A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

Eighth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

Rina did not expect to find any news of note about Hork's Hill in Saltpans proper, if even Lord Danar, a sorcerer of the far north where the old tales lingered and a servant of the Gods Tree, Stone and Stream, knew not a whisper of the darkness that lay within the hill even though he had passed so close to it, then what could the simple folk of Saltpans know of such things? But still she looked, it was good tradecraft the lord High Inquisitor had said, the way a master tailor might comment on the virtues of crossed stitching to keep a tunic from fraying at the sleeves.

Like it or not Rina was the best person for this particular sort of 'stitching' besides. Mercy was a foreigner clear as day, Ser Lonmouth was a cold death with a blade, more used to standing in a corner glaring at folk while King Viserys charmed them, and Sal'Niss was... a giant snake with a man's head. Much as he might like to 'engage in philosophical discourse with the lateborn' the only thing he was likely to inspire in the good people of Saltpans was a panic.

So Rina sat in the Pig's Ear and listened in on the rumors making the rounds, dutifully sipping the thin sour beer and occasionally warning off men who thought that a woman who walked into a tavern alone must be selling her charms. If there was one good thing about the way winter reflected in her eyes it was how well that worked now.

"Back in my day, Hork's Hill used to be a place to take a lass for a romp if her father had too sharp an eye on his barn," one old fellow, with a few red hairs still peeking out through his beard like embers on a snowy field, said.

"What lasses would those be, Harry?" another fellow, bald as an egg and wrinkly as an old prune, asked. "You sure you ain't getting that confused with the time you took a bunch of sheep up there?"

'Harry' took the jest poorly indeed, going so red in the face that Rina suspected he might be about to start a fight no matter how much his bones might creak or how much beer he'd had. "Talk to Ser Quincy, why don't you," he shouted. "Or do you think he was taking sheep up the hill?"

"I remember that day," the tavern-keeper spoke up unexpectedly, his voice unexpectedly grave. "He didn't come back like a man who'd been sporting so don't think you can be talking shit under my roof, Harry Hogkiss."

As the tavern settled under the innkeeper's glare, obviously not a man to cross lightly, Rina pondered the answer. What kind of look did her father supposedly have then? Part of her didn't want to ask more questions in case the loudmouth was right. The idea of her father 'sporting' was disturbing enough to contemplate, but the last thing she needed to find out now was about a time he had cheated on her lady mother. Things were still complicated between them.

In the end Rina asked anyway, she was not here on her own this time. The King had given her a task to complete, to scour any of Their creatures from the barrow if you find them, and the first part of that was learning as much as she could about the matter.

The innkeeper was closed-mouthed about it at first, but Rina wore him down with pleading looks and sliver sliding across the table. "It was a week after Ser Alren, Ser Quincy's elder bother, died. He was a bookish sort and a bit... strange. He asked to be buried on the hill, you see, but the old lord wouldn't hear of it. Ser Quincy went up the hill a few days later and came down with a face white as a sheet. Never set foot there since." The man frowned in faint confusion. "Come to think of it, that was about 'round the time when folk just stopped going there ah... after sunset. If your ladyship will forgive my saying so, Hogkiss wasn't entirely wrong about that part."

He was probably expecting a blush or some other sign of embarrassment from her, but blushes did not come easily to Rina this day, and even if they did she was far too deep in thought to manage one. No way around it, she would have to talk to her father again.

OOC: This will also be more than a single interlude action since the background here was always supposed to have some links to Rina.