Icebound - Prologue
#2 of Icebound
Prologue of Icebound
Shadowdale, 1372 DR. 3rd day of Highsun.
Aiden shook his head, trying to get his hair out of his eyes as finished balancing the tin bucket on the edge of the door. It had been just their luck that the smith, Bronn Selgard, had left the door to the smithy ajar. He looked down and gave his younger brother Norin a thumbs-up before brushing back his shaggy blond hair.
It took skill to balance a bucket so it would tip over instead of simply falling. Aiden didn't want to hurt the old smith by dropping a heavy container on his head.
Aiden carefully walked back to the edge of the roof where he'd climbed up via the water barrel. Crouching down, he leaned forward and jumped. He landed in a crouch, trying to make as little noise as possible. It wouldn't be good at all to have the smith know who'd done it, which is why he had climbed up instead of his brother. He was better at moving quietly, despite weighing nearly four stone more.
Aiden walked around the corner of another house on the dusty lane, standing so that he could see the smith as the door opened. His brother Norin looked over at him to make sure he was in position, then knocked loudly on the wooden frame of the doorway, before running over to join Aiden.
They both leaned around the corner, waiting. Predictably enough, Old Bronn finally gave up waiting for whoever it was outside to come in and opened the door to see who it was. The bucket tilted as the door opened, drenching the smith from head to toe before falling to the ground at his feet. The smith just stood there a moment, water dripping off him before reaching up to wipe his face off.
Both Norin and Aiden ducked behind the corner of the house and burst out laughing as the smith bellowed a curse upon whoever had soaked him.
Rather than hang around, they both took off running, ducking around various houses as they made their way to the corn field just north of town. Eventually they stopped after making their way into the corn rows and bent over trying to catch their breath.
"Oh, I swear," Aiden said, gulping down air, "that never gets old. We must have gotten him and his sons five times with that now."
Norin kept laughing for a bit before responding. "You'd think that he'd have learned by now not to leave the door ajar. Must have been raised in a barn, you'd think."
Aiden laughed again at that. Eventually, he ran out of steam and reached down to pick up the bow and quiver that he'd stashed near the edge of the field before their prank. He'd planned to go hunting as usual, but couldn't resist when he saw the open doorway at the smithy.
"I'll see you later this evening, brother. Wish me luck," Aiden said as he finished clipping the quiver to his belt.
"You don't need luck, you big oaf. You're better with a bow than anyone in town except the elves." Norin said. "If anything, it's me that needs luck. Hammerhand is going to kill me if I'm late again."
"That's your own fault for taking up the offer of apprenticeship with him," Aiden said.
Norin bent down to pick up a bundle of tools, all those of the carpenter's trade: hammers, saws, various measuring tools and other sundry.
"Well, good luck to you then." Aiden said as he grabbed his younger brother in a bear hug. "Try not to slam your thumb with a hammer again," he said with a smirk.
Aiden tussled his younger brothers hair before letting go of him and turning around, heading east toward the Cormanthor forest. Norin shook his head, still smiling, then turned to head into town.
§
Grinning Gabe looked down at the small town of Shadowdale from his perch high in a tree. The sun at his back threw beams of white and gold through the early morning mist hovering over the village. He had been watching it for nearly a tenday now, scouting defenses and readiness.
He'd seen no signs of a constabulary or militia, and the night watch consisted of less than a dozen soldiers, patrolling in pairs. The only fortification was a small keep sitting on the far side of the town, near the river and the bridge that spanned it. Gabe estimated perhaps a dozen soldiers manning it. There was also a stone tower near a pond, but he didn't think it was occupied; nobody had come or gone from it.
Just south of the tower was a gaudy, rose-colored glass statue of a phoenix, clearly a temple or monument. The town itself sat at the intersection two roads. There wasn't even a wall surrounding it; only a few wooden fences, pens for livestock. Shadowdale was nothing but pastures and fields, with farm houses dotting the road that went north-south. The people, when not working, wore richly dyed clothing of high quality wools and cottons, occasionally even silks and velvets. It seemed like a quiet, and surprisingly wealthy, farming community.
He watched as a pair of teenage boys rigged a bucket full of water above a door leading to a smithy, and grinned to himself, then stifled a laugh as the smith walked through the doorway and promptly got soaked as the bucket tipped over. He could hear the unfortunate man's bellow from nearly a hundred yards away, and watched the two kids laugh hysterically before they ran off.
Too bad for those children. Chances were the kids would get killed when they sacked the village. This town would be ripe for the picking, the bandit thought to himself as his signature gap-toothed grin spread its way across his dirt covered face.
Gabe reached up to scratch at something crawling in his beard. He thought for a bit about how he would phrase his report for the Zhentarim agent who had hired his band. He looked down at his fingers to see what it was he'd caught in his beard, then tossed the tick away with a flick of his fingers. He glanced over his shoulder at the rising sun, then began climbing down the tree to return to camp.