Wind blew into its feathers as it flew up above the scene. A mighty eagle screeched inbetween the low and lonely clouds of a sunny day of autumn. The sky was bright blue, and the vivid light shun atop the rooftops and through the alleys, as it should've been: the Summer had just ended, after all. The sound of rattling gravel made rats scutter away: a group of kids, in rugged clothes, were running towards the city plaza, and they stopped briefly to look up to that creature overhead.
"Look, look! I've never seen one!", shouted a child, and the others confirmed that strange appearance as real and quite bizarre, but they laughed it off, just marvelling at the fact that they got to see such a bird of prey, in the midst of the town's dullness. But they knew that it was all just the beginning, at least until the end of the year.
They all started running again, but, as they passed an alley and turned a corner, they were blocked by a slow caravan being dragged on its wheels by two mules. Driving it, sitting on one of the animals, was a man -quite brawny and chubby to say the least- with a scratched and closed eye. He was grunting something to himself, clearly half-drunk in the middle of the morning. Still, the children looked at him in awe, as he wore on his shoulderpads the emblem of the Duchy of Noth, and an elaborate leather armour, that, to their eyes, was something straight out of those adventurer's journals that they read inbetween breaks, at their school.
"H-he looks scary! Let's stay here!", said one, as she hid behind a wall, still peaking. Curiosity is of the young, but not the youngest, and so many of the older boys disregarded the little girl's worried cry, and kept walking, going to the side of the road, to let the man guide the convoy with no problems, but still wanting to talk to him.
"S-sir, were are you going? Is the tournament beginning yet, sir?", asked the bravest (or dumber) one, obviously a bit frightened by the mean looking man, as he could hear in the kid's voice and see in his face.
"Uh? No, little guy, no, the tournament is in a couple o'daes.", grunted back the bloke, looking at him with his only eye with no concern of what was in front of him, assuming that everyone would make way, and so they did. Not many people were in the street anyways, or in the city, for that matter, but still, he wasn't the most responsible driver.
"We're just settling in. Tell your friends to root for the Duke of Roth, aye? Now scramble, I drank way too much to keep this conversation going without spitting on your face too much..."
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And so they went away, running faster than the mules walked, heading towards their original destination.
"Stupid kids...", mumbled the brute, searching through his backpack for his liquor. He nearly dropped his canteen as a horse galloped just an inch past his mule's nose, scaring the crap out of him and his animal -almost literally for the latter- and neighed loudly, as its rider laughed it off. The man begrudgnigly put his drinking addiction aside for a moment, to throw foul insults behind whoever was the scoundrel that dared to cross his path. He almost got down from his saddle to chase after him, but then immediately realized that he would've never catched up to him even without being drunk, especially by foot. That horse was quite the sprinter, and that was rather apparent: it had already went over the bend, that seemed to be a hundred meters or so away from the middle of the intersection it had just rushed through.
"Shite... horse fuckers... how many times did we hear one near us as we took the county's main road? Aboot one too many, I sae!", he shouted. To scare him again, someone had popped his head from underneath the tent that covered the caravan behind him, answering his call.
"I mean... what do you want them to do, fly here?", asked a slim and hungry looking older man, with grizzled hair and a grizzled beard. His brown eyes looked up above as the eagle screeched again.
The beast glided down and sat atop the fountain that adorned the middle of the town. A jolly man sat in his pompous chair right beneath the sprinkling games of light the water created, hooting and cheering a crowd the kids had just joined. It was the first time that the fountain worked in years.
"Knights! Sorcerers! Wizards and clerics! Everybody, gather here, as these days you'll see foreigners from faraway lands of our kingdom come and stay for the Grand Tourney of Nelaime!", he said, once in a while, using the acoustics of the plaza to his favour, being on top of his stage.
The eagle screeched one last time, as a cloak of shadows appeared around it. A puff o smoke, blown away by a light breeze that everyone there could feel, and the eagle was no more. A tall and lanky, slender woman, stood in its place. Long black hair and black eyes, a stern look to her face and her arms wide open, she laughed. The townsfolk went silent.
"A salute from the Vultures, people of Nelaime! Be sure that we will bring joy to your eyes! Watch carefully those warriors in shiny armour, as we will shatter their hopes in an heartbeat! I declare this a challenge!... Anyone who calls himself 'sir' and wishes to oppose me is welcomed to do so in the duels, yes! I will teach you a lesson about brain over brawn!"
And after that speech, the woman laughed and disappeared, leaving her audience with no words to describe what had just happened.