Chapter 10: Northward to the Blackfens
The Trailblazers ride out just before dawn, the cries of roosters ringing out all around in the semi-darkness and still of morning. The Rhest Trail marches away northwestward and hour after hour passes of largely uneventful travel. It is once again hot, is it ever anything other? But rather than being attacked by swarms of insects, the adventurers new nuisance is the interminable cloud of dust kicked up by their horses hooves!
Several fits of hacking ensue and there is no doubt of respiratory issues ensuing later tonight when the adventurers have a chance to make camp for the night. But one thing's for certain, the party makes very good time on horseback, if at the expense of new pains in places some of the heroes did not know existed on their bodies!
Sometime during the late afternoon, a few hours before the adventurers might think to look for a suitable campsite, the spot something on the road.
Up ahead, a crude, ten-foot high palisade of logs has been erected across the road, extending forty feet to either side and completely blocking all passage. A squat, twenty-foot tall watchtower looms in the middle of the palisade. The adventurers catch a glimpse of movement up in the tower, and spy a hobgoblin archer leaning against a post, chin on his chest.