[h1]Along the Rispruvan[/h1] 
[h2]Misruvani-Voldagrad border[/h2]

to call the road a road was a compliment beyond its worth. Merely a pebble-strewn path cut through the thin brush along the banks of the wide Rispruvan river, it was too overgrow to be anything but a wide deer-trail. Branches hung in thick clusters over it, inter-twined in the cold spring air and naked of even the slightest hints of this years buds. A light snow fell slow and meandering, with no breeze it drifted down without direction or guidance to the stony ground below where it came to rest between the fledgling new-growth grasses. The stillness of the air carried every sound in the deep woods, the knocking of  birds, cracking of heavy branches as they sagged under some animal's weight. Reindeer and elk called in the eerie silence and their voices echoed without a source from the deep wilderness.

Across the wide Rispruvan, so wide in fact it could safely nest a whole city between its banks and still let long ships free passage through its still glimmering gray waters the mountains of the Ura; to some the Wyrm mountains, others: the Broken Teeth. The sheer, gravel strewn banks of the slate-gray cliffs rose imposing over the waters. Fleeting in and out of hidden crevasses large hawks and eagles jostled for spring-time real-estate, competing with the ocean terns who flew inland to breed. From that side, the sounds were greater and a seathing mass of cacophonous noise screamed and wailed from the high mountain tops, forever packed with snow that ran down into the cold valleys.

It wasn't these sounds though that the lone figure riding along the path was worried about though. Her ears were trained for what might be behind her. The glomping of hooves in stone, the cracking clop on stone. The breaking of a stick that might warn her of a nearing companion or pursuer.

She had rode through the night, and the dark morning. The sun was finally up and it was beginning to dip again from its high-day mark in the south skies. The clouds hid it, but breaks in the darkened clouds shone beams of warm yellow light that reached north and east.

Rostomariana had been the second wife of Astonov. She had felt she would have been a prisoner in the red stone citadel of the Misruvani kings, she had felt fear in her heart and a longing for home. She had been a martyr on the alter of matrimony to save the dying family. But she was asleep then, and when she awoke she saw the slobbering phantoms and houndish men around her and knew the contract was to save her people, the Ivalian of the people Voldagrad; but was a means of enslavement. The entire world became dark and terrible, and she had to reach Voldagrad, the Wooden City on the Hill and save them.

Astonov was sick, she had tried to save him. Purge him of the ghouls that had taken over his body. But Perciv had slain him! Perciv had stolen the throne and he would want to collect what he wanted as his! There was no man as tall as Perciv who was any good. Men as tall as Perciv do not bow. She knew that much. She had to escape his shadows, but she saw his shades in the twisted trees and deep-green conifers that still hung heavy with wet snow. She was being watched for as long as she stayed in this realm, Weles gaze was blind here, and the man who stole his sight had great hounds after her.

So she galloped on. Ever afraid. Heart racing in her chest. Every step of the horse was followed by two anxious throbs in her chest.

By no means a tall woman Rostomariana was short and round. A woman well fed on bread, vodka, and game meats and duck. She would have been a healthy wife, but a dillusional perception of the world dominated her wide blue eyes that threatened to spring from her beady sockets. Blonde hair dirty and unkempt hung about her neck and shoulders in a wild-woman's knot, like a peasant's underneath a fur hat. She chewed her fingers compulsively, scars of nervousness created gnawed rings of scars and fresh wounds on hands that held tight the reigns of her equally short round horse.

If for the last couple days, the concoction of herbal medicines had been given to her to dull her over-excited imagination she would not be in this mess.

“Waters of cold steel,” she said in a stammering staccato voice. A humming shrillness rang in her tone beyond her age, “Lead me home to where pure pastures roam. Take me back home to the land where I may heal.” 

The hysteria in her voice wavered just shy of ecstatic madness, live a love held just shy of an orgasm. “I want to sleep on a bed of big cat. Drink from pools of honey wine. To be where the men grow strong and fat.

“Oh river Rispruvan take me back home. Bring me back to hallowed shores.”

It happened without ceremony or marker. Along the road-side was a carved statue of Katzcyk, whose shallow face stared out from the trunk of a wide-tree. His wide knife-carved eyes beholding the traveler as she crossed a boundary. Leaving the shadows of the Misruvani she cantered across the precipice of dark to light. And while it still snowed, she sensed the shades melting away as she came home. Despite the still cold still air the warm breath of Weles ran down her neck and charged her with energy.

With a kick, she goaded her pony into a hastened gallop and continued down the forested, river-side path.