"Where am I?"
It sounded like a cliche, but it was literally the first thing Aldaswald thought when he opened his eyes. At a first glance, it looked just like any other village in the past months. Small, dirty, poor, noisy and blurry. Well, the last part was probably a side-effect of last night's drinking. A second look allowed Aldaswald to asses that he had indeed been sleeping outside the back door of a pub. Yes, definitely like in all the previous villages. It was not that he had spent every night drinking heavily in pubs and then sleeping outside them. There where many nights when he had not done it, where he was out in the wild and the drinking had to be done alone in the forest. The sleeping outside seemed to be a constant though.
It had been a long trip from the beautiful Rohan plains, where he had spent his entire life. A long trip from one settlement to the next, with many open-sky nights in between. A long trip from home to get... here, wherever that meant. Alda knew this village was not his destination, it was mainly a stop in his road to.. actually, sometimes it does not matter you are going to, only what you are going away from. And for him, that meant Rohan.
He loved his country and he had spent his entire life protecting it. And yet, he had been obliged to leave it behind and to put as much distance between them. Because Rohan was not safe anymore, at least not for him. Or for anyone who had a price put on their head by the King's councellors. Bloody bastards, the lot of them, always scheming and pulling strings, playing their political games. A lifetime spent protecting the innocents as a Warden of Rohan meant nothing. Not when you knew too much about those bastards' plans. They were decided to eliminate anyone who could have hindered their plans, and Aldaswald was too low-born and too alone to be able to face them.
So he had fled the capital, Edoras. A few days later he had heard he had been officially exiled by the king - well councelled by his advisors, of course. So he had fled even farther away, as far away from Rohan as possible. Well, to be fair, he could have been very close to Rohan now, he had no idea for how long he had travelled. It's hard to keep track of the time and distance when you are constantly drunk.
With a grunt, Aldaswald stood up. His armour, spear and shield were dirty and smelly, but he still had them. Not like his horse, that he had lost betting in a pub on the road, much to his shame. No, he still had his armour, marking him as a Rohan man. And he knew he will always proudly wear these colours for as long as he lives. He might have been an exile, but his heart was still beating for Rohan.
"Hey, kid! What's the name of this village?", yelled Aldaswald at a brat playing in the dirt.
"Archet, mister. Do you have a coin for me?"
"No! And where is this Archet?"
"Well, near Combe, mister, everyone knows it! I am hungry, mister..."
"Get lost!"
Aldaswald took a good luck around him. A pub, a market with some bored sellers, a few small houses and a tall pallissade surrounding everything. Yes, definitely the typical village, this Archet near Combe near wherever. And yet, something made Aldaswald uneasy. His instinct was telling him something was about to happen...
