father. The next three words he speaks send chills down my back. “I am dying.”
Stormguard
“No…” says Nathaniel. “You’re… you can’t…”
The Jarl walks from the back room, which I assume must be an armory. He has emerged wearing chainmail underneath a leather tunic with a steel hauberk. He walks towards me and says, “I want you to accompany me to council with Jarl Kjunn.”
“What? My father is dying! I need to find a healer!”
“Perhaps we can find one in the fortress,” he says. “Jarl Kjunn will want to speak with you.”
I glance at my father, who nods. “Yes,” I say.
“Good,” replies Hralfar. “We’re leaving now. Jarl Kjunn will want to know our situation as quickly as is possible.”
I follow him from the barracks and up the stairs. A few soldiers follow us, wearing steel breastplates and sporting swords sheathed at their waists.
The Lord Jarl leads me up the staircase switchbacks to a flat plaza almost at the peak of the mountain. The plaza is a little wider than the road in the city, and on its sides sit small crenellated walls. A large gate stands at the other end of the plaza, leading into the fortress.
“Stormguard,” says the Jarl as we walk across the plaza. “It’s the name of the fortress.” Windows taller than the gate sit on either side of the entrance, overlooking the city. They are unreachable from the plaza or from below, as the cliffs are sheer and rocky.
We stop a few feet away from the gate and one of the guards bangs on the gate with a balled fist. Only moments later it opens, and we stride in.
The entrance hall is enormous. A long, wide table spans the floor with chairs on both sides and a particularly large one at the head. The floor is made of stone so our footsteps clack slightly as we walk. Large brown tapestries hang at intervals along the walls. They bear the symbol of Gilgal: the roaring head and neck of a bear, with a sword crossing it at the base of its head. At the back of the entrance hall roars an orange fire with a stone hearth. Wooden doors stand between the tapestries, leading into other parts of Stormguard.
I assume that Lord Jarl Hralfar must have been here at least once before, if not many times, as he finds his way around with no trouble. We go through a door to the right and into a tower with a spiral staircase. At the second floor we continue down another hallway and into a tall room on the right.
This room, though it is not very large widthwise or lengthwise, is very tall. It must be about fifteen feet, with narrow windows on the far wall that span the entire length ceiling to floor. They offer a magnificent view of the surrounding area just outside of Kera’s walls. At this point on the mountain we have to be hundreds of feet up; looking down from the window makes me dizzy.
Another brown tapestry hangs on each side of the room, identical to the ones in the main entrance hall. Each takes up almost the entire wall.
In the center of the room sits an ordinary wooden table, larger than my dinner table at home. On it sits a map that covers most of the table, and the parts that aren’t covered by the map are covered by inkwells, scrolls of parchment, and stacks of letters. An end table sits in the corner.
A chair sits on the other side of the table, but it is unoccupied. Its would-be occupant is standing by the window, and turns when he hears us enter.
His hair is short and sticks up so his forehead is completely visible. His beard is jet black, like his hair. His sideburns and cheeks are only little more than stubbly, but his goatee is thick and several inches long. He has a noble face; though age has not yet appeared in his hair, wrinkles and pockmarks span his forehead and cheekbones. His nose is hooked slightly, though somewhat long. His eyes are green and shine brightly.
He wears a cloak similar to the one Jarl Hralfar wore before the battle of Nringnar’s Deep. Fur coats the shoulders of his armor and a large cape billows behind him. A bronze-colored breastplate sits on his torso, more decorative than anything. A longsword hangs sheathed on each side of his belt.
He smiles brilliantly as he sees Jarl Hralfar enter. “Ah!” he cries, his brilliantly white teeth standing