We made pretty good time, only stopping for one short break around noon. I had a hard time holding in my laughter as we shared our bread with Quu'za. I had no idea that the harpies held it in such high esteem, almost as if it were a gift straight from the heavens. Somehow she managed to savor it despite the fact that we only stopped for a little while. Our harpy companion setting the pace sped up our shortcut across the hills considerably. It helped as well, that she knew these hills and all the paths across them. With her guiding us we didn't have to stick to the one easily visible path known to us. Thanks to Quu'za we left the hills behind before long and as sunset slowly approached we in turn approached Caer'zha, our next goal on this journey.

In some ways it felt like coming home. The architecture was quite similar to Caer'zoth in most regards after all. At the same time Caer'zha was not like our home at all though. Everything seemed bigger, louder and livelier. Where most buildings at home had only one floor the ones here quite often had two or at times even three. The wall encircling the small town stood taller as well, even when it was of similar construction as the one at home. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that it probably had been built or at least designed by trolls from the same community or even family. Another difference, of far greater importance to us, was that the gates were still open. This close to sunset they would have been closed already at home. Nothing of that sort was about to happen here. Here, this close to the capital, they only doubled the gate guard at night.

This close to the capital Bleak Peak dominated the landscape as well. Much more so than at home. It was still a days travel away but the volcano still took up much of the horizon in the west beyond Caer'zha. On a clear day one could even make out the details of the city built around its caldera from here. In a little while, once the sun had set, we might be able to make out the many light of the capital instead. That sure was a sight to behold. It had been years, and not just a few, since the last time I had been here but those memories were still among my fondest. That trip to the capital had been one of the few times I had been able to just be a child, at least for a little while. We had visited the baths here and gotten all kinds of food I had never heard of before. It had been marvelous.

A sad sigh escaped my lips. I still missed mother. The forlorn look on Kaele's face left me no doubt that my sister felt the same way. I flashed her a sad little smile. “Come on, lets get going. We probably have a little time to kill unless Zul'gar and the caravan somehow beat us here. Lets take care of business, get a room, hit the baths and see if we can eat our way through a few food stalls.” She nodded and Quu'za perked up as well. Had she been here before? For the harpies it was practically in the neighborhood. Wasn't it? Was it the food she was looking forward to? Or was it the bath? Well, never mind, we would find out soon enough. I smiled at the thought, all melancholic memories forgotten, at least for a while.

It didn't take us all that long to reach the gate and the short queue in front of it. There were only a few people left heading out, mostly farmers who had finished their business for the day. The ones ahead of us in the queue were mostly merchants who had run late, not entirely unlike us. There were others though. Some quite obviously were only here to have a fun night on the town. The quite diverse gaggle of youngsters right in front of us for example. That thought alone almost had me laughing out loud. These youngsters probably weren't any younger than my sister and me. The guards would most likely send them home otherwise. Still I felt old when looking at them. Could we even still have some light hearted fun like them after all we had experienced as of late?

The guards straightened up considerably as it was our turn. Not that they had been slacking off before. But unlike the youngsters ahead of us or the farmers and traders they dealt with most of the time we were obviously armed strangers. In their eyes we probably looked like trouble and I couldn't even fault them for thinking like that. Arriving late like we did we probably looked a little shady in their eyes. One of the guards stepped ahead of the others. I was a little surprised that it was her and not the much larger man standing on the other side of the gate. Only when I heard the almost mechanical timbre of her voice did I realize that her elaborate armor was no armor at all. “What is your business here at Caer'zha? What brings you here, bearing arms, during these trying times and at this time of the day?”

She was a Forgeborn, a living construct created to look much like us. They were rare and always had been. I only knew of them from stories. They had originally been built as weapons of war long ago during more trying times. But only until we came to realize that they were people just like us. Nowadays only Forgeborn created new Forgeborn and they did so only on very rare occasions. Now that I was aware of her nature I was able to notice the subtle glow emanating from her joints and I could feel the slight but constant drain on the ambient Mana around her as well. Of course she would be put on gate duty at night. If the stories I knew contained just a grain of truth she could see in the dark after all. I swallowed hard. Damn, I had been staring at her. I cleared my throat. “We hail from Caer'zoth and are on our way to the capital.”

I blushed like a little girl who got caught with her hand in the cookie jar as I fumbled for words. “We had to part ways with our caravan a while ago and cut through the hills to catch up.” I paused and bit my lips. “We decided to meet up here again. Do you know if they have arrived already?”

She looked over her shoulder at the big man still standing beside the gate. He shook his head, prompting her to shake hers in turn once she had turned to face me once again. “No, no caravan from Caer'zoth has arrived during the last few days at least. It seems you have arrived first.” Then she nodded in the direction of our harpy companion. “What about her?”

I motioned for Quu'za to move forward. “We were guests of her and her people. A group of ogres were causing them no end of trouble. She is here to trade in their teeth.” Quu'za opened the pouch at her hip, to show the guard woman the collection of ogre fangs.

The Forgeborn eyed the giant teeth for a moment before looking at me again. If she could have she probably would have frowned. She certainly sounded worried. “That's quite a few. Should we expect more trouble?”

I shook my head. “No. As far as I can tell we got all of them.”

She relaxed a little at that and returned to her post at the gate. “You are free to enter. Once you have decided on an inn, tell the innkeeper to let us know. That way we can send you a message once your caravan arrives.” I was almost past her when she spoke up once more. “And please don't cause any trouble.”