Silas Merren had a smile made for funerals. His grin was soft around the edges, polite in the corners, and just sad enough to make the bereaved forget who they were burying for just a moment. He didn't mean it that way; it was just how his face sat. At three-and-a-half feet tall with hands better suited to rolling Elven Moongrass than wielding weapons, Silas was as true a halfling as any: small, practical, and utterly unremarkable in the way his people preferred.
       The Merrens were bell keepers, the last in a long line of halfling folk who'd found a way to be useful without ever leaving the comfort of home. They were to tend the bell tower, watch for the dead rising from the marsh, and ring a warning when they come shambling toward town. It was the kind of job that lets you stay near your hearth, your garden, and your pipe.
       Their kind had a reputation among the tall elves with their graceful sneers, dwarves with their mountain pride, and orcs with their battle scars. Lazy, they called halflings. Weak. Risk-averse. But what those tall folk never understood was that halflings were practical. Why go looking for trouble when trouble always came knocking? Better to keep a good fire, smoke some Elven Moongrass, cook a meal that could make a dwarf weep, and handle problems from the safety of your own doorstep.
       Bell-keeping was a halfling tradition. You rang the bell when the dead came, and you hummed the old songs, and you kept folks safe without leaving your acre. The Merrens had been doing it for longer than anyone in Crowmarsh could remember.
       "Don't matter if you see a face you know, Silas," his ma would say as she rinsed his hands in vinegar to hide the smell of blood. Her hands were small and strong, calloused from rope work and cooking, from spinning and mending and all the thousand tasks that kept a household running in the marsh. "Even if they knock, you don't open."
       "But they cry so loud, Mama," he'd groan, his voice cracking with the strain of it all. The dead did cry. They wailed like they were mourning themselves, like some part of them remembered being alive and wanted desperately to come back to it.
       "If they cry loud, you hum our song, alright?" She'd smile down at him, her round, halfling face warm as fresh bread, her eyes crinkled at the corners with the kind of gentleness that made even the worst days bearable. She'd dig her thumbs into his joints, drawing small circles in the creases of his skin, working out the tension that came from a night of watching the dead shuffle past. And Silas would hum, his voice joining hers in the old lullaby that had kept their family safe for generations.

       It was a practical song, the kind halflings favoured. It was more about keeping safe than being brave, more about endurance than glory. His ma hummed it while she cooked their evening meals, rich stews that filled their crooked house with warmth even when the marsh wind pressed cold through the cracks. She hummed it while she stacked the quarterly flour Crowmarsh paid them, while she mended Silas's clothes, and while she tended their small garden of potatoes--about the only thing that would grow in the marshy soil. The song had more practicality than prettiness, an old lullaby meant to shut out the darkness, her own kind of light shielding Silas from the horrors that moaned just beyond their fence.
       The Merrens lived on an acre that wanted to rejoin the swamp more than society, sitting a good mile beyond the fog line where the undead moaned low like cattle and cypress roots grew thick with moss. Their crooked house had a sagging tower built of wood salvaged from crashed swamp boats, a fence that tried real hard to be a wall but mostly just tripped the occasional shambling corpse, and a donkey named Tater who was too stubborn to run away even when the dead came calling. It was the kind of home that suited halflings perfectly: not fancy, not grand, but theirs, with a good hearth, a pantry stocked with preserves, and a front porch perfect for smoking pipeweed on quiet evenings.
       The town of Crowmarsh paid them in quarterly flour sacks to keep the bells ringing, to keep the dead from wandering back to take up old habits. It was a good arrangement. The Merrens stayed out of town politics, the town stayed out of Merren business, and everyone slept easier knowing someone was watching the fog line. The townsfolk, made up of mostly dwarves and elves with a handful of orc traders passing through, looked down on halflings as a rule, but they were practical enough to recognize the value of someone willing to live in the marsh and do a job no one else wanted.
       Silas's pa had been dead six years, taken by drink before Silas was even ten. He'd been a heavyset halfling with a voice that could set wild animals straight and a bottle always in his palm. In his better days, he'd taught Silas how to patch walls, how to read the signs of the marsh, and how to tell the difference between a gator's bellow and a dead man's moan. He'd run with rough folk in his youth, smugglers, highway robbers, the kind of halflings who'd given their people a worse reputation than they deserved. He knew monsters the way other folks knew recipes, could tell you which creatures feared fire and which ones you had to drown, which haunts could be reasoned with, and which ones would eat you while you tried.
