17878265 by David

and decorated with an insignia he had never seen before. It was the silhouetted bust of an armored knight. Beneath that protective disc, he found a silver helmet. It had a visor with eye slits and a tall plume of red feathers. Loric set the helm aside and pulled a shirt of chain rings from the trunk. He hung the shifting armor over the side of the chest. Then he turned back to the wooden box. In the very bottom, he found a leaf-bound package. As he lifted it from the trunk, brittle leaves crumbled away, revealing a neatly folded surcoat. Loric grabbed it at the collar and brushed away the remaining bits of its wrapping, letting it unfold itself as he beat away debris. It was faded red, with the same device embroidered upon it as the shield bore.
    What is this place? Loric asked himself. Why are the armor and weapons of a knight hidden beneath a barn? It does not make any sense, unless....
    Loric drew in a deep breath to steady himself. He decided it was best to reserve his
    judgment about that unless until he could ask his father for the truth concerning the wonders he had found. In the meantime, he jammed everything back into the trunk. I will talk to father tomorrow, he decided. I could use a ride and a drink. Then he ascended to the barn, where his horse was ready and waiting.
    Loric eyed Sunset suspiciously, as he stepped off the ladder. “Did you know about this?”
    Sunset let out a quiet rumble of denial.
    “Of course not,” Loric decided. “Else you would have told me, wouldn’t you, boy?”
    Sunset’s reply was somewhat more spirited than the last one, so Loric took that for
    affirmation. He knelt to close and cover the trapdoor, praising the red stallion, “Good boy.”
    Loric shouldered his quiver of arrows, took his bow in hand and led the stallion out of the barn, where he climbed astride it and jogged it toward the lane fronting the stone cottage. Frogs were croaking along the Moonbeam Stream, as Sunset clip-clopped up the road running adjacent to that waterway. Otherwise, it was a quiet journey to Taeglin.
    The raucous escaping Taggert’s Pub was opposite the silence of the road leading up from Palen’s farm. There was enough shouting and laughter coming from that squat one-story building to fill the entire town courtyard at festival time. Loric smiled. In light of the day’s disappointment, he needed this environment, which promised fun and laughter.
    Taggert’s Pub boasted a large common room full of square tables the patrons could shuffle about in any manner they saw fit to arrange them. At present, those tables were scattered about at random beneath thick clouds of pipe smoke. Tin tankards cluttered most of those surfaces, and men of the town filled out the majority of chairs round about them. Loric cut a path between crooked tables on his way to the bar, which was too short for the night’s crowd.
    Loric did not mind standing. It was worth it for a drink. Besides, it was Belinda’s night to keep bar for her father, Taggert. It was doubly worth standing at the edge of the crowd. Belinda was the reason Loric had come. If he could not leave Taeglin, he might as well see the girl who twisted his chest into a tight knot.
    Loric was surprised to see Taggert in Belinda’s stead. His hair was gray and wolfish, even in spite of the way he combed it over to hide his baldness. His sideburns were thick lupine pelts in the shapes of lamb chops, which made for a confusing mix of predator-prey qualities in a human being. His eyes were pale green, almost yellow in certain lighting, but his smile was broad and deep tonight.
    “What are you having?” asked a familiar feminine voice at Loric’s back, distracting him from his study of her father. As Loric wheeled about to face Belinda, she said, “The first drink is free tonight!”
    Loric wanted to ask what the occasion was, but the stunning appearance of the auburn-
    haired maiden before him struck him dumb. She had bright green eyes that sparkled with joy.