The Heros Of Canterealm

The rising and falling of the waves moved the Cog up and down as it sailed towards Canterealm. Within its hold was a rather perturbed Connemara pony sitting on a wooden stool in front of an old slightly wobbly table. Before him was one of the most unappetizing meals he had seen in his life. It had been this or Hard Tack for the majority of his trip from Gaullop.

For the first week the fair had been acceptable but once the fresh vegetables were gone they had served nothing but easily preserved staples. Pickled eggs, Hard Tack, Grog and salted lettuce strips were the most common. Before him was a small tankard with cheap ale and a wooden plate with dried and salted Codfish. Unfortunately this was the most appetizing meal he'd been served in at least five days.

Sighing he resigned himself to his meal and took a bite chasing it with the ale so the taste wouldn't stick to his tongue. While fish was not a common staple inland many of the ponies living on the coast or near large lakes had taken to eating it. The trip from Gaullop had so far taken two months to navigate. Assuming he returned home it would be three weeks at least back. The ale was bitter and unpleasant, Slightly sour from the added lemon the fish more salt than food.

"a oedd yn ofnadwy!" He choked out.

Walking over to a nearby porthole he chucked the fish out into the water in disgust. The dried plank of food hit the water with a 'Splunk' sound as he closed the window and sat down to finish the bitter but stomach able ale. "If I have to eat one more piece of fish or Hard Tack this week I can't be held responsible for what I'll do to that Galley cook!" he stuck his tongue out and spat on the table.

"What I would give for some of Rosemary Spices honey oat bread and a wedge of cheese right now!"

Reaching into the breast pocket of his plad Tartan of dark blue and forest green he withdrew a small rolled and bound cloth made of similar fabric with the image of a bundle of Rosemary the plant his wife to be was named after back in Gaulop stitched into it. Undoing the strings binding it together he unrolled it revealing a lock of honey colored hair braided together. "When I come home love I'll make you an honest mare I promise" he rolled the hair braid back into the cloth and placed it back in his left breast pocket.

Sighing heavily he reached out his hoof and grabbed his sword and Dirk belt slinging it across his side on top of the tartan covering his light grey coat. Fastening the buckle about his chest he placed his plad cap atop his long unruly mane of ginger hair leaving his Burda club leaning against the corner of the wall. Making his way out the door and through the hold towards the bow of the ship he could hear the waves of the sea rolling.

"Fresh air will do me good...even if it's riddled with sea salt."

Trotting up the stairs he lifted the hatch part way and peered about the deck. The cabin Colt could be seen leaving the captain’s cabin carrying a metal tray with an empty plate and tankard on it clenched between his teeth.

“Lad can’t be past ten years old at most. Poor child.”

A common enough practice among sailors was to take in young orphans as cabin boys. A starving child would work hard if it meant he had a bed roll and a piece of bread at the end of the day. Sadly this poor colt likely would be going to the crew’s quarters for a meal similar to what his was. Maybe even worse.

“I Shudder to think of it!”

Flipping the hatch over to the side he made his way topside squinting slightly as his green eyes adjusted to the light of the setting sun. Sea and salt water as far as his gaze would go. No sign of land for likely another few days. Longer if they got caught in the doldrums. He approached the railing and placed his forehooves on it gazing across the water.

“How is it I’m the son of a fishercolt but have no stomach for the sea? Makes no sense by any accounts. The old bastard practically bled salt water. Then again mother always hated his line of work.”

He could practically hear the deceased Coltic mare chiding him at that moment.

“Don’t you go being a fishercolt on some leaky old boat! It’s bad enough your drunkard father spends his days out there though the gods knows I love him! I don’t need to be worried every gale that comes about for you too! You need to stay here and be a farmer or the like so you can take care of me when my bones get all creaky. Everypony in Albion knows your Troublesome brother won’t.”

Little Innocent was possibly the most troublesome, dirty, cheeky, nuisance ever to be given such a deceiving name. Whether his name spawned his bad behavior or he just liked to cause trouble his parents could never tell but oh how Blue Stones had looked up to him, wanted to be just like him and make him proud.

The amount of trouble the two got into in their village was rivaled only by their ability to come up with their next misdeed. One minute they would be attempting to sew a chicken into their uncles pillow case the next trying to figure out how they could get away with breaking some plates when said chicken got loose in the process.

