place that Benjamin found as he came over the last hill on the long road that was his twelfth day of travel to the burial site of his grandfather.
He had been pushing his luck. The last couple of days the inns and houses had been getting fewer and farther between, but he had been passing up perfectly good quarters late in the day hoping to make it just a few more miles. The night before he ended up walking through very dark passages with nothing more than a torch and a few glimpses of moonlight before he happened onto a lonesome looking house well off the path and up a steep hill. After a brief standoff with a mean looking dog the size of a small bear, the resident of the house came out with a lantern to ask him what he wanted. A widow with young children, she wasn’t about to let him sleep in the house so she let him use the loft in the barn where he slept soundly on semi-fresh straw until bear/dog woke him up early with a great wet morning face washing from his tongue.
These woods at night were not for the weak or timid, and Benjamin was neither, but there are things that roam in the night that even a great mountain of a man like him can’t face alone in the dark. Among these creatures of the dark forests were the highway robbers and cut throats. But Benjamin could handle this riff raff easy enough and aside from the odd skilled assassin turned thief most of these guys would back down from a skillfully slung crossbow and his deep rumbling bellow of warning. The skilled assassin/thief would just end his days with a bolt through his Adam’s apple. No, it was the other creatures he was wary of; bears, packs of wolves, the various and sundry big, medium and small hideous things known as Ogres.
So on the night he rounded the top of the last hill on that 12th day, the sun was nearly setting. The dark inn with the sneaking clientele and the mean looking innkeeper would have to do.
Looking at the property Benjamin could tell that it was once a handsome establishment with detailed woodwork and stained glass. Shrouded by tall willow trees on all corners it didn’t see much daylight at any time of day and the paint, once white, was a dingy looking gray now. He pushed on the crystal door handle, chipped and cracked through, barely remaining attached and the door opened with a creaking sound. He walked in scanning the tables in the tavern as he always did.
He had been pushing his luck. The last couple of days the inns and houses had been getting fewer and farther between, but he had been passing up perfectly good quarters late in the day hoping to make it just a few more miles. The night before he ended up walking through very dark passages with nothing more than a torch and a few glimpses of moonlight before he happened onto a lonesome looking house well off the path and up a steep hill. After a brief standoff with a mean looking dog the size of a small bear, the resident of the house came out with a lantern to ask him what he wanted. A widow with young children, she wasn’t about to let him sleep in the house so she let him use the loft in the barn where he slept soundly on semi-fresh straw until bear/dog woke him up early with a great wet morning face washing from his tongue.
These woods at night were not for the weak or timid, and Benjamin was neither, but there are things that roam in the night that even a great mountain of a man like him can’t face alone in the dark. Among these creatures of the dark forests were the highway robbers and cut throats. But Benjamin could handle this riff raff easy enough and aside from the odd skilled assassin turned thief most of these guys would back down from a skillfully slung crossbow and his deep rumbling bellow of warning. The skilled assassin/thief would just end his days with a bolt through his Adam’s apple. No, it was the other creatures he was wary of; bears, packs of wolves, the various and sundry big, medium and small hideous things known as Ogres.
So on the night he rounded the top of the last hill on that 12th day, the sun was nearly setting. The dark inn with the sneaking clientele and the mean looking innkeeper would have to do.
Looking at the property Benjamin could tell that it was once a handsome establishment with detailed woodwork and stained glass. Shrouded by tall willow trees on all corners it didn’t see much daylight at any time of day and the paint, once white, was a dingy looking gray now. He pushed on the crystal door handle, chipped and cracked through, barely remaining attached and the door opened with a creaking sound. He walked in scanning the tables in the tavern as he always did.
