Run: 2026-10-08-01M4DZVGDVA0W6P7H6RYCE4ERT

<nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: A Hard Welcome (Version 1)" data-color="red"> The courtyard beyond the gatehouse was a storm of noise. Hammers rang from the forge, cart wheels ground across the cobblestones, and somewhere a dog barked at nothing in particular. Thunder tossed his head at the din, his hooves skittering. I leaned forward and murmured to him until his ears settled. The stables stood along the eastern wall, their doors thrown wide. I had barely swung down from the saddle when a voice cut across the yard like a drawn blade. "You're late." A man stood in the stable doorway with his arms folded across a chest as broad as a cask. His breastplate was dented in three places, and a scar ran from his left temple to his jaw, pale against weathered skin. He had the look of someone who had been shouting at squires for twenty years and had never once been impressed by the results. "The road from Harrowmere is longer than it looks on a map, sir," I said. "Every road is longer than it looks." He strode toward me, boots striking the stones. "I am Sir Roland, knight of this valley, and I train the squires who come through here. That means I decide whether you are worth the bread you eat. Understand?" "Yes, sir." His gaze travelled over me the way a farmer's eye passes over a calf at market: the dusty travelling cloak, the thin wrists, the sword I had polished until my own face stared back at me. Then he took Thunder's reins from my hand and ran a palm along the stallion's neck. Thunder, who disliked strangers, snorted and allowed it. "Good animal," Roland muttered. "Better bred than his rider, I'd wager." "He is the finest horse in my father's stables, sir." "Once, perhaps. Here he is simply another mouth to feed, same as you." He pressed a stiff brush into my hand. "Groom him until he shines. Your cot is in the loft above the stalls. The supper bell rings in an hour, and if you are still smelling of the road when it does, you will eat with the pigs in the kitchen yard. Is that clear?" I looked at the brush, then at the knight, then at the great horse, who was already eyeing me with an expression that suggested he found us both wanting. "Perfectly clear, Sir Roland." "Good." He turned on his heel, then paused at the doorway. "And Frederick? Do not make me regret taking you on." I said nothing. I simply began to brush, and I did not stop until Thunder gleamed like polished bronze in the last of the light. </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: An Old Friend's Welcome (Version 2)" data-color="green"> Beyond the gatehouse, the courtyard was thick with the day's last labour. Servants hurried past with baskets of bread on their hips. Two children chased a wooden hoop around the well, shrieking with laughter, and the air smelled of woodsmoke and roasting meat. I tried not to gape like a farm boy at his first fair, though I suspect I failed. The stables stood along the eastern wall, their great doors propped open to catch the breeze. I was reaching up to steady Thunder's bridle when a man stepped out of the shadows, wiping his hands on a rag. "Now there's a horse worth the journey," he said, his voice warm and rolling. "Look at the set of those shoulders. Who taught you to sit a saddle like that?" He was not what I had expected. I had pictured the hard-faced champions of my boyhood stories, all iron and scowls, but the man before me had a broad, kind face creased by years of laughter and a crown of white hair that stood up as though he had been running his hands through it all afternoon. His surcoat bore the faded device of the kingdom, and a dusting of hay clung to one sleeve. "You must be Sir Roland," I said. "I was told to report to you." "Guilty as charged. I'm the local knight, which mostly means I get handed every squire nobody else wants." His eyes crinkled at the corners. "Though I don't think anyone would call you unwanted, not with a stallion like that. I'd know that white blaze anywhere. You'll be Edric's boy, Frederick, aren't you?" My throat tightened. "My father, yes, sir. He bred Thunder himself." "I thought as much. I rode beside your father in the Vale campaign, years back. Stubborn as a mule and braver than was good for him. I think he'd be proud to see you here." He clapped my shoulder with a hand as heavy as a shield. "Let's get him settled, lad, and then I'll show you the hall, the armoury, and the bed you'll complain about for the next month." We had taken three steps toward the stalls when a low sound rolled down from the northern mountains, long and deep, like thunder with no storm behind it. Thunder's ears swivelled toward it. Sir Roland stopped. For a heartbeat his easy smile faltered, and he looked north with an expression I could not read. Then it was gone. "Only the mountains grumbling," he said lightly. "They've been at it since before my beard turned grey. Don't you worry about them. Come on, that coat won't brush itself." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Keeper of the Stables (Version 3)" data-color="blue"> No guard waited at the gatehouse to greet me, and the portcullis hung half-raised, its chains dark with rust. Beyond it, the courtyard seemed far too large for the handful of people crossing it. Many of the keep's windows were shuttered. Weeds had pushed up between the paving stones beside the well. The banners above the walls had faded to the colour of weak tea, but they still snapped in the evening wind, and I chose to take that as a kind of promise. Thunder's hooves echoed in the quiet. I followed the sound of a steady rasp toward the stables on the eastern wall, where a single lantern burned in the doorway. Beside it, on an upturned bucket, sat a man polishing a saddle with slow, deliberate strokes, as though the task were the only thing in the world that still made sense. He did not look up when I dismounted. "They've sent you at last," he said. "The last boy they sent lasted three days. One look at the muck heap and he went home to his mother." "I am not that boy," I said, perhaps too quickly. Now he looked up. He was older than I had expected, his face lined like worn leather, his eyes a pale and patient grey. His spurs were bright at his heels, though the elbows of his surcoat had been patched more than once. "No," he said at last. "I don't suppose you are. Sir Roland, knight of this valley, at your service, for whatever that service is worth these days." He rose stiffly, set the saddle aside, and came to stand beside Thunder. He laid one hand on the stallion's neck. The great horse, who had snapped at my own fingers only that morning, lowered his head and leaned into the touch as if he had known the man for years. "Horses know who is afraid," Roland said quietly. "This one has been watching you since the gate, and I think he has decided you'll do." He glanced at me sideways. "Do you know why they sent you here, Frederick?" "To train as a squire, sir." "That is what the letter says." He scratched beneath Thunder's jaw. "The truth is we have less to train with than we used to, and fewer men to do the training. The north has been restless. The old tales are stirring again, the ones nursemaids tell to frighten children into bed." From beyond the walls, far to the north where the mountains lay like bruises against the sky, came a long, low sound, like a bell struck somewhere deep underground. Thunder's ears swung toward it. Roland's head turned too, and for a moment the weariness fell away from his face, leaving something younger and fiercer behind. "Well," he said softly. "It seems the old tales have not finished with us yet." </nc-section>