Ferran, innkeeper of The Shadowed Rest, was counting coins when he noticed the man sitting alone at a table near the common room’s blazing hearth. Preoccupied by the copper pieces in his hand, Ferran had not seen him enter the inn.

The innkeeper suspected that the man had come through the door with his face hidden by the hood of the plain grey cloak he wore. Shrouded in that cloak, the newcomer would have been taken for any other commoner that shuffled into Ferran’s inn. But without a hood to conceal his features, the man caught the notice of all eyes around him.

Even now, the other patrons of The Shadowed Rest were muttering to one another, casting glances at the man. They squinted at him through the haze of smoke from pipes, the hearth, and the inn’s cookfires, gesturing at him with tankards. Even the serving girls were whispering in a small circle near the bar. Ferran cleared his throat and glared at them, and they hurried back to their work. The girls resumed their dance between the round tables in the common room, gliding over the plank floor, answering calls for more ale, tending to lanterns when wicks burned low.

Indeed, the grey-cloaked man was a stranger to everyone except Ferran. The innkeeper drew two tankards of ale from a barrel and moved out from behind the bar. As he approached, the newcomer looked up from the fire, which he had been watching intently. Haunted eyes met Ferran’s own. The innkeeper set the tankards down on the table.

“You’re Thidrek of Narad,” Ferran said.

The man’s eyes widened, and he reached for a dagger in a sheath on his belt.

Ferran raised his hands in a calming gesture. “Peace, friend. I will not harm you. Nor will I call for the magistrate. And I assure you, I am not your equal with a blade.”

Thidrek’s eyes appraised Ferran. The innkeeper was of similar age and stature to the other man. Both were large of body and beyond their middle years. But where time had been kind to Thidrek, it had not been so to Ferran. Thidrek retained much of the lean muscle of youth, where the innkeeper had long ago gone to fat. Ferran’s hair had become white and had fallen out until he was almost as bald as an egg, while the other man had long, iron grey locks, which were pulled back into a ponytail.

“Who are you?” Thidrek demanded. “How do you know me?”

“May I sit?” asked Ferran.

Thidrek stared at the innkeeper for another moment, then nodded. Ferran lowered his bulk into a chair across the table from the other man, and pushed a tankard toward Thidrek.

“I was once in the legions of the old king,” Ferran said. “Just like you. I was one of many who idolized you. All of us footmen shared tales of your deeds, watched you rise in the ranks, saw you take your place at the old king’s side as his Counselor of War.”

“I did not think anyone here would know me,” Thidrek said quietly as he took a swallow of ale. Ferran thought that few who once knew the warrior would recognize him now. Thidrek’s face, once kept clean-shaven, had made women weak. Now the old warrior’s visage was covered with a ragged beard, and deep wrinkles surrounded his eyes and frowning mouth. Loose hairs had escaped Thidrek’s ponytail and hung heavy with sweat.

“None of these others would know you on sight.” Ferran waved his own tankard at the crowd in the common room. “They are simple folk, and rarely do they see someone dressed as a warrior.” The innkeeper gestured at the faded, oft-patched leather armor that covered Thidrek’s chest, arms, and legs, and at the daggers on his belt and broadsword on his hip. “High in these mountains, we are far from war and strife. That is why I came here to Ulmer. To leave warring and pain behind me.”

The innkeeper rolled up a long sleeve and laid his right arm on the table. Thidrek saw that Ferran’s hand was covered in calluses, the knuckles swollen and arthritic. Two of the innkeeper’s fingers were missing, and a network of ragged scars ran up his arm from palm to elbow. A tattoo of a hawk, distorted by the twisted flesh but still recognizable, writhed as Ferran flexed his remaining fingers.

“The mark of the Fourth Legion,” breathed Thidrek as he looked up at Ferran, and the innkeeper saw a new respect enter the warrior’s eyes.

“The scars are a legacy of the campaigns against the alfari from Mathara. I fought those long-ears just as you did, Thidrek. I know what horrors can drive a man to leave everything he knows behind.”

“What do you know of what I have seen?” Thidrek spat. “What I have done…and failed to do?” The warrior turned his gaze to the hearth fire again.

“I know that you were not only old King Abram’s war counselor, but also his friend and protector. And I know that the old king was murdered by a Matharan assassin.”