       In his worst days, which were most days, toward the end, he'd sit in his plush chair and bark orders while the bottle took him piece by piece. When he died, the town buried him with muttered curses and called him a cautionary tale. They stopped looking at the Merrens altogether after that, except when payment was due or when they wanted to gossip about the widow who kept her son tucked away from society in that crooked house in the marsh.
       That was until the night the bells brought brigands instead of fending off undeath. Black-hooded riders followed the sound straight to Crowmarsh, pillaging, murdering, and worse. Many were lost that day, but the Merren family was luckily spared, perhaps because the brigands had no interest in a crooked house full of nothing but potatoes and Elven Moongrass.
       After that night, no one dared ring the bell again. People blamed the bells because it was easier than asking why a village couldn't keep watch on its own gate. So the bell was tied, its ropes were knotted, and ledger-men visited only to write DO NOT RING on paper trimmed with wax. Crowmarsh decided silence would save them.
       The Merrens still got paid, like their silence was bought and paid for, and maybe they'd keep a watchful eye on the edge of the marsh in case of real emergencies. No visitors, no letters, no thanks. Just the quarterly flour and the blessed quiet. And that suited Silas fine. He'd smoke his pipe, tend Tater, cook meals his ma taught him, and help the way his folk always had: by staying put and keeping watch.
       Then one autumn evening, just before Silas's sixteenth birthday, when the wind blew through one too many chimes and set the silent bells to swaying, the dead rose from the marsh like a tide answering the moon. They shuffled through the reeds, pale and waterlogged, and began their slow march toward Crowmarsh through the Merrens' acre. One among them came not to town, but to the acre itself, like a grudge that had been waiting six years to be settled.
       Silas's pa shambled out of the fog line just after dark. His gut hung split and empty, his beard tangled with cattails and moss, his movements the same unsteady sway he'd had in life. He ground his teeth with a sickening scratch and fumbled with the fence gate.
       "You been keeping my bell, son?"
       Silas stood in the doorway, pike in hand, but unable to lift it. His ma was behind him, pike ready, face set with grim determination. But when their reanimated pa turned toward her, when he reached out with rotting but somehow gentle hands, something in her folded.
       She'd loved him once. Maybe still did. She reached for him like she'd meant to for years, like she wanted to say, "Come home, I forgive you," and all the other things she'd never gotten to say.
       "Ma, no," Silas whispered, but she didn't hear him. Silas couldn't lift the pike. Couldn't point the sharp end at the shambling thing that had once taught him to patch walls and tell marsh signs. So he did what any practical halfling would do when faced with an impossible choice: he ran. He sprinted up the rickety stairs of the belltower, tore through cobwebs, and ripped the wax seal from the door. When he reached the bell, he used his pike to hack at the bonds until his arms ached. The rope bit into his small hands as he hauled. The bell swung once--a bright, clear toll that rang across the marsh.
       And the tower gave with a sound like a thing unmaking itself. The bell fell with catastrophic grace, crashing through roof and joist, destroying the kitchen in a shower of splintered wood and iron. The horde scattered, driven back into the marsh, and everything quieted, except for one sound: the wet rattle of a head rolling on the floor.
       The bell had come down across his pa's chest and taken his head clean off. The body twitched once and lay still. The head rolled like a coin, blinked its milky eyes, and looked up into the starry night through the massive hole in the kitchen's roof.
       Silas fell to his knees beside the wreckage. His ma lay inside the bell's iron ring, trapped but alive, breathing in the unending dark. When she heard Silas ring his fists upon the bell's side, she called out.
       "You fool," she said through tears, her voice echoing strangely inside the bronze. "You saved us, you damned fool."
       The head of his pa turned and hissed a syllable that tried to be a command. "Open the bell. Let me see her."
       Silas tried. God, he tried. He wrenched at the bell long into the night, through the next day, and through a week. Neighbours and ledger-men came with horses and ropes, curiosity finally overcoming their disdain for the halflings in the marsh. They worked the bell as much as they could, but it sank deeper into the wet mud with every attempt, settling like a thing that had learned a new purpose and planned on keeping it.
       His ma grew cold and hungry, and her voice grew fainter. Two weeks in, she passed peacefully in the night, her last words a whisper of the old song. Silas kept working. He couldn't stop. He dug at the mud with bare hands, pulled until his fingers bled, and hummed his ma's song until his voice went hoarse.
