Run: 2026-09-23-01M37PM8T4ENQ6AGK92DCKYB44

<nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Iron Welcome" data-color="red"> The gates groaned open on chains as thick as my wrist, and Thunder clattered into the outer bailey with his head held high, as if the castle had been built for his arrival. I let him think so. The yard smelled of smoke, hay, and the iron tang of the smithy, where a hammer rang against an anvil with steady, patient blows. A stable boy pointed me toward the long timber stables along the eastern wall. I dismounted there, my legs stiff from three days in the saddle, and was loosening Thunder's girth when a shadow fell across the cobbles. "You hold the strap like it owes you money." I turned. The man before me was broad as a doorframe, his grey-shot beard cropped close, a pale scar running from his left ear to the corner of his mouth. He wore no armor, only a plain leather jerkin, but I knew him at once. Every squire in the kingdom knew the description of Sir Roland of Harrowmere, the knight who had held the Pass of Kell for two days with forty men. "Sir Roland." I bowed, too low and too fast, and nearly struck my forehead on Thunder's flank. He did not smile. "Frederick, son of Aldous. You're late." "The river at Dunmore was flooded, sir. We had to ride around by the—" "The river does not care about your excuses, and neither will your enemies." He stepped past me and ran a calloused hand down Thunder's foreleg, lifting the hoof to inspect it. "Good animal. Better than you deserve, I expect. Who shod him?" "My father's farrier, sir." "Then your father's farrier is a lazy man. This nail is loose." He set the hoof down and fixed me with eyes the color of winter slate. "You will unsaddle him yourself. You will brush him, water him, and check every nail on every shoe. Then you will muck out this stall and the two beside it. After that, you may eat." My stomach, empty since morning, twisted in protest. I said nothing. Sir Roland seemed to note my silence and weigh it. For just a moment, something softened at the edge of his scarred mouth. "Tomorrow at dawn, you'll learn to hold a sword. Tonight, you learn to care for the thing that carries you into battle. A knight who neglects his horse doesn't stay a knight for long." He turned toward the keep. "Welcome to Castle Varrow, boy." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: A Friend in the Stables" data-color="green"> The guards waved me through with barely a glance, and Thunder trotted into the courtyard, snorting at the chickens that scattered before his hooves. Lanterns were being lit along the walls one by one, small golden eyes blinking awake against the dusk. I followed the smell of hay and horse to the stables, where I hoped someone might tell me where I was meant to sleep. I found someone, though not whom I expected. A tall man in a mud-spattered surcoat was sitting on an overturned bucket just inside the stable doors, feeding a carrot to an enormous grey warhorse. The horse had its head buried in his lap like an overgrown hound. At the sound of Thunder's hooves, the man looked up and grinned, and the lines around his eyes crinkled deep. "Ah! You must be the Frederick they've been promising me for a month. I was beginning to think you were a rumor." He rose, brushing straw from his knees, and offered his hand. "Roland. Sir Roland, if you want to be formal about it, but my horse doesn't call me that, so I see no reason you should in the stables." I shook his hand, dumbfounded. I had pictured Sir Roland of Harrowmere a hundred times on the road here: a grim and silent giant clad in steel. I had not pictured him with carrot juice on his fingers. "It's an honor, sir," I managed. "We'll see if you still think so after a week of drills." He stepped around me to admire Thunder, who, to my astonishment, lowered his head and allowed his ears to be scratched. Thunder had bitten three grooms and a bishop. "Now here's a fine fellow. Spirited, I'd wager. Does he throw you?" "Only when he's bored, sir." Sir Roland laughed, a great warm bark that echoed off the rafters. "Then we'll have to keep him entertained. This is Old Maud." He nodded at the grey mare, who eyed me with deep suspicion. "She's carried me through six campaigns and one very regrettable wedding. Put Thunder in the stall beside her. She'll teach him manners, which is more than I've ever managed with anyone." As I led Thunder in, Sir Roland leaned against the post and watched me work. "Tired?" "Yes, sir." "Good. That means you've traveled honestly." He tossed me an apple from his pocket, and I caught it clumsily. "Eat that, then come find me in the kitchens. Cook makes a mutton stew that could raise the dead, and I've told her to save you a bowl. A squire can't learn anything on an empty stomach, whatever the old masters say." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Knight Who Waited" data-color="blue"> By the time I passed beneath the portcullis, the sun had slipped behind the western hills, and the castle's long shadow swallowed the courtyard whole. The yard was strangely quiet. No merchants haggled, no children ran underfoot. Only a few servants hurried past with their heads bowed, glancing now and then toward the northern sky. Thunder grew uneasy as we neared the stables. His ears flicked back and forth, and he tossed his head, nostrils flaring at some scent I could not catch. I soothed him with a hand on his neck and swung down from the saddle. "He smells it, you know." The voice came from the darkness between the stalls. A man stepped into the lantern light: lean and weathered, his dark hair streaked with silver, a long sword belted at his hip despite the peaceful hour. His cloak was deep blue, clasped at the shoulder with a brooch shaped like a coiled serpent—or something with wings. "Smells what, sir?" I asked. "Ash." He came closer and laid his palm flat against Thunder's forehead. The stallion calmed at once, trembling faintly. "There was a fire in the northern woods three nights past. The wind has carried the scent here ever since. Horses remember that smell. It lives somewhere deep in their blood, from a time when there was good reason to fear it." He looked at me then, and his gaze was searching, as though he were measuring more than my height or the cut of my clothes. "I am Sir Roland. And you are Frederick." "Yes, sir. I've come to begin my training." "So you have." He was quiet a moment. Somewhere in the stable, a horse stamped and whickered. "Most squires come to Castle Varrow hoping to learn the lance and the sword, to win tourneys and the favor of ladies. I hope you have loftier aims, Frederick, because I doubt there will be many tourneys this year." "Sir?" He did not answer directly. Instead, he turned his face toward the north, where the last smear of daylight had faded to violet. For a heartbeat, I thought I saw a flicker on the horizon, a pinprick of orange light, there and gone, like an ember breathing in the dark. "Stable your horse," Sir Roland said softly. "Then come to the chapel tower. There are things I must tell you before the others arrive, and I would rather you hear them from me than from the rumors in the kitchens." He paused at the stable door and looked back. "Your father wrote that you were brave. I pray he was right." Then he was gone, and I was left alone with Thunder, the lanterns, and the faint, lingering smell of smoke. </nc-section>