R. Salvatore: The Highwayman

Are these Jhesta Tu who we shall become?

I do not know, and I do not elevate them above Blessed Abelle, surely. And yet I must insist that from these Jhesta Tu we will find a continuation of our own road to understanding. We must learn from them as they will learn from us-and they have already shown the willingness and the hope that such will occur.

Thus I have copied the Book of Jhest, the foundation of understanding of the Jhesta Tu. In the final measure of my mission, this will prove the most fundamental and important accomplishment of all. Study the Book of Jhest, I beg each of you, with eyes wide and heart open. Infuse yourself with its wisdom and blend the revelations within with the truth we know from Blessed Abelle.

I walked a road with sure strides, but I had no idea that the road would take my spirit to places it had not yet tread. I walked a road to enhance the lives of those pagans I encountered, but I had no idea that the road would brighten my own understanding. I am not afraid of these revelations and the greater scope of miracle, and neither should you be.

Turn these pages with reverent hands. Bask in the words of wisdom of the Jhesta Tu, and find in them enough similarities to show us that the only falsities in our understanding of the truths of Blessed Abelle are the limitations that we naturally place upon those teachings. This was my wont, for never did I imagine the true width of faith's horizon. Penned this day of Bafway, God's Year 54 Brother Bran Dynard, humble servant of Chapel Pryd

Prydae With backs stooped from hours and hours of heavy labor, the peasant workers building the road south of the holding of Pryd were most commonly seen with their hands placed firmly on their aching lower backs. They didn't look behind them often as they dug and smoothed the ground between two forested hills, for if they did, they would see the stone tower of Castle Pryd, red pennant emblazoned with the black wolf waving in the brisk breeze above it: a poignant reminder of how short a distance they had actually gone in these weeks of brutal labor and how inconceivable-to the peasants, at least-a distance they had yet to go.

Work had begun on the project in the summer of the previous year. The road itself was not an elaborate affair, merely a widening and smoothing of the existing southern cart paths, with the ground pounded flat and strategically reinforced with wide flagstones. Laird Pryd had been quite pleased with the progress made in the late summer weeks and those of autumn, but all those involved-particularly the peasants pressed into this hard labor-had been quite dismayed to find, when the snow had at last relinquished its grip on the land, that much of their work had been damaged by the frost heaves of the unusually harsh winter.

"At least I won't be needing to clean under me fingernails," one man griped to another as they stood beside the road in a moment of respite, their heavy flagstones set on the ground before them, upright and leaning against their bare, badly bruised, and always scuffed shins.

"That's because ye got no fingernails," the other replied, and he held up his own hand, filthy and battered. "By the time we make the mountain shadow, all of us'll be missing more than that, I'm thinking."

"Bah, but you're the fool, for we're not to live long enough to ever cool in the shadows of them great mountains."

"Come on, then, the two of you," came a call from up the road. The pair turned to see a soldier of Pryd, splendid astride his tall horse and in his shining breastplate of bronze. With each pace of the mount, the hard sheath of the short sword on the soldier's hip made a clapping sound against the iron studs of his leather skirt. "They're needing stones up front. Now get about it."

Both peasants sucked in their breaths, bent their knobbly knees, and hooked their arms under the bottoms of the large stones, then hoisted them and began waddling away.

"Weren't that Doughbeard's boy?" one gasped to the other when they had moved beyond the soldier's range of hearing.

"Aye, and ain't he looking all pretty up there on his fine horse?"

"So many o' them young and strong ones do, while our old bones creak and crack."

"Creak and crack! And swim in the mud and horses' shite."

"And work all the day and all o' the night," said the other, taking up the cadence and the nonsensical rhyme.

"Until them soldiers be out o' our sight!" the other went on, and he cackled with laughter between the grunts.

His friend started to cackle as well, but broke off, feeling an impact and the sound of a sharp rap against the front of the stone he was carrying. He staggered back a step, managed a "what?" and then lost his words and his breath as he recognized what had struck his stone was a stone-headed throwing axe now lying on the ground before him.

Had he not been carrying a flagstone against his chest like some unintended breastplate, that axe wouldn't now be on the ground, he knew.

"What are ye about?" his friend asked, staggering to a stop and turning. He followed the ashen-faced gaze of the stunned man to the weapon.

"Bloody caps!" the man shouted, and he dropped his stone and ran back toward his friend, who still stood there, holding the stone that had saved his life, and staring slack-jawed at the axe.

"Go, old fool! Go!" the fleeing man shouted, grabbing his friend's shoulder as he raced past, turning him; but as he did, his friend lost his grip on the stone and it crashed to the ground, clipping his foot and bringing a great howl from him.

The fleeing man didn't wait, didn't slow at all. He ran back up the road, toward that fluttering pennant, screaming "Bloody caps!" at the top of his lungs. "Your scouts were correct," young Prince Prydae said to the guard captain standing beside him. They had moved secretly into place, under the cover of the brush and trees to the side of the road. A hundred yards or so farther down the road, all the workers were running and waving their arms frantically, the calls of "Powries!" and "Bloody caps!" filling the air.

The nobleman slid his leather gauntlets onto his hands and stepped into his chariot-the most magnificent war cart in all the holding. It was bordered on three sides by waist-high walls of hard oak and leather, a running black wolf painted on either side, silver trim running the length of it. The wheels were heavy and sturdy, with spokes as thick as a strong man's forearms, and hubs set with scythe blades that stuck out for more than a foot. The pulling team, a pair of Laird Pryd's strongest horses, pawed the ground, eager to run.

To any onlookers, young Prince Prydae did not appear out of place there. He stood strong and tall, his blue eyes set with determination in a face not unaccustomed to scowling. When he did so scowl, Prydae's thick brow furrowed such that it formed a triangular chasm atop his long, thin nose; and people in all the region for many years had known to beware the "sharp shadows of anger" from the men of the line of Pryd!

Prydae's other features were no less powerful: a strong chin and high-boned cheeks that bespoke his noble heritage. His black hair was neatly trimmed about his ears; and thick sideburns ran down to touch the thin jawline beard, which blended in with a thin goatee and mustache, as was the fashion of the day. He wore a bronze breastplate, fitted perfectly to his muscular frame, leaving his arms bare. Many nobleman warriors had taken to wearing iron instead of the softer bronze, but Prydae preferred this piece precisely because the soft metal had allowed his craftsman to decorate it with grand designs. Right at the ridge below the breasts was a line of running wolves, three across and nose to tail. The back of the piece boasted clever swirls and geometric shapes, and even contained the "fisted P," a letter formed from an upraised forearm and cocked and balled fist, the emblem of the line of Pryd.