No matter how much trouble they got in though Little Innocent always took half the blame as their blood pact said to. If one went down in flames the other caught fire as well. Figuratively speaking of course...except that time they had tried their hooves at blacksmithing and set fire to the neighbor’s Chicken coop.

“Mother if you could see me now you’d be terrified but I hope you’d be proud too. Like the clans Druid always said Yn byw yn dda i farw yn dda and if his words are true I can go to Albion with a smile on my muzzle.”

In his Heart Blue Stones knew his cause was a lost one but like his father once said.

“Sometimes you fight because it’s the right thing to do even when you're sure to lose. It’s better to know you tried then fail because ye did nothing.”

Turning his gaze west he watched as the sun dropped lower and lower towards the horizon. It’s light shimmered across the water and waves highlighting them in an aqua green. Back to the west was Gaullop his home and place of birth. He hadn’t even finished the first leg of his journey yet and he was homesick.

He closed his eyes envisioning the green hills and great standing stones. Small stone homes with straw thatched roofs and fences keeping the sheep from wandering made by weaving sticks and twigs. The sacred trees of oak and Yew stood tall and proud and in the distance were the highlands capped with snow at their peaks rivers running from top to bottom keeping their crops well supplied with fresh water.

“If I want to see my home free from those red cloaked Lupus Legates and their damned Caesar I’ll have to do my part. No matter how much I want to go home it will do no good if there's no home left to go back to. The green Lands will be free again and if I can help make it happen then I will do it.”

Focusing his mind on the Agate embedded in his frontal skull he pulled his sword from the sheath on his side holding its handle in a brown glow like that of the stone in his forehead and the pommel of his weapon. The blade was three feet long made of Coltic Iron and passed down his family since the time when the earth pony fugitives had left Canterealm 300 years ago to be free of the monarchy.

“It seems our lot in life to strive for freedom only to have it snatched out of our reach.”

Sighing he turned around to see the young Colt from earlier looking at him with an interested but slightly scared gaze. Sheathing his blade he flashed a smile at the colt before sitting in front of him and speaking in a calm, deep but thickly accented voice.

“How old are you Laddie?”

“I’m-m-m nin-n-ne sire.” The colt stuttered out.

“Be at ease child if I were upset you’d know it. Tell me what is your name?”

The colt noticeably calmed down a bit seeming to realize that the stallion before him was not upset at him for staring. The Coltic ponies scarcely went to Canterealm but there was no mistaking one of them. Tales of the head hunting Gaullope barbarians spread far and wide across the seas and lands but this stallion was not so terrifying as he seemed.

“My name is Piper Stock but everypony calls me runt except the cook.”

“What does the cook call you?”

“Pippy, sometimes when we’re in port he’ll pick up a scone or cinnamon bun and split it with me.”

“He looks after you then?”

“Not just me sire. This ship would fall apart without him. Whenever there’s a fight or scuffle he sorts it out and when we’re in port he gets some of the fresher food at market and makes us a proper meal before we set out again!”

“Tell me lad what's your favorite dish of his?”

“His vegetable pasties! Everypony on board loves em’.”

At the thought of real food Blue’s mouth began to water. Swallowing he pushed the image of a steaming vegetable pastie away so as not to drive himself mad. In his mind if he never had to taste salt again it would be far too soon. Looking back at the colt in front of him he stood back up and stretched.

“Sire?”

“Yes child?”

“Can-can I have a look at your sword?”

The stallion chuckled pulling the weapon out of it’s sheath for the colt to see.

“Carefull of the edge it is sharp enough to cut bone.”

The young child ran a hoof over the flat of the blade feeling the cold iron of the lethal weapon.

“Someday I will be off of this ship. I’m going to be a Page to a warrior like you!”

“I doubt it not. You have the bearing and demeanor of a brave one.”

“Really?”

“I’ve trained warriors I know a colt with heart when I see one.”

The Stallion smiled at the younger one before placing the tip of his blade on the wooden deck of the ship.

“I suppose I should let you get on with your work young lad. The sooner you’re done the sooner you can get some rest.”

“Yes sire.”

As the colt turned to go he took a few steps before turning about and speaking.

“Sire?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for speaking with me.”

“You're welcome child.”

With that the young colt trotted off and went down to the hold leaving the Connemara stallion alone on the deck save the helmspony and navigator. He smiled turning back to the sea lifting his sword again tilting it back and forth in the now present moonlight. The light shone across the blade so polished was the metal that he could even see the moon’s reflection in it.

