So at last we rode to Buckkeep, not up the winding seacoast road, but from the forested hills behind her. The snow. dwindled, then ceased. The night winds blew the clouds aside, and a fine moon made Buckkeep’s stone walls shine black as jet against the sea. Light shone yellow in her turrets and beside the side gate. “We’re home,” Burrich said quietly. We rode down one last hill, struck the road at last, and rode around to the great gate of Buckkeep.
A young soldier stood night guard. He lowered his pike to block our way and demanded our names.
Burrich pushed his hood back from his face, but the lad didn’t move. “I’m Burrich, the stablemaster!” Burrich informed him incredulously. “The stablemaster here for longer than you’ve been alive, most likely. I feel I should be asking you what your business is here at my gate!”
Before the flustered lad could reply, there was a tumble and rush of soldiers from the guardhouse. “It is Burrich!” the watch sergeant exclaimed. Burrich was instantly the center of a cluster of men, all shouting greetings and talking at once while Hands and I sat our weary horses at the edge of the hubbub. The sergeant, one Blade, finally shouted them to silence, mostly so he could speak his own comments easily. “We hadn’t looked for you until spring, man,” the burly old soldier declared. “And even then, we was told you might not be the man that left here. But you look good, you do. A bit cold, and outlandishly dressed, and another scar or two, but yourself for all that. Word was that you was hurt bad, and the Bastard like to die. Plague or poison, the rumors was.”