The road north thick with traveler, Columba coughed the dust away and peered over the top of those in front. The road no narrower, the number had thickened suddenly.
“Benighted soldiers!” Spat one man beside him, big load of wool bending him half over. “I can"t carry my load forever!” he called out over those in front.
“Fear?” asked the shepherd beside him. “The One Scroll stolen and you wonder what they fear? By the feathers of the Great Scribe"s quill, are you daft?”
Since descending along the arrow-straight road, Columba had seen signs that not all was well in Scrollhaven.
The landscape had gone from thick, old growth deciduous forest clotted with moss and fern and the musk of decay, and had gradually thinned as the elevation lowered. Here on either side, the trees were thirty to fo
