Chapter 510: Ollie’s People
A large communal hall dominated the center of the village, and a paved village square was ringed with small saplings that would one day grow into mighty shade trees. Beyond that square, streets flowed outward like the spokes of a wheel, gently bending with the curves of the land as they snaked their way between an eclectic mix of building styles.
Ashlynn had wondered if the different clans represented in this oversized village would segregate themselves into smaller communities, but that didn’t seem to be the case at all. Instead, she found Heartwood Clan burrows built beneath the intertwined branches of the Night Weaver Clan’s familiar tree houses and even a few simple cottages with thatched roofs that wouldn’t have stood out in any human village along the frontier.
Light, musical laughter echoed between the buildings as a group of children, some with horns, others with wide, flat tails, and even a human child among them, darted between trees playing an elaborate game of chase and catch that involved throwing brightly colored leather balls while ducking and hiding behind anything that might protect them from their friend’s sudden attacks.
Lanterns were being lit one by one as dusk deepened, each window adding another pool to the soft golden light that warmed the village and pressed back against the creeping chill of the late autumn air. Outside several of the burrows, members of the Heartwood clan sitting on their covered porches paused their carving to watch the carriage rolling through the village toward the center of the village.
As the carriage rolled to a stop in the village square, the cloaked figure of Milo emerged from the village hall, leading a party of nearly two dozen villagers ranging from young children to stoop-shouldered grandparents. But, as different as they were, one thing tied all of these disparate people together.
Each and every one of them regarded the carriage’s arrival with a pensive eagerness. Some tails twitched, lightly thumping the ground in anticipation, while others stood up straighter on spider-like limbs, eager to be the first to glimpse the return of their village head and the important guests he brought with him.
Perhaps the most surprising of all, at least to Ashlynn, was the small cluster of humans standing toward the back of the crowd of Eldritch villagers. Dimly, she recognized a few of them as men she’d taken prisoner after her duel to the death with Sir Broll, but seeing a woman and two young children in the group came as a surprise.
"Look, Bailey," Daithi said, scooping his young daughter up and placing her atop his shoulders as the doors to the carriage opened to reveal the flame-haired figure of Sir Ollie and, alongside him, the stunning figure of Lady Ashlynn Blackwell. "You see? I told you that Sir Ollie would return with a beautiful noblewoman."
"Papa," the bright-eyed young woman said as she squirmed in her father’s grasp, leaning forward and stretching out a hand as if she could touch the distant woman with a presence that was so captivating she wanted to slip out of her father’s grasp just so she could run up and hug the pretty lady. "Papa, is she a princess? Is that big green thing on her head a crown?"
"That," the former human soldier and member of Owain’s guard said with a complex knot forming in his heart. Of course, he’d heard by now that Lady Ashlynn was a powerful witch. To the people of the Vale, it wasn’t any kind of secret, and in fact, it was something they were proud of.
But to Daithi, who had grown up on stories of the evil queen and the witches that brought calamity to the fledgling Kingdom of Gaal, the hat that Lady Ashlynn wore was every bit as terrifying as the black and red banner that flew at the head of Nyrielle’s army.