Ghastly air swept across frostbitten fingers, a hand blackened by blood and worn of conflict, shook as it set the sheathing of the sword. His weapon, the precursor to chaos and the antecedent of tranquility, loll silent at his side. Flakes of snow glistened from the lashes of distending eyes. Moonlight bled slowly through a silhouette of trees above.

“Sir Robert.” A whisper in the wind hailed him from a distance. Calling him once again, the words all but an echo, “Sir Robert the Quick, you are the last.”

That proverbial christening by a friend… he hadn’t been called that name in quite some time… it’s meaning nigh forgotten. His heart, formerly heavy in his chest, now leapt with renewed valor as he rose on unfaltering feet.

The shadow that spoke to him disappeared in a veil of night and snow while it uttered its final words. “Our people need you. Go to them.”

Resolved for home, Sir Robert at last saw a glimmer of light at the gates of the city. The Land of Ficly sat acerbically at the foot of the hill.