He slid it back in his scabbard before turning towards the hatch to go to his own bed thinking on the chat he had with the young child. He smiled.

“Maybe some day me and Rosemary will have a little colt like that. I certainly hope so.”

As his hooves clopped down the stairs and back towards the bunk he’d rented out for the voyage he could hear some of the sailors singing in the Galley room. Their deep voiced chorus could be heard throughout the hull.

“What shall’e do with the drunkin sailor, what shall’e do with the drunken sailor oh what shall’e do with the drunken sailor ear-ly in da mornin?”

“Shave ‘em belly witha rusty razzer, shave ‘em belly witha rusty razzer, shave ‘em belly witha rusty razzer earl-y in da mornin!”

“What shall’e do witha drunkin sailor, what shall’e do witha drunkin sailor, what shall’e do witha drunkin sailer ear-ly in ‘da mornin?”

“Put ‘em in da bunk witha captin’s filly, put ‘em in da bunk witha captin’s filly, put ‘em in da bunk witha captin’s filly ear-ly in da mornin!”

“What shall’e do with the drunkin sailor, what shall’e do with the drunken sailor oh what shall’e do with the drunken sailor ear-ly in da mornin?”

“Tie ‘em ’ta the mast without ‘is trousers, tie ‘em ‘ta the mast without ‘is trousers, tie ‘em ‘ta the mast without ‘is trousers ear-ly in da mornin!”

With their chorus of loud drunken singing finished for the moment Blue Stones pushed aside the tarp separating his room from the rest of the ship. Pulling out a stool he produced a sheet of parchment and a quill from his saddlebags in the corner.

He unrolled the thin paper on the table and placed down the quill before grabbing the inkwell in the bags and pulling the cork from its stopper with his teeth. His quill now dipped in black ink he leaned over the table and began writing occasionally dipping the quill back into the ink. He wrote this letter in Ogham the ancestral letters and numerals of his ancestors from his home across the sea.

Seventh moon the twenty fourth day, year three hundred and twelve by Gaulop reckoning.”

My dearest Rosemary,

I write to you now from a Cog sailing east to the country of Canterealm the land our forefathers sailed from some three hundred twelve years ago to seek a free world that to this day and age still escapes us. Believe me I wish nothing more than to see your beautiful face right now and spend my days tilling the soil and sowing oats in the fields left to me by my uncle.

I know my absence troubles you as it does me. I’d much rather spend my days by your side watching you rock back in fourth in grandma Spindles rocking chair knitting blankets for a child soon to join us in our family that is yet to be made in the eye’s of the gods in Albion.

I would see these things happen and myself never leave your side but I cannot think to bring a son or daughter into a land occupied by creatures so foul as the Lupus hounds who oppress and enslave our folk. If I am to raise a family in my homeland I would have it be a free world where they would not know the whip of a Legionnaire on their backs but instead the soil beneath their hooves of a free land where they could know happiness never ending.

I would promise you that I would return home from the quest I’ve undertaken for the Pictony Freedom Fighters but we both know this to be a guarantee I may not be able to make. I have never lied to you nor do I intend ever to do so as every time I see you saddened it tears my soul.

I will write you every chance I get and pray to the Earth Mother Enaid Pridd and my fallen family in Albion that you will be able to send letters back from time to time but I know they will be few and far between. Never doubt that I love you my dear, you are my whole heart and without you in my life it would have no value to me.

Every sunset I see reminds me of the way back to your embrace and each sunrise reminds me that I am a day closer to seeing you again. I carry the golden lock you gave me at all times in my left pocket so that I may have you close to my heart. I love you I cannot say it enough but I love my homeland as well and so I would fight that it have the freedom your love has given me.

Every day I remember what Little Innocent would say about the land we call home and I would see his words become true. Even If I cannot make it happen in my lifetime I would do my part to know I tried. The light grows dim in my cabin now so I must bring this letter to a close as my candle is nearly spent.

If my quest should be a success when I return it will be to make you my wife. Ive fought for these ten years and I wish to spend my twilight ones with you. I will write again soon my heart and send it to you with all haste.

With love in my heart

Blue stones

The letter finished he folded it properly before pouring a bit of wax on it for a seal pressing the sole of his horseshoe on it leaving his family’s crest in the wax. With that he blew out the candle and made his way to his hammock. He had a few days left before he arrived in Canterealm and he would need his rest and strength if he was to succeed in his quest.