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Thunder Peaks, 1372 DR. 21st day of The Fading.

His feet were starting to get sore. He'd have thought that the last week or so of travel on foot would have toughened his feet at least somewhat, but that clearly wasn't the case. Over the last few miles, shrubbery and undergrowth had became scarce near the side of the road, revealing bare rock. The trail itself had gone from easily a dozen feet wide, to barely the width of a wagon. The ground to one side had gradually fallen away until they were overlooking the forest. Pine trees along the side of the mountain trail were starting to look a bit scraggly.

He stopped to catch his breath, looking back at Silvia. She had been crying on and off throughout the day. Each time she began to sob, he felt terrible, thinking it was his fault. If he had yelled out earlier when he'd first noticed the hobgoblin marauders, maybe the guards would have been more successful at fighting off the ambush.

The silence between them was terrible and awkward, but he didn't know what to say. 'I'm sorry your father's dead' just didn't seem adequate. He knew it wouldn't help her just as it hadn't helped him when his brother had died. Some things you just had to deal with on your own, and only time would heal the wounds of the heart. He still missed Norin, but at least he could think about him now without breaking into tears.

She nearly ran into him a few times, not paying attention to much of anything. Finally he put his hands on her shoulder, stopping her, she jerked back and looked up at him. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, probably from crying all afternoon. She had to be feeling miserable.

"I need to get us something to eat. Are you going to be warm enough? I've got a cloak in my pack."

"Um...I am getting cold," she said after stopping and getting her bearings, having to think about what he'd said. "Please and thank you," she added.

He set down his pack at the side of the road and pulled the cloak out of it, handing it to her. She put it on and fastened the clasp along the front, reaching up with one hand to pull the hood up.

"You'll need to stay here a bit. I shouldn't be more than an hour, maybe two. If I'm not back by sundown, there's a flint and tinder in my pack, along with one day's rations. If you'd gather up some firewood while I'm hunting, we can get a fire going immediately when I get back and have something to eat shortly after."

She nodded at him, the hood bobbing a bit. With that, he started carefully making his way down the steep side of the mountain, figuring that game would be more likely down below the tree line. He'd have to make sure that he got enough for at least a couple days, since he didn't know how long they'd be above the tree-line and not knowing what hunting would be like on the other side of the mountain pass.

§

Game was scarce at first, but the lower he went down the mountainside the easier it got to find game, starting with two hares in rapid succession, somewhat later a quail. That was when he practically walked into a bear.

The bear scared him witless, standing up and bellowing at him from barely twenty feet away. Scruff immediately begun growling at the bear. Somehow his father's training took hold. He grabbed the bow off his back started shooting arrows at the thing as fast as he could. The beast had charged him after the third arrow, coming down on all fours and running straight at him. He dived to the side, trying to get out of it's way. Thankfully it's momentum was enough that it didn't manage to grab him. Scruff darted in to snap at the bears flanks. Aiden took off running as fast as he could.

He darted between trees, occasionally glancing back behind himself to see where it was. The bear finally got irritated with the wolf-dog snapping at its legs and turned to swat at Scruff, but the wolf-dog ducked out of the way. Seeing it was distracted, he pulled his bow up again and kept shooting at it. It took another half dozen arrows before the bear collapsed, bleeding out from the near dozen arrows he'd fired.

Hauling the bear's carcass up the mountain was one of the most tedious things he'd ever had to do. The damned thing must have weighed over thirty stone, twice as much as Aiden himself weighed. At least he was guaranteed to have sufficient meat to get over the mountain. The meat would probably feed them for a solid tenday.

It took him over an hour to drag the bear's carcass up the road to within hailing distance of where he'd left his pack, he yelled, hoping that Silvia would hear him. His voice echoed back to him two or three times. Apparently he'd been louder than he thought. He saw Silvia's head poke out from behind a tree about a hundred feet in front of him. He waved at her and continued dragging the bear behind him.

§

As the meat cooked, he wondered where they would be able to rest and eat in Tilverton. He asked, hoping that it would at least do something to distract Silvia.

"Um...I've never been to Tilverton. Do you happen to know where we can get food and drink, or a place to rest there?" She looked up at him from where she was sitting on the other side of the fire. Gods, he thought, she looked so miserable. She stared at him, and he realized she must not have heard what he'd asked.

"Do you know where the inns or taverns are in Tilverton?"

"Yes. There's a few inns just in town along the main roads that follow the North Ride and Moonsea Ride, and a few more on the road south to Arabel. There's only one tavern, Flagon Held High, up on the hill in Old Town. I've never been there though. The guards always came back telling stories of epic brawls. Father never let me go up there."

She hung her head again, and he watched a tear roll down her face. He wanted to tell her about how he'd lost his brother as well, but something made him think it might be better to keep quiet. He'd had never been outside of Shadowdale, much less to a town as big as Tilverton, and found himself looking forward to seeing what it was like.

