Warding Hall

Tam scrubbed at the throbbing in his skull and dropped onto a bench against the wall. Outside the rain was easing off, the steady dripping from the smoke hole’s rim into the cold fire pit below slowing from a constant patter to a discernible plop-plop-plop of drops in ash. The gray light cutting the shadows was edging toward something that might actually be called daylight, the droplets catching the faintest glisten as they fell, and the hall…

He dropped his elbows on his knees and stared around the hall, at the building that had never been meant to become a home. That had been built only as a last refuge. A building meant to shelter a people for a single winter, two at most. And now…

Smoke from countless winter fires had blackened its beams. Tales of hope and loss had soaked into its timbers with every telling and retelling. Rough hewn edges had been worn smooth by the hands of children born and grown beneath its roof. Children who had become warriors only to die on a sword’s edge and be replaced by their own children in their turn. Children who would sit by the same fires and tell the same tales and wage the same long fruitless battle beyond all reason or hope.

— Excerpt from Beneath the Thorns

by Leigh Janzen



Overnight Campfire Fire by mikkooja1977

The hall was the first structure built in Warding by Temir Danirov. As it was intended only as a temporary shelter against the coming winter, it was built in the old style: a single long room with a fire pit where the entire population of Warding could pack themselves in to eat and sleep and store what belongings they had managed to bring with them.

As time passed and it became apparent that their stay in Warding would be longer than anticipated, the inhabitants of the great hall slowly built their own cottages within the palisade and moved out of the common shelter. Eventually only the Danirov family remained. But communal meals and gatherings are still held around its fire pit, and the shared food stores are still kept under its roof.

Harp Musical Instrument Wooden by Roger King

Alterations

Over the years the hall has been added onto. The first addition was a new living chamber added to the south end to give Temir and his family privacy. This eventually became the home of Dauryn and his wife. But by the events of Beneath the Thorns, the chamber had been given over to Aisara, the village healer.



The Cloister Attic Old Orthodox Church by Krzysiek

The second addition was the storeroom and weaving chamber added to the north end. A loft was constructed above this to house many of the children who'd been sent by their families to live in the relative safety of Warding

Warding Hall

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Parent Location

Warding

Owner

Tamlyn Danirov

Stave Church Architecture by falco

Warding Hall

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Warding Hall

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