Knights of Ferlonia

CHAPTER I

The situation had not looked good, weather-wise, even since the afternoon. The sky was leaden and uniform, and a crisp breeze was shaking the last reddish leaves hanging on the bare trees at the sides of the path that emerged from among the evergreen shrubs. A little beyond the eastern gate of the village of Petratonna stood the figures of two knights of the royal order of Ferlonia in their black and purple uniforms.
With their backs standing against the looming mountain and the threatening sky, they had an undeniably solemn air. On the other hand, their faces, those of a man and a woman, did not betray any complicity, and the scenes of frugal life that took place behind them, those of street vendors of fruit and vegetables shouting offers and merchandise to goat herders who were returning with their flocks after having taken them to graze by the river, contributed to a certain surrealism.

<<The target is about a three-hour walk from the village according to the information we were given during our mission briefing, but according to what we have gathered on site, it will take us at least five. Anker, it is not a good idea to go today,>> the female knight said firmly.

<<The information we gathered on site, you say? You mean the ravings of that hag? No other shepherd in the village ventures further up that abandoned peak, and we are supposed to trust what an old woman, probably demented, tells us? Maybe she has never even been to the observatory!>>

<<Anker, you know the drill. In these remote areas, intelligence must be based on dated reports from drunken scouts and conjecture. The locals always know more than they do.>>

<<Madja, that woman practically didn't speak our language. We had to find another villager to act as an interpreter for her incomprehensible dialect. Even assuming she met someone up there, on the Horn of Morghorou, how can you believe that what could have been any shepherd was actually him?>> Anker replied annoyed.

Anker and Madja had reached the village of Petratonna the night before. The last station of the crystalway was a handful of hours' walk from the village and their ride had left them there in the late afternoon. Along the way they had moved easily on their military hippodromes, but they had also had to make a detour to the citadel of Zelfiria, which was the birthplace of their target, the fallen knight Viryl of Zelfiria. They had managed to sneak into the palace that used to belong to him without any problems, but it seemed it had been abandoned decades prior and they had not found any new leads.

In Petratonna they had no choice but to take a room in the only inn in the village, as there was no one else to be seen around at that late hour. However, in the morning they had gotten up early and immediately started interviewing the inhabitants. Everyone knew that at some point Viryl had passed through Petratonna to climb the mountain. Some rumors claimed that he had occasionally stopped by to eat a meal, to buy a lamb or to stock up on supplies for a journey to unspecified locations from which no one had seen him return. However, no one was able to say when the last visit was.

However, the name of old shepherdess Emia had come up, who claimed to meet him often. They had found her in a stinking hovel where chickens roamed freely. The old woman, covered in brown and greasy rags, was busy preparing her second breakfast with eggs, onions and lard in a pan blackened by the flames of the fireplace, and she had not bothered to look at them for several minutes. They called her from the door, but Emia only thought about her omelette. Then she had sat down and started to eat it greedily with bread. Madja, impatient, had entered, grabbed her by the shoulder and called her vehemently: it was at that moment that Emia had noticed the presence of the knights. Frightened, she had pulled the pan towards her, as if they were there to steal it, and had kicked Madja's shins vigorously. A very confused exchange of words had then started, with Madja trying to raise her arms in a sign of peace and the old woman shouting incomprehensible words and retreating further and further, spitting eggs from her toothless mouth. From the other side of the street a man had noticed the commotion in Emia's shack and had approached. He too had entered, said a few words in a dialect very different from the current Ferlonian and Emia had immediately calmed down. It was then he who acted as translator for Anker and Madja.