It didn’t take long for Idelle to find the road again, despite the mess of rugged foothills she had to pass through. It carved its way southward just as it had to the north, a wide lane of hard-packed dirt tramped down by generations of wheels and feet.
Before starting down it, Idelle ran her fingers through her tangled hair in a half-hearted attempt to make herself look presentable before giving up; she figured that it would be impossible to hide the signs of her weeks of travel without a bath and likely a change of clothes. She thought it might take a long time to encounter other people in this part of the kingdom, anyway.
That particular thought turned out to be almost completely wrong. It was only the next day, near noon, when she found fallow fields next to the road. A few more minutes brought her to a small fork in the road (just before it crossed over a stream via an aging wooden bridge) and she turned to follow the split, thinking to find someone to ask for directions.
As the tops of a scattered cluster of houses came into view in the distance, she spotted two men hard at work in one of the fields. One of them looked up as she approached, his gaze sweeping over her battered uniform and sword before meeting her eyes with an irritated glare. He spoke before she had a chance.
“Oi, you want something?” His voice was curt. “There ain’t nothing for soldiers to do around here.”
“Just directions…” Idelle said hesitantly.
The man snorted and shook his mop of reddish hair. “Directions? What, are you lost?”
Before Idelle could respond the other farmer, a tan man who was shorter than his fellow, interjected. “Don’t be an ass. Directions to where miss?”
Her eyes flicked over to his face. He didn’t look actively upset, but his face was still guarded despite his polite words. “Hudbria. I had to take a detour off the road and wanted to make sure I was still on the right track.”
“It’s just a day or two south of here on the main road you just turned off. Can’t miss it. Was that all?” The tan man said.
“...Yes.” Idelle paused impulsively before turning away. “Unless there’s some problem I can help with?”
“Yeah, there’s a problem all right.” The red-haired man spoke again before his companion could stop him. “You soldiers are the problem, coming in here and—”
“Leo. Can it.” The short man’s voice brooked no argument. “There’s no problem, miss. It’s just been a rough winter, and we don’t want any trouble, that’s all he’s trying to say.”
Idelle looked between them, her own irritation rising. She wasn’t even a real soldier, what was going on with this jerk? She’d just been trying to be helpful. “It sounds like he has a problem to me.”
He winced, and Leo took the opportunity to cut in again. “My problem is that your type won’t mind your own business. Always coming in here and demanding a bigger cut of the taxes or some favor, or maybe you need to commission some of our wagons that we won’t ever see again, or maybe you just want to recruit more of our workforce, or just waste our time because you can’t even keep track of your own ass—”
“Leo. Enough. Look at her, she’s just some girl.” Leo finally shut up, turning back to his work with an angry jerk of his head, and the other farmer looked at Idelle and continued, his voice quiet and clipped. “I think it’d be best if you leave. If you got nothing else to do here. Sorry.”
Idelle shrugged and spoke, her voice sullen. “Fine. For the record, though, that’s all got nothing to do with me either, so find someone else to complain at.”
Leo just snorted. Idelle stared at him, the thought of grabbing his shoulder and knocking him to his knees to teach him some respect flashing through her mind, but her fingers only drummed on the hilt of her sword. She saw the tan man whose name she still hadn’t heard eyeing them nervously and controlled herself, forcing her face into a reassuring smile.
Idelle turned away and started back between the narrow rows of rough fences, missing the way the man took a step back and grabbed Leo’s shoulder and muttered something. Whatever. It wasn’t her problem if some stranger’s mouth got him into trouble.
Just like she’d been told, it was late that evening when Idelle caught sight of Hudbria, still clearly visible to her eyes in the last vestiges of twilight. The city was nestled in the crook of a shallow hill, with a scattering of buildings trailing up the hillside before culminating in a grand stone complex with a long, spindly tower near the center. Dust-colored scrub surrounded the city, and to the east, the plains stretched away in long swatches of dry rock, sand, and amber grasses; a few lonely bushes clinging to cracks in the rock and hiding in slight gulleys and behind ridges.
