Out on Patrol

Over the last couple of days we've visited several of the border areas underground, and I've helped as much as I can.  But the next leg of the journey is more exotic and more unfamiliar to me – we're going up to the surface.  I've not been there since I was a child, and I must say I'm not looking forward to it.  The thought of wide open spaces, stars above our heads, and sunshine.  People like me weren't cut out for this, it's why we're underground most of the time.  I know many of my brethren have chosen to live there, and that there is little to truly be worried about.  But I am anxious, I'm not sure what I'll make of it.

I'm expecting it to be cold - all I can remember of the last time I was there was the brightness of the sun, and something the surface people called 'weather'.  Sometimes water falls from the sky and makes you wet (and more cold).  That's how the rivers are filled up, they tell me.  I don't remember there being any of that on my last visit, but I do remember the continuous blast of air, not not so different to the air movement we get from the large forges down in the deeps.  But this is icy air, not hot like the air rising from any forge.  The Hznaman call it 'wind'; we have nothing like it in the under-land it stands out in my memory even after all these years.  It comes, I recall, hand-in-hand with the cold.  It seemed to blow straight through the woollen clothes I was wearing, and I struggled to bear it.

I think it's the cold and this wind that has me most anxious, although I'm doing what I can to keep it all hidden from my travelling companions.  I keep wondering if I brought enough woollens to keep my knees warm.  If I'm honest, I don't mind admitting that part of me is looking forward to seeing the stars once again – I recall finding them to be fascinating when I was young.  Perhaps I'll begin to understand what it is about them that inspires the Welven folk.

There are a small string of villages dotted around each of the many entrances to the underground lands here.  From what Gallanarre has been saying, none of them are heavily populated, but they all have open farmland, even up here in the mountains.  The Gnaeblin lands sit on a high plain up among the mountains where the rains that his the mountains keep the lands moist.  The mountains to the south of this plain provide some shelter, although from what Gallanarre tells me the winds that flow from the peaks is quite cold and can be blustery.  That doesn't really ease my anxiety.

As we go further northwards, down into the valley, the settlements become a little larger, and these are the places where the Gurgam attacks are most likely to be aimed.  The villages there are gathered together in small groups, usually around some central town.  From his descriptions, they seems to be long distances apart, but he tells me they're not, and that travelling between them is faster out there on the surface.  We shall see.