A Pearl in the Hilt, Part 2

The group of horsemen began their ride to the keep, rounding the hillock that marked the start of the ascent up towards the large walls in the upper tier of the town where the Upper-class, and their servants were resident. Their course wasn't as straight as they'd like to imagine, and their control of their mounts was less than ideal, showing their lack of true combat experience, in the last five decades of peace, before the reclamation of hte outer stretches of the Glimmer. They wore the heraldry of the Lord Warden of Fallcrest, Lord Markelhay, as every guard in the town did. As they reached the gate of the keep, it's large wooden entryway looming above them, one of their number pulled a large horn from his saddlebag, and let loose a blast from its wide mouth.

Sire Markelhay the Third, Lord Warden mounted his charger at a run, his blood pumping in his veins and his armour clanging on his body. This was the feeling he loved, the feeling that he was sure his grandfather had felt as part of the large army that left Lorinan to conquer the wastes from the savages that had roamed there. His horse snorted, and reared its head. His son, Sire Markelhay the fourth, walked out, the armour that ill-fitted him so much clanking about his frame. "Where's my sword, father?" he asked, "You promised me a sword for my eighteenth birthday." His father wheeled about on his horse, his forehead glinting in the mid-morning sun. "That I did. And you promised me that you'd practice with your trainer each and every day until today." His son snorted, "You didn't expect me to actually do it, did you?" As the gates opened, the page rode in, his arms full with the recently acquired sword. He dismounted, before Sire Markelhay the Fourth and knealt, presenting the sword to him. His father eventually responded, his eyebrow raised, "Evidently I did not."

The horsemen passed forward through the town, passing over the river and northwards up towards the plains, where another of their number stood beside a cage, in which a small reptilian creature squatted through clenched teeth at anyone that came close to it. "Ready for the hunt?" The man asked.