text: [Themes: fantasy]
  
  Once at the south gate you disembark and are given a last few words of encouragement by the owner before he is driven away, leaving you and your new horse alone at the gate. You are quickly joined by a group of three men similarly dressed to yourself and you all begin the ride out of the city on the road that will turn East towards Carn.
  
  The first few days of the trip pass quickly, you see very few travelers on the roads and the border disputes with Carn aren't enough to have a large military presence on the roads so you only have to produce your papers once, when you come across a camp of soldiers from the First Company. You decide it would seems strange to ride on by them when it was nearing dusk so you all join them at their camp and spend a nice evening chatting over cooking fires.
  
  The next morning you are all saddled up and preparing to leave the First Company soldiers who are traveling on foot when a call is raised of a fast rider approaching on the road. You feel a sense of unease and one of your company signals for you to be ready to ride hard if needed.
  
  As the man approaches the small camp he slow momentarily to hand down a letter from his pouch "The Old Quarter is burning, Carn has attacked us. I Need to get news to the borders quickly." You are panicked by the news since The Old Quarter is where you grew up and your remaining friends still live there. You catch his arm as he makes to leave.
  
  "We are riding the same way, let us accompany you incase something happens on the road."
  
  The man nods his thanks and your small group sets out at a fast pace from the camp. One of your men rides close by and whispers to you "What are you doing getting us involved here?"
  
  "I need more information about what is going on, besides if they receive news of an attack before we get there we will look pretty suspicious but if we arrive as guards for the Councils own messenger they wont take a second glance at our reason for being there." The man still doesn't seem happy but falls back as you ride up to the messenger and ask if you can read one of the letters he is distributing since you didn't get a chance back at the camp. His orders are to give them to every military detachment he comes across on way to the border so he happily hands you one.
  
  You ride in silence the rest of the day with only brief breaks for lunch and dinner and ride a couple of hours into the night. You finally pull up near a small stream to let the horses rest and make a temporary camp for the night. You take the opportunity to tell your companions what you learned from the letter.
  
  A couple of mornings ago two ships bearing Carn's colours had approached the docks in the Old quarter. One had pulled up and reversed course but the other sped up and rammed the docks, it seems it was on fire and filled with burning oils and other flammable substances. The first reports were all that had come in before the letter was sent but there was a fireball that tore through a huge area of the docks and started a fire that spread through the entire Quarter of the city within minutes. It had been dry for weeks and the Old quarter was made almost entirely of ancient timbers so you could imagine the fire tearing through it. The men around the fire swore and one finally spoke up. "Its the ships that councilor captured, they burned down the old quarter themselves to start the war, I'll gut him myself for this!"
  
  You caution him to keep his voice down but luckily the messenger sees nothing amiss about the bits he hears of your men's reactions to the news, he joins you at your fire and you all share stories of the city, especially of the Old Quarter which you hope isn't as bad as the letter implies. As the messenger gets into his bedroll for the night the man supposedly in charge of the others speaks up.
  
  "I was sent along to ensure we got the documents across the border no matter what happened, now this news changes many things but not our mission, if we can show it wasn't Carn that sent those ships we can prove the council did it and have our revenge. We have two choices, follow Glor's plan of arriving there as the messengers guards then try to slip across after nightfall, or we dispose of him to make sure we arrive before the news does so we can get across the border before they go into a lockdown."
  
  > Can't risk arriving at a fort and being trapped there as the war starts, you think the messenger has to be killed for your mission to be sucessful.
  Having decided by a vote to dispose of the messenger for the sake of the mission you all head to your bed-rolls and pretend to sleep. You wait until you hear the signal from one of the men and rise to find that the messenger already has his throat slit. You help them carry the body away from the road and hide it in some bushes, it isn't the best disposal ever but it only needs to last a day so you can get safely ahead.
  
  You clear up any evidence you can see then all mount up and start riding towards Carn. What you did weighs on your conscience but you think that it was the only way so you push ahead.
  
  The next few days are just made up of riding and very short breaks for eating and sleeping. You make it close to the border in great time and camp within half a days ride from the border forts so you can all rest and look presentable when you arrive. You fall asleep hoping that you have arrived ahead of the news and that you can get across safely. Yu think briefly of Amelia and what she may think of your choices so far but decide that she would also do everything it takes to stop the war. Pacified by that thought you fall asleep.
  
  > The Border Forts
  You all make sure your uniforms are clean and papers in order before you approach the fort, You expect to find some paroles but are amazed at the sheer amount of them and all the activity that is taking place. You have your papers checked five times before you even reach the gate where You finally get to ask what is going on as your let into the fort.
  
  The guard explains that a messenger arrived the evening before from the coastal road, he had ridden from the city almost non-stop for days, swapping horses whenever he could. He had brought news that The Old Quarter had been attack and was burning and war was about to start. You all look stunned by what he said and he takes it to be shock at the news rather than the fact you had killed a messenger but were still beaten here. He lets you on through and your taken immediately to a small barracks where your given bunks and told that sadly the forts going into lockdown until everything settles down but that your welcome in all the normal areas like the mess hall.
  
  You all settle in "So it was for nothing then?" you ask aloud.
  
  "We had to do it, there was no way to know another messenger could beat us here by taking the coast road. Its all those bloody port outposts allowing him to change horses while we had to spare ours." one of the men replies.
  
  "Either way we need a new plan, I'm the only one who really knows about construction so we cant hang around to be tested, what do we do from here?"
  
  The men think for a bit and come up with several ideas but it is whittled down to two options.
  
  > make a run for it that night while there is still confusion about who should be where.
  Having made your choice you all get your gear prepared and ensure the documents are well hidden. You made sure your gift from Amelia is in good order then you all wait. Night falls slowly and there is still a lot of people moving about when you leave the barracks. The food hall is nearer the border gate than your current position so you head there as cover first. You all grab some stew from a pot and taking some bread start to stroll around the fort as you eat. You pass several men fresh off duty doing the same thing so you don't raise many eyebrows. Once you near the gate you see that the small one man door in it only has a single guard.
  
  One of your men approaches him quietly then faster than the guard can react, he strikes him across the chin with the handle of his dagger. The guard falls unconscious and you all slip through the gate quickly, closing it behind you.
  
  You know the wall patrols wont take long to find the unconscious guard so you all start jogging as quietly as you can towards the border lines. You think you have made it when you hear the bells of the fort going off. "Thats it RUN!" you shout as you hear noise of men ahead of you. Your warning came too late and you all run right into a patrol squad as they turn to face you. You all draw weapons and attack.
  
  You feel several glancing sword blows hit you but Amelia's gift saves you from taking any major wounds until you and the only other survivor seem to break out the other side of the squad.
  
  Your about to run when you feel a blow to your leg and you stumble. Looking down you see a large gash across your calf and realize you can barely walk never mind run. You wave the other man on and turn to face the soldiers. At least one of you will get through with the documents you think as a spear stabs through your side. You think of Amelia as you collapse.
  
  > Ending?
  Sadly even if the other man makes it and stops the war you are still dead, no good ending for you.