Anger twisting his face, Thidrek ripped a dagger from his belt and drove the tip of the blade deep into the wooden tabletop. Ferran recoiled from the old warrior’s rage.

“The bastard used sorcery to reach Abram’s chamber in the middle of the night!” roared Thidrek, spittle foaming his beard. “The long-ears knew sending someone into the castle was suicide, but the damned zealots don’t fear for their lives. Our wizards’ glyphs on the walls could not stop him. We slaughtered the assassin as he tried to escape, but he had already gutted the king. The wizards failed us, the great god Camran damn them!”

“And the blame fell on you,” Ferran said quietly, doing his best to ignore the dagger still wrapped in Thidrek’s white-knuckled grip. “I remember when the commanders told us. The king’s other counselors said you should have been more cautious with your selection of bodyguards, should have worked more closely with the wizards to keep the wards strengthened. There was even the suggestion that you had conspired with the Matharans.”

The rage bled from Thidrek’s eyes. The old warrior let go of the dagger’s hilt and hung his head. “I did not betray Abram. There would never have been enough men to protect him, and no spell would ever have been powerful enough. The Matharans would have found a way to reach the king eventually. But the other counselors had always coveted my relationship with Abram. My friend’s death was the excuse they had sought for so long. When Kerran, Abram’s son, ascended to the throne, the counselors convinced him that I should be executed. He was so young, the new king, and he believed the liars. So I fled like a coward, in disgrace.”

“And so you have wandered for years,” the innkeeper said. “I have heard troubadours tell tales of your supposed treachery countless times, and each time I refused to believe them. Some have even tried to sing their slanders here, under my very roof, and I have thrown such out on their arses!”

“For that, I thank you,” Thidrek muttered into his tankard as he took another pull from it.

Ferran leaned closer to the warrior. “You should know that, even here in Ulmer, Kerran’s bounty on your head would drive even the humble dwellers of this village to turn you in for gold. But know that I will do what I can to shelter you. I was always heartened to hear that you still lived, and that you made your way through the world with your sword.”

“No better than a damned mercenary,” rumbled Thidrek as he pulled his dagger from the table and sheathed it. “I’ve spilled so much blood for coins. What honor do I have left?”

“No one can ever take away your honor. It runs too deep in you.”

Thidrek snorted. “Don’t coddle me as if I were a weeping child. Keep the ale flowing and leave me in peace.”

The old warrior waved at Ferran dismissively and drained his tankard. The innkeeper watched the ale spill through the man’s beard, then stood up.

“Ulmer is as good a place as any to hide from one’s past, nestled here in the high mountains,” Ferran said. “Who would think Thidrek of Narad would cease his wanderings in such an insignificant village?”

The warrior had turned away from Ferran to watch the fire again, obviously intent on ignoring the innkeeper.

“Still,” Ferran continued, “seclusion is not the only reason one might come to this valley. There is also…the legend.”

Thidrek looked up at the innkeeper again. “What did you say?”

Ferran nodded and smiled. “There is no need to be wary, friend. I came here to seek it myself years ago. The legend tells of a portal, somewhere in the mountains above Ulmer, that leads to a place of eternal peace for those who tire of serving death. It is a pathway to a paradise created by the pagan gods of old, before the Church of Camran spread the word of the One God Above. There a man might bask in the honor he has known in his life, find release from the mire of guilt and regret. The ancient alfari that dwelled in this valley called it sainka badal. Warrior’s Reward.”

“It’s true,” Thidrek said in a choked whisper as he gaped at Ferran. The warrior gripped the innkeeper’s forearm with a trembling hand. “I seek the portal! Do you know where it lies?”

“Perhaps,” the innkeeper said as he watched Thidrek’s pleading eyes. “I searched for days beyond counting, ranging deeper and deeper into the mountains, with only the legend to guide me. I spent years as a man possessed, ever seeking, but I could not find the path. Until at last, something was discovered.”

“What was it?” urged Thidrek.

Ferran glanced over his shoulder, then pulled Thidrek to his feet. “Come. I’ll show you.”

The innkeeper guided the warrior across the common room and behind the bar. A door led to a hallway illuminated by lanterns, one of which Ferran lifted from the wall. They passed the inn’s kitchen, and Ferran led Thidrek through another door at the end of the hallway.