"Do you know who the local lord is in Tilverton, or who we'd go to regarding the caravan attack?"

Silvia looked at him like he was crazed, then explained, "Tilverton is under Cormyrian control, and has been for nearly twenty years now. We can inform the garrison about the attack, but chances are they won't do anything, since it's beyond the nation's boundaries. The best we can do is tell any other caravans heading up the North Ride and hope they'll take the time to bury the bodies."

With that, she fell to tears again, and he felt even more miserable for having tried to distract her. He remained silent for the rest of the meal. The bear meat was interesting. He'd had to cut it into steaks and skewered it with a sharpened stick, roasting it over the fire. Scruff certainly appreciated it, eating several large pieces before curling up, sated. Aiden thought the bear meat tasted somewhat like beef, though with a different and slightly stronger flavor. Aiden wasn't quite sure how he was going to store the rest of the meat though. Eventually he decided that it would be best to use the bear hide as a makeshift pack to store all the meat, skinned the bear, scraped the inside of the hide and butchered all of the game he'd caught and wrapped it in the bear hide and twine. It took him nearly an hour.

By the time he was done he saw storm clouds moving in from northwest, the Desertsmouth Mountains. A chilling wind was blowing in with it, and he shivered, wishing he had a second cloak. Maybe that was normal for this area, but he didn't think so. The weather for the past few months had been quite strange for the Dalelands. Unexpectedly long dry spells followed by pouring storms in late summer, when it should have been short dry spells with occasional light showers. They would need to get to shelter before the storm was overhead.

Silvia offered to carry some of his gear, but he declined. She had been breathing quite heavily before they had stopped, and he wasn't sure how much actual walking she was used to, considering that she had been riding in one of the wagons almost the entire time that he had been with the merchant's caravan.

As they made their way further up the trail, he asked her if she remembered where the next camp spot they used was. She said it was probably a few more hours up the mountain pass, and was easily recognizable; a large flat rock area perhaps fifty feet across on the side of the trail. There was a small cave further up as well that could be used by individual travelers to get out of the wind, but wasn't nearly enough for a caravan. Most caravans made sure to bring several tents with them in the winter and blankets to keep the beasts warm at night when it was cold enough to snow.

Eventually the chill wind blowing in from the northwest began to turn downright cold. Occasional flashes of light from behind them lit the sky, and the rumble of thunder echoed through the mountain pass. They desperately needed to find shelter, Aiden thought to himself, before the storm was directly overhead, or they would get soaked in the freezing rain. They were far above the treeline at this point, and Aiden was having to breath quite heavily, carrying both the backpack and the impromptu pack of meat. The chill air was making his lungs burn and he was starting to get a faint headache as well. The area around them quite suddenly went dark as clouds obscured the late afternoon sun. Shortly after, a gust of freezing wet wind hit them from the side. Apparently they were too late. Scruff whined up at him. "Ya, boy, I know. It's not going to be comfortable," Aiden said as he looked down at the wolf-dog.

Neither of them said much as the icy cold rain began to pour down on them. Aiden began to shiver as cold rain soaked through his cloth shirt, eventually even running down his back. He was wishing he had a second cloak at this point. He looked over to Silvia. The woolen cloak looked like it was at least keeping her from getting soaked through. The cloak barely reached his knees normally, but on her it nearly brushed the ground. At least it the cloak wasn't actually dragging on the ground; he'd hate to have to scrape and wash it.

It was nearly a candlemark later when Silvia exclaimed and pointed out the wide flat area that was used as the campgrounds, Aiden was thoroughly soaked and shivering hard enough that his teeth were chattering. The first crash of thunder and lightning startled the hell out of him, and made Scruff yelp. The lightning continued, growing more and more frequent. The wolf-dog walked along so close to him that it was brushing his leg with every step.

He'd never been this close to actual lightning strikes before, and the blinding flashes of light that occasionally lit the area around them were followed split seconds later by deafening cracks of thunder that left his ears ringing. The rain had long since turned to tiny pieces of hail, bouncing off the ground before melting. Several bits of hail had made their way down around his collar, sitting against his skin before melting and only increasing his misery. Scruff was whining too, clearly uncomfortable.

Silvia moved closer to him and spoke loudly, making sure he heard over the clicking and tinkling noise of hail striking the stone around them. "We're a few hundred feet from the cave I mentioned! Not too much longer!"

Aiden nodded to her. "O-o-okay," he said, teeth chattering. He didn't remember her saying anything about a cave. A cave sounded good though. So far he was distinctly not liking mountain travel. If he had any choice in the matter he wouldn't ever do it again, or if he did he would make damn sure that he had an extra cloak to keep him dry and a leather jacket and trousers for warmth. The back of his neck suddenly tingled, and he felt every hair on his body stand on end.