Ironwood

Revelations

The sky was starting to dim when Jacob and Athena arrived back into the camp, the sunset spreading in a spectacular red above the forest. Jacob wore the Shield on his back, its straps around his shoulder, but it was mostly covered by the large bag of items they had looted from the small cave behind the bandit's cooking fire. Despite the passage of time, the scene was much as when they had left: Laranna and Daniel sat nervously, Brother Francis was carefully impassive, and Ceann looked fit to chew nails.

"Finally decided to come back, Jacob? I do hope you have some answers," the red-haired merchant drawled.

Jacob nodded, easing down the bag he carried. "Yes, I suppose you deserve them. First, Athena, while looking for me, found a camp with five bandits: big guys. She fought well, and managed to hold them off until I arrived, though it was a close thing for a while."

Ceann's eyes grew wide, and his mouth worked. When he said nothing, Jacob continued, "All five are dead, though we both needed some time to recover, physically and emotionally. I don't know how many fights to the death you've been involved in, but I don't recommend them. There was a stream nearby, so we cleaned up all the blood as well as we could.

Our bandits also had a cave nearby where they stashed their loot. It's easy to miss, especially from the stream, but we found quite a bit there, including some interesting things from Sarronen. Oh, and one of the bandits had this."

Jacob swung the shield off his back and held it forward for the others to examine. It was solidly made, but didn't look particularly remarkable. It was just was a old metal plated round shield. Perhaps once it had been beautiful, but now it was dented, scratched, and much of the paint was chipped. Yet, for that, both the wood and the metal had held up surprisingly well. "This is the Shield of St. Thomas."

Ceann's mouth swung open again. "How did - what is that doing here?"

Brother Francis was nearly as shocked, though it did register in his voice. "Amazing! Yet I was given to understand from Daniel that Serren had stolen the shield."

Daniel's jaw clenched. "He did, I swear it! He was the one who murdered Timothy, and Father Gerrold as well."

Jacob reached carefully into the heavy bag, and pulled out a few tokens: two medallions of the Fire God, two red scarves, and a chain hauberk of Sarronen make. Then he nodded to Ceann. "We found these in the cave. Someone was moving the Shield out of Sarronen, and was attacked by these bandits. We should have been watching the southern and eastern exits from the city, but we assumed that if Serren had taken the Shield, he would have no need to remove it from the city. Something changed his mind, or Innoken's. I didn't tell you, because I didn't want to involve the Lady Laranna. And when she wasn't present, you seemed - occupied.

"If Innoken and probably Haldor were involved in this, then Ironwood is in danger. We need to attend the upcoming Summit, and find out more.

"Laranna, I hoped that in exchange for an escort, you would not begrudge us an introduction to your father, and he might be able to help us at the Summit. But I didn't want to embroil you in our problems. I'm sorry that I wasn't clear about my reasons or my situation. I'm sorry too if I gave the impression that - well, that I wanted to court you. You see, that's never been my decision to make. My father chose the woman I am to marry, and I didn't consider that things might work differently in Northspire. Lady, you have my sincere apology. But now I realize you have something to tell us, my Lady Laranna."

The raven-haired woman chewed her lip for long seconds, before sighing, decision made. "Yes, I suppose I do. I was in Kull territory when I was kidnapped, but it was Sarronen warriors who did it. I wasn't supposed to know. I was blindfolded before Halvar 'rescued' me. But there were clues: my 'Kull captors' were poor actors, and sounded too much like men of Sarronen. I don't suppose someone from Travan was supposed to hear the difference.