Excerpt: Jade's Tale

They were all travel weary, sporting stains on their boots, trousers and cloaks. One had brilliant red hair, and were he not looking so forlorn, she imagined him quick to smile. The one on the red head’s right was blonde with a face that looked impartial to anything and everything. The last of the three was dark. Everything about him was dark, from his dark brown hair, to his dark brown eyes, to his sun tanned skin. He looked so gloomy and depressed, worse than the others. There was a scar on his left cheek that went up across the bridge of his nose towards his right eye. He would have been frightening, only he seemed more bark than bite. Each man was well armed with swords and knives with four sets of bows and quivers near at hand.
“Pardon me, sirs,” she said quietly. “Could I trouble you for a tale?”