Location: Traveling from Clun to Kirborg and arriving at the village<br/>Date / Time: March 16, morning<br/>Tagging: Eztli<br/><hr/>Krolus had been right; Alain decided to leave Clun early in the morning, trying to reach Kirborg with time to spare that day for making some business contacts. For once the weather was with the merchant and his small bands of porters and guards.<br/><br/>While the wind blew in from the north, almost straight into the travelers' faces, it also blew away the warmer, moisture-laden air coming in from the coast and broke apart at least some of the cloud cover that had hung over them the last few days like a wet, gray blanket. With a pause to the rain the eye roamed farther and revealed more of the terrain. Ahead of them lay a range of hills that ran from the north west to the south east, part of the large range of hills that ran like a central spine down half the frontier. But between Clun and Kirborg the ground was relatively flat, gently rolling, and only lightly wooded along the road. As they left Clun, just outside the hamlet, a narrow track forked off to their left and Krolus pointed it out to Alain. "That way is Elgard's Ford. If we can't make the crossing at Kirborg we might try there. Would cost us a day, but it would be an option still."<br/><br/>"I'd rather not go that way. From what I heard yesterday evening, the ford at Kirborg should be passable, at least for horses. And the village sits on a river. Someone there must have a boat that can ferry you men across, if everything else fails."<br/><br/>The dwarf grumbled his agreement to that and marched on, apparently not very taken by the idea of trusting himself to some stranger's boatsmanship. But, not being plagued by rain for once, the dwarf's thoughts turned from boats to roads again fairly soon and he took it upon himself to enlighten his companions to the villages that made up the barony of Kirborg, pointing in this direction and that.<br/><br/>It was a little after two hours after they set out from Clun that they all got their first good look at the river Thane and the settlement on its northern bank. It was perhaps two miles to the river from where they briefly paused on the crest of a low hill, half that distance to the first outlying farm. On this southern side the meadows along the river were dotted with spots of silver and gray where puddles and shallow pools reflected the sky above, and beyond that higher grounds of fields, farms, and some two score houses encircled by a palisade wall.<br/><br/>A man was tending some cows in a field by the first farms and when the merchant and his entourage drew closer a shrill whistle from the cowherder brought half a dozen more people out into the open from the reed-thatched timber houses. They were all civil enough to offer a "good morning", a friendly nod, even a smile in greeting, but they kept close to their farm implements or stacked logs of firewood that could double as clubs in a pinch, till they got a good look at the new arrivals. It was very much the same greeting the group had received the afternoon before, in Clun. Here they got the same information as Alain had collected in Clun – the ford was passable, or had been so only two days ago, the last time one of the farmers had business in the main village.<br/><br/>And so it proved to be. The high waters of the Thane had room enough to flow into the meadows on the southern bank when the water rose, turning that shore into a series of shallow pools and small lakes during spring, but most years the river remained fordable. Having noticed the travelers, one of the village guards, a man in studded leather armor and armed with a long spear, had walked out to the island in the middle of the stream, to direct them through the ford, shouting and gesturing where to step. That island was connected to the northern bank of the Thane by a bridge of wooden planks and railing on stone foundations, but wading through half the river was still more than enough to get thoroughly wet.