The Hall at Three Fords
A world by Ari Weaver
The Hall at Three Fords
Three Fords is the last hall before the empty country. Across the river the hills are full of giants' work, towers and buried halls built by people twice our height and still full of their bronze and their traps. Every evening the one-armed reeve pins paying jobs to the hall door. Four brothers went out twelve days ago and haven't come back, a rival crew wants whatever they found, and you need the money.
Playing as Traveler·
Leofric holds the nail in his teeth while he pins the last strip of birch bark to the hall door, because he has only the one hand and he won't let anyone help. There are six jobs up tonight. The yard smells of woodsmoke and wet dog, and a dozen people are crowding the door to read, or to get someone to read for them.
Hild reads aloud with her thumb on each line. “Wolf on the near moor, twenty pennies. Escort the priest, fifteen each. Mill culvert, twelve and a sack of flour. Find the Tanner boys, forty.” She taps that one twice. “Forty for four men twelve days gone. Their mother sold her cow for that.”
Leofric spits the nail into his palm. “Forty when they're found. Alive or dead, I'll pay it, but I want them brought back or I want proof, and a boot isn't proof, Hild, I'm saying that now before anyone tries it.”
Behind him Godgifu comes out with a pot of mutton stew, calling for bowls. Brand stands at the edge of the torchlight with his arms folded, reading the same strip of bark twice. Two of Hild's crew are already coiling rope by the gate.
Hild turns and finds you at her elbow. She looks you over the way she'd look over a horse at market. “You're new. Are you any good in the dark? Because I'm short a pair of hands for the drowned road, and I'll give you a full share, which is more than he's offering.”
The hall door1 of 3