The wild country off the Greenway, the first hard frosts coming on.

For a few days the world was almost kind. They made camp in good ground, with water and a thorn-break and a clear line down the slope, and for once nothing came up it in the dark. They lived off the land rather than their thin purse, and a hunting trip brought in pelts worth a little silver — the small, unglamorous economy of people keeping themselves alive between worse days. There was a fire, and meat, and no one died, and none of them were fool enough to say so out loud.

Then they went and found the trouble the rumours had promised. The roaming patrols turned out to be deserters — men hollowed by too many years of a war no one was winning, carrying in their mismatched gear the badges of both Arthedain and Angmar, as though loyalty itself had worn through and left only the habit of taking. Hungry men with swords, eating a looted caravan down to the crates: fine wine, bolts of cloth, a cloak of elven make — and on some of the boxes a crest, weathered and half-scraped. Beregond looked at it a long moment — he had seen its like pressed into the wax of their own contract — and said nothing, and looked away.

The fight was brief and bloody, and they held the field, though they did not come away clean. The arguing came after, over the goods, and it ran along the old seams. To Beregond the matter was plain: the goods were the lord’s, and a lord’s goods go back to him. Thirwen saw a string being pulled — good men bled to recover one man’s wealth and call it the defence of the realm. To Calmion it was coin, and survival, and no use dressing it otherwise. Halros said little, and watched the badges burn, and thought of a land that did this to its own. Whose goods they truly were — the lord’s, or only passing under his shadow — none of them could say, and the road gave back no answer.

The last word of the week came as rumour, the way the important words do: the Rangers still walk these lands. To Beregond it was a veiled, bannerless way of making war; to Thirwen, the ghost of something already buried, a kingdom haunting its own roads. They did not agree on what it meant, and did not settle it. They took the knowledge, and the bloodied silver, and the unanswered question of whose goods they carried, and went on. There would be another week. There always was.

Lessons learned (rules I muffed)

Threat special rules. Forgot “The Slow Grind of War” and “Tattered Banners, Bloody Flags.” The latter would have made a material difference, turning the Craven Deserters Fearless quite quickly.

Combat bonus — ally within 1". Should they have been not engaged yet this turn? A Wounded warrior who has already fought this turn may not be as effective.

The tracker’s record ends here, at three weeks — three contracts honoured, and the question of whom they were truly honoured for still folded away, unread.