. The troubles feed on fear, growing stronger as hope withers.”
I steepled my fingers, mulling over his words. “And what of Lord Harrick himself?” I inquired, my voice low. “What sayeth he to these murmurs and accusations?”
Thaddeus’s eyes darkened, and he sighed, a sound laden with weariness and frustration. “He keeps his secrets well, as lords are wont to do. There are whispers that he hath meddled with powers best left alone, but no proof to be found. The villagers fear him as much as they fear the shadows that stretch long and mean after dusk.”
I tapped my chin thoughtfully, a grin tugging at my lips despite the grim tidings. “Ah, but I have yet to make Harrick’s acquaintance,” I mused, “though he hath summoned me here with the promise of coin in exchange for my particular talents. It seems only polite to see what manner of lord I’m dealing with, dost thou not think?”
Thaddeus rolled his eyes, though a spark of reluctant amusement flickered within. “Some things never change,” he muttered. “Even after all these years, thy knack for mixing gallantry with opportunism remains unparalleled.”
I clapped my hands together, as though I had just received the finest news of the day. “Then it’s settled—I must put my best foot forward,” I declared, “for one does not simply saunter into a lord’s hall in road-stained leathers. First impressions, dear Thaddeus, are a sort of magic all their own.”
He raised an eyebrow, his lips quirking upward despite himself. “Ah, first impressions. Thou art as incorrigible as ever.”
I leaned back, affecting the air of a man about to embark on some grand performance. “A polished boot and a fine coat can open doors that a battered road cloak never could,” I intoned, as if quoting some ancient piece of wisdom. “And besides, I rather enjoy donning my nobleman’s mask. It keeps folk guessing.”
With that, I took my leave, borrowing a room at The Rusty Lantern to shed my road-worn guise and transform into something altogether more refined. The troubles of Brackenbridge had yet to show me their full hand, but I was prepared to meet them—and Lord Harrick—head-on. For adventure, dear reader, hath a way of beckoning, and who am I to refuse?