Unlike Wyrlet, the city had no great walls. Its buildings and roads instead encroached upon the surrounding desert seemingly at random, and as she drew closer she saw many of them were made of rough stone or clay, often reinforced in places with mud-covered boards. Only on the hillside did the construction look made to last, with some of the larger structures even displaying metal or glass in their windows and fencing off ornate balconies.
She soon came across a small guard post next to the road, a bored guard in a near-identical gambeson to hers fiddling with a little wooden puzzle involving sliding different blocks of wood past each other as they slumped against one wall. Idelle coughed politely as she approached, and the guard glanced up before hurriedly standing and stepping forward to meet her.
“Anything I can do for you?”
Idelle shrugged. “Mmh. I’m just trying to enter the city. I’m headed to the Royal Academy of Magic. Do I need to do anything to go in, or…?”
The guard waved a languid hand. “Not unless you’re a merchant illegally wearing that armor or something. Though I’m afraid the academy will be all closed this late. Do you know where the barracks are?”
Idelle paused. “Actually, could you tell me where an inn or something is? And the academy is the building on top of the hill, right?”
“That’s right. The pride of Hudbria, as they say.” The guard stood up a little straighter. “Anyway, if you aren’t here on official business, I’d just wander down the main way until you go past the well, then take the second right. You’ll see ‘The Lonely Pony’ on your left, it’s as good a spot as any.”
Idelle expressed her thanks and received an amiable nod in response. At least some people were nice around here, she thought as she headed back down the road.
The Lonely Pony was a tall brick building with a passable impression of a horse carved into a sign above the doorway. The door opened into a common room, and Idelle saw an assortment of folks, many in the kingdom’s familiar uniform, drinking and chatting at tables. The room was rowdy, and no one gave her a second glance and she crossed the room to a long counter. The bored woman lounging behind it glanced up at her with a nod.
“Anything I can do for you?”
“Just a room.”
The woman held out her hand. “That’ll be 4 denier for the night. Unless you want to pay ahead or want food.”
Idelle leaned her sword against the counter, prompting a wordless glance from the woman, and then unslung her pack to dig inside for a moment. She found the pouch and frowned as she realized she only had two of the smaller coins. She grabbed one of the few remaining larger silver gros instead. “Is this all right?”
The bartender accepted it without complaint. “No food, then?”
Idelle shook her head. “No, thank you.”
She accepted the handful of change, and the woman jerked her thumb at the door to one side of the room. “Second floor, third room on the right. Leave the door unlocked if you want us to drop by with a fresh jug of water in the morning.”
Idelle nodded and thanked her again. She gathered her stuff back up, turned, and headed for the door, but a loud voice cut across her thoughts as one of the soldiers waved and hailed her as she passed his table. “Hey, huge sword girl!”
She flinched, stepping back at his unexpected words, but he continued without noticing. “You look like you’ve been on the road a while. Got any good stories? Come tell us!”
The man was clearly drunk — along with the rest of his table. Idelle shook her head at him, but his companions joined in, encouraging her with shouts and the offer of a drink. She grimaced, but the man rose to his feet at the encouragement and stepped forward. “Come on, it’ll be fun! You must be bored, you’ve just arrived, right?”
She shook her head again. “I’m fine. I don’t have any good stories anyway—” The man reached forward for her shoulder, and she slapped his arm away forcefully, ”—Don’t touch me! I said I’m fine, all right?”
He shrugged and rubbed his hand, giving her a surprised look. “Your loss, sword girl. We got plenty to talk about either way.”
He turned and headed back to his table, but a few of his companions kept surprised faces trained on her as she backed away to the doorway.
Idelle caught one of them, a woman, murmuring a question as she fled the room. “What’s her problem? Think she’s just tired…?” Whatever was said in response was lost in the clamor of the room as she closed the door behind her and hurriedly retreated up the flight of stairs behind it.
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