Beneath an easy autumn sun, the copper hair of the young woman shone like a new penny. It gleamed and flashed while she bent her eyes to the pocked soil at the edge of a neglected field, just outside Bree-town. After the terrible summer drought, the rains had returned in time to save man and beast, but many of the farmers could not say the same for their crops. A few shriveled cabbages rotted and withered in the rows nearest to where she strolled. They were all that remained after the landowner gathered in what little could be salvaged. There would be less still to sell at market. Most of what the farmers could glean would go into the waiting bellies of their wives and children, with the leftovers to the pigs.
She walked on, absently fingering the feathered tips of the arrows in her quiver. As summer drew to a close, and autumn settled over the land, there was a tension in the air. She felt it anytime she walked into town, or passed another soul on the road. The harvest was meager this year, and winter would be a season of unparalleled frugality for the poorer souls of the village and its outlying crofts.
The lack would be felt even more keenly by those who lived off begging. Or stealing. She knew farmers who were in the habit of leaving behind the smaller or less appealing bits of their crops, offering them to whatever unfortunates might pass by and be in need. No such charity could be expressed this year. The down-and-outs would become the desperate. And the already desperate would become...
Scrunching her nose, she squinted against the afternoon sun, gazing south towards the ruins of Andrath. They were distant from here; broken, brown teeth jutting up over the treetops on the horizon. It had been years since she set her boots towards that crumbling place. It was well-known as a haven for the Blackwolds, and the occasional pack of foul Southerners who wandered up from strange lands, with strange faces and strange tales and strange weapons.
Her brow tightened as her thoughts drifted towards memories. How long had it been since she and Taraborn tangled with those vile, thieving folk? Years now. She had been a child still. Fearless, thoughtless. Wading into a camp of brigands while throwing caution to the wind.
A raven startled from a short, scrubby tree, hurtling just over her head. She cried out and crouched down, then grumbled and cursed after it.
There was a wisp of smoke rising against the blue-washed sky over Andrath. If the beggars of Bree-town would be growing hungry in the weeks to come, the bloodthirsty beasts who called themselves Blackwolds would be ravenous.
