The splintered axe hit the block of wood with a loud CRACK.
It came down unevenly, tearing the log rather than splitting it.
He sighed. He examined his axe, he had just sharpened it at the blacksmiths a few moons ago.
No, the axe wasn't the issue. Rylan's hands were trembling. The wrinkles on them were spreading, cascading across his body growing deeper with each moment.
He lifted the log and tossed it with a grunt to the soil aside and lifted up the next in the pile.
This time the axe severed it cleanly, swiftly splitting it into two.
The forest didn't applaud him. And for that he was appreciative.
The birds weren't singing this early morning, Rylan believed that was because of the weather. The frigid temperature was the reason Rylan was donning his fur-lined brigadine, frayed at the cuffs and dyed with a muted charcoal hue.
The trees accompanied a soft layer of snow atop them, as they usually did this time of year in Havelin. The people of this town weren't out of their dwellings often anyway, the cold only strengthened this. Although, Rylan didn't mind the loneliness. At least he had his noble steed Kethel, which Rylan had purchased many years ago for a couple pieces of brën and a favor down the road.
His horse was as elderly as he, and enjoyed nothing less than a ripe apple and time to graze the fields in solitude. Sometimes Rylan would even accompany him, settling in the cold forenoon dew and watching the weary sun pull itself over the Peltar mountains somewhere far from the town of Valn people.
The Valn were quite a simple race.
Not in mind, as outsiders often assumed, but in want. They did not waste their time chasing things beyond their grasp, more did they often speak of places they would never see. What they had they kept, what they didn't have, they made, and what they could not keep, they let go without fuss.
They were also social.
Even in the cold, when snow would build up in the nooks of old buildings, they found reasons to gather. Shared drinks passed down a line of thick, stocky hands. They could sit for hours and hours discussing one single topic. This used to drive Rylan mad, but he simply grew used to it. The discussions were never dry however, the Valn told great stories of quests they will never take and heroes they didn't wish to be.
When Rylan arrived at Havelin, the people treated him no differently than one of their own. They asked no questions about the weathered sword at his side or the tension in his shoulders. Rylan was asked if he wanted a beer more times than anything about himself combined. One of them–he never quite caught the name—had simply pointed at an empty structure further off in the town, and said, “That one doesn't leak much.” While scruffing a fragment of bread from his beard.
That was the extent of his welcome.
The next morning there was food at the door. It wasn't fresh, or particularly warm, but it was edible.
He had almost left that same day.
He told himself he couldn't stop moving, that he must stay fresh on the road. Not to let places learn him. But something about the stillness of Havelin was refreshing to him. It was the reason he stayed a second day. Then a third. By the end of the week, no one had asked him to leave, or stay.
So he remained.