The man called Hulticannos seems genuinely taken aback at Mab's gesture and chuckles a bit, "Pick up your weapon lad, I didn't mean any insult, it's just unusual to see such a . . . uhhh . . . varied collection of folk travelling the wilds unless they're outlaws, outcasts or brigands. Begging your pardon, the whole village has been a little on edge the past month or so what with the waylayers and ambushers along the river road. Cattle missing too."
"Let no one say that the hearths of Dinas Dardanii are cold, or that we are stingy with our obligations of hospitality. Come along."
With that, the three mounted men turn their horses around and begin trotting back to the hillfort. Gerbus waves goodbye to you and jogs back to his father's fishing boat. The mile between you and the hillfort passes quickly and you ascend the gentle slopes of the fortified village and pass through an open gate set into high, timber, double palisade, walls. By now several dozen people have emerged from their thatched huts and look on at you with a variety of reactions: confusion, curiosity and excitement -- children playfully skip along beside you, young girls point and giggle, and half-a-dozen or so rough looking men stare implacably.
Eventually you come to a two-storey longhouse in the center of the village and Hulticannos dismounts, pulls open a pair of thick, oaken, double-doors and gestures you inside. You pass through and see a spacious, dimly lit hall with a low-burning fire crackling and smoking in a central pit. Beyond the pit is a man seated in a high backed wooden chair with long red braids and drooping moustaches who leans forward and rests an elbow on one knee. To his right is a tall blonde haired woman shot through with gray, with her arms folded under her breasts that levels a direct and unflinching gaze on the lot of you. The red-haired man leans over and whispers something inaudible to the woman, before he calls out to you in a sharp, clear baritone, "Come forward neighbors and identify yourselves. I am King Segovax of the Dardanii. Welcome to my hall."