Drifting upon the river Sa’Bur, Hood contemplates the night sky. It looks like the most beautiful sunset, rosy hues and blood red clouds but it is actually the city of Kera’Bur on fire. As the city burns and we draw nearer, smoke like mist gusts the river’s surface and bodies face up, and face down, drift idly by in the soft silent current, bobbing and floating. The ducks seem confused. The wind brings with it the faint sound of battle, of metal ringing against metal and the desperate shouts of the dying.

A few minutes later and we reach the Bridge of Trolls. Something plummets from its side and with a prodigious splash throws water into the air. Amidst the spray, Hood perceives a thread of fate, as if the universe has whispered and beckoned to him. Feels the tug of intuition in his guts urging him to proceed. Peering over the side he surveys the dark glistening surface, attempting to pierce the depths.

The air above the river shimmers. The water swirls and eddies, forming into a spiralling funnel which widens like a yawning mouth. There, amidst the reeds and rushes that clog the riverbed, a form can be made out. Muddied and gasping, the figure appears to rise by unnatural means. Tendrils of liquid, chains that hold it back slowly stretch and break, unlike the concentration on Hood’s shadowed face. Beads of sweat begin to form, can Hood exert himself further? With steely will, his hands weaving patterns in the air, his voice incanting the rhythmic words of magic, the body lifts from the river and slips over the side into the boat. Hood falls back gasping, whilst his rescued companion makes a retching sound as muddied waters explode from the dark recesses of his helmet.

Beneath the Bridge of Trolls they drift, staring in silence at the cracked and ancient masonry which glides above their heads. Out again now, from beneath the barrelled vault, to gaze instead through winding wisps of smoke at twinkling stars in a pitch black sky.

With a clink and grind of metal and the sound of escaping water pouring from holes and crevices. The armoured figure of what appears to be a warrior knight slowly sits up. It clears its throat once, twice then raises a gauntleted hand to the mouthpiece of its helmet before coughing somewhat. “Greetings and salutations my kind benefactor, I am Helmet, at your service - it appears I owe you my life. If I may be so bold as to enquire as to the name of my gallant rescuer?”

The piercing eyes of Hood gaze back at Helmet, carefully studying him, weighing him up and making a decision which, once made, manifests as a single and slow blink, accompanied by a voice, low-key and rasping, as if made by a whispering serpent: a sound that floats or perhaps slithers across the space between them: “Hood”.

“Hood, eh? Well, well - what a fortuitous meeting, as if the universe brought us together. One minute I’m fighting the barbarian hordes, the next plummeting to my doom, only to awaken vigorous and strong in this flat bottomed boat. You can’t write this stuff eh?”

Hood sits in unresponsive silence. Hood always sits in unresponsive silence. So Helmet continues...Helmet will always continue...

“So the barbarian hordes from the Anghorka Mountains....” ...And so they drift...