I sip from the horn and lean back against the corner table, already turned to face the rest of the inn, and glanced over the crowd. It was the 20th of Nightal, winter solstice night, and there was naught else for the common folk to do but drink and eat. The nobles were feasting in the high hall, the devout were praying in their shrines, but for the rest of them it was the night of stories. On this darkest of nights it was said that the spirits were close enough to hear you, if one knew how to speak to them, and that they haunted the homes of the living until the rise of the sun. I didn't believe it myself but it certainly kept us all entertained until sleep claimed us or the sun rose and we could all go home again.

“Come then Stor! It's your turn at last, tell us your tale! Old Bernard left off where he found you in the crater but how'd you get there?”

I grimaced, unsure how to put things and decide to start as far back as I could remember.

“Remember one and all that you asked for this.

“I remember taking the hit to my left shoulder. I had twisted with the blow to rob it of force and still I was taken form my feet. It shouldn't have done that and both I and my foe knew it. I remember thinking that something was wrong, that I had underestimated my foe. Then I saw his face and the confusion in his eyes and I knew that something was wrong.

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“I recall falling. Not as one would off of a rock or a missed stair where you can see the ground coming and have those heartbeats to do something about it. It was as though gravity, that force that holds feet to the ground and pulls fruit from the trees, stopped working for a heartbeat and then returned threefold. I should have hit the ground hard enough to break even my bones. I remember twisting, trying to take time coming impact on some lest vital part of myself, to avoid breaking my wrists like young Ebbo last endweek.”

“Hey! You know Berenga tripped me over a bad joke!”

“You still should have had the sense to use your fool head instead of your hands Ebbo. It's hard enough to bounce after all! But hush and let the man speak!”

I nod to Bruno in thanks for hushing up the windbag can get started.

“The next thing I can recall is darkness. Cave dark it is called, or true dark if one was feeling their drink, the kind you find if you let your torch go out so deep into the caves that can't see the sun nor feel the wind on your face. I raised my hands to my face and could feel, but I could not see. I thought myslef blind until light and sound returned. I was as a bird hurled wingless from the sky. There was a great crash of thunder, the noise that brought Old Bernard running no dobut, and then I felt the dirt on my back and the sun on my face.”

I take another sip form the horn and grin out at the rest of the people packing the inn.

“You all want to know what force can hit a man that hard, even one so large and strong and I, and thrown him into the sky. The Priest says it must be the work of a sipirit, perhaps even the Spirit given the harvest work. The Lord thinks it the work of something older, perhaps of the Watchers, but I can't blame him for his mistrust. Myself? I know not, only that I'll find it in the deep woods. And when I do it better have some thrice damned answers.”