Messengers of Ilbeor by T.J. Klapprodt

Author:T.J. Klapprodt [Klapprodt, T.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Raise your glass high, a song in the air,

Drink to Millie Mae, her smile so fair,

Sing of her beauties, sing of her face,

Sing of her bosoms and tiny waist.

Dance, Millie Mae! Twirl all around

In the arms of a man so strong and so sound

Dance, Millie Mae, till the night’s end

And till our cups need filling again!

The sound of his cheerful song spread through the empty valley as he walked, occasionally giving the carthorse a commiserating pat. The cart made rumbling noises as it rolled over the dirt road, occasionally hitting an uneven spot with a jolt and the clatter of the metal joints of the hitch. Gefroi made a cheerful picture for anyone who might have seen him, a sandy-haired, gangly teen singing on his first solo journey.

His thoughts wandered as he ended the drinking song and walked in contemplative silence. He thought about Millie Mae, the pretty girl in the song who set all the men's hearts ablaze. Was there such a girl? He had met no one in Blackwell that held that kind of attraction, at least to him, and he was of an age where he should have been looking. After all, his own parents had married when his father was seventeen and his mother was sixteen. So far, though, none of the village girls had caught his attention as someone he would want to spend time with, never mind the rest of his life.

Gefroi didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in Blackwell, anyway. He knew that at the end of his apprenticeship, his choices would be simple: continue working for Jenson at a wage that would enable him to marry and even possibly build a small house in the village, or find an inn in some village whose keeper was ready to sell. Neither option appealed; what was the point of leaving home, only to live the same life in another village? No, Gefroi wanted to move into one of the big cities: Bergefort was closest, but he thought he might like to go even farther, to Stormacre on the coast of the Unresting Sea, or even all the way to Emelle, where the king and queen lived.

The carthorse stopped suddenly and gave a nervous whinny. Gefroi stopped too, confused because the carthorse never stopped unless he stopped her. “What is it, Cassie?” he asked, looking around to see if he could see the source of her nervousness.

Cassie pawed the ground and whinnied again, tossing her head.

Gefroi looked around, even more confused. The valley looked like it always did in the dark; waving dark grass in the moonlight, and the reddish-brown packed dirt of the road seeming to have a bit of a glow. He could see no one on the road ahead, and the road was empty behind him. He squinted into the surrounding grasses; was there a predator, some sort of animal that had Cassie’s hackles up?

After another minute, Gefroi sighed. Animals could be strange. He had never fully figured out

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