They entered a small, windowless room dominated by a table strewn with parchments. Several chests of various sizes lined the walls. Ferran set the lantern on the table and gestured for Thidrek to sit in one of two sturdy, high-backed chairs. The innkeeper picked up a small chest from a corner of the room before settling himself in the other chair.

Thidrek watched as the innkeeper pulled a key on a hide thong from a deep pocket in his leather apron. Ferran twisted the key in a lock embedded in the front of chest, then tilted back the lid and pulled out two items. The first was a worn roll of parchment, and the second was a statue of a spider the size of a fist that was wrought in silver. It was forged in a style that Thidrek had never seen before, and strange glyphs marked its surface.

“That is a remarkable work,” Thidrek said has he reached for the spider. Ferran slapped the warrior’s hand aside just as the statue lunged toward Thidrek’s fingers. Thidrek recoiled and fumbled for a dagger.

“Easy, friend,” Ferran said as his gripped the spider statue’s abdomen. The thing froze at his touch. “I acquired this from a trader who says it came from a mysterious continent far to the east, across the Geneth Ocean. It was created by a wizard of the strange, dark-skinned people said to live there, where they sacrifice men and women to unholy gods atop stepped temples. I use it to protect my possessions. Its venom will kill anyone fool enough to try and rob me.”

“An effective trap,” Thidrek grunted, then gestured at the scroll. “What of this?”

“I purchased this from one of the villagers last spring after he stumbled upon it in the mountains. He came to the inn one evening, got drunk as a lord, and started raving about how he had discovered it in an old stone tomb. I approached him, and when he showed me what he had found, I knew the fool had unearthed what I had sought for so long. He had more use for my coin than his newfound treasure. If he only knew how he gave away paradise for a pittance.”

Ferran unrolled the parchment and held it flat with both hands. The map was drawn with the ethereal beauty and attention to detail that only the delicate hands of the alfari could summon. The fraying edges were illuminated with intricate silver scrollwork, and along one side was drawn the likeness of an ancient alfari king. The stately figure’s thin frame was covered in flowing robes, and above slanted eyes and ears that tapered to points rested a golden circlet. One fine-boned hand was raised, palm out, in a sign that might have been both a salute and a warning.

Across the parchment, accented by flowing alfari script, sprawled a detailed drawing of the peaks and valleys of the Aros Mountains that surrounded Ulmer. The parchment did not depict the village, as the map was created long before human habitation of the realm. Ferran tapped the place where Ulmer now stood. Then the innkeeper traced a finger along the black ink paths, until his grimy nail rested on the image of a six-pointed star near the base of a tall peak.

“Here, Thidrek. The map claims to show the way. Here is where I believe one can find Warrior’s Reward.”

The old warrior gazed at the map, then looked at Ferran in awe. “You have not been there?”

“No, I dared not.”

“If you have known of this for so long,” Thidrek breathed, “why have you not traveled there to assure the map’s authenticity?”

“I brought the map to a priest of Camran skilled in the ancient alfari script, and paid dearly for a translation. There are warnings on the map that speak of a trial created by the ancient gods of both man and the alfari, meant to prevent all but the most worthy from reaching the portal. Fear of this trial has kept me from making the journey.”

Thidrek straightened, and Ferran saw the haze of despair in the warrior’s eyes burned away by rage. “Damn the heathen gods! We are men of the king’s legion, you and I. Together, we will open the way to the portal and claim it in the name of Camran!”

“But I am an old fat man, Thidrek,” said the innkeeper. “What could I do to help one such as you?”

Thidrek reached out and turned over Ferran’s arm to reveal the hawk tattoo. “You have already done the impossible, and bolstered an old soldier’s spirits. We will reach the portal at last, my friend, and the bards will sing of it for an age to come.”

A smile slowly spread across the innkeeper’s face. Ferran nodded and gripped Thidrek’s forearm. “I will face any challenge, if it is at the side of old King Abram’s champion. I am with you, blade brother!”

“One last time our swords will sing,” Thidrek rumbled. “And death to any who stand in our way.”

Plucked from:
http://www.dndadventure.com/html/short_story/ss_warriors_reward.html