       The Bell Witch came on the dawn of the third week. She wore rust-coloured cloth and silent bells, moving through the marsh with unnatural ease. She sat on the kitchen sill and watched the boy desperately dig at the bell.
       "This is your son?" She asked his father's disembodied head, though her lips did not move.
       "Aye," grumbled his pa. "Look at him, the bell's barely moved an inch, and he still believes she can be saved. That moron has damned us both," he scoffed. Silas did not notice the witch and believed his father was mumbling these cruelties to himself to spite him. But that did little to deter him. She'd watched him for days, his determination, his refusal to give up. It moved her.
       While Silas slept, she worked with obscene patience. She sang low to the metal, and where her words touched bronze, it softened. When she finished, the massive bell was small, small enough that you could hold it in your hand. She tapped it once. Its sound rang across the acre, and though the Bell Witch fought to be turned by it, she stood secure.
       Silas shot up from his sleeping spot in the mud. He gasped at the missing bell and searched frantically for his ma's resting place. The massive indent left by the bell's lip remained, but his ma's body was gone.
       "Ma?" he screamed, digging his hands into the mud. "You're out, see? I promised I'd get you out!" He turned, searching the property wildly, until his eyes landed on the Bell Witch. "Who are you?"
       "Consider me a friend of your pa," she said, her voice bouncing in Silas's skull though her lips didn't move. "You worked hard to free your mama, dear boy. But it was far too late for her."
       "She passed?" Silas began to sob. Through his heavy breathing, the witch could hear his low hum bubbling behind his lips, the old song, trying to soothe himself even now.
       "Yes and no," the Bell Witch said, her voice coarse but dulled under Silas's singing. "That bell made a fine prison in her life and in her death. Her soul was trapped inside, unable to leave. Once I moved the bronze beast, she didn't want to leave your side, just as you had not left hers. " A single tear trailed down her face, diluted with silt and rust. She wiped it away quickly. "She is here, dear boy." She held the small bell between her long, bestial fingers. "She asked to stay with you. So I put a bit of her in here."
       She tied a leather thong to the bell and handed it to Silas. It was warm where his ma's touch had been and smelled faintly of lemon oil and the scrubbed cotton of her apron. If he listened closely, he could hear her voice through the bronze--steady, sorrowful, and fierce.
       "Help them, Silas," his ma whispered. "Help them. Don't let ledger-men make you believe silence keeps things safe. If you see a thing needful, go. Sing for it. Hum hard."
       "Ma," he sobbed, clutching the bell. "I cannot leave. This house. . ." He turned to look at the rubble, at Tater grazing on the sparse grass, and at his pa's body rotting in the mud. All of what he'd known of his mother was gone. "This is all I've ever known."
       "I should have taken you long ago, my dear," his ma said through the bronze. He could hear the tears in her voice. "This is no place to raise a boy. There is so much more this world has to offer."
       "That's right, boy!" his pa's head barked from the mud, teeth chattering. "Abandon yer dear old dad again, just as you did when you buried me the first time! It's what you and your mother were always best at!"
       Silas knelt between a head that still tried to command and a mother who hummed like a hearth. The witch watched as if watching a man choosing shoes, then tutted something that might have been a blessing. She tied the leather thong around Silas's wrist with a knot that felt less like binding than like making a promise.
       "The bell will call no more raiders," she said. "It keeps back what ought not walk. But I made it small so that you might carry it wherever you go. Don't be foolish, boy. Your ma's given you a gift. Use it."
       A week later, Silas left with a sack of all he could gather from the rubble. He packed some clothes, a bit of dried meat, and his pa's old pipe. He took the pike he'd used to free the bell, a wooden practice sword for the theatrics of it all, and the brass bell hung at his hip. Before he left for good, he sat by where the bell's lip had rested one last time.
       "Promise me," his ma said through the bronze, her voice like sunlight through cracked glass. "Promise me you'll use that song for folks. When you find a thing that needs help, you hum."
       "I promise," he said. The bell chimed in his hand, soft, like a small, honest heart. "I will miss you, Mama. I do not know how to go through this life without you."
       "I will be with you always, Silas," the bell echoed warmly. He stood, readying himself as best he could. Then he looked at his pa's head, still muttering curses from the mud. He thought about leaving it there, about letting the marsh take it. His mother would probably approve. But he thought to himself, I got Ma with me; it's only fair I take Pa.
       So he wrapped his pa's wispy, scraggly hair around a belt loop, hefted his pack, and grabbed Tater's lead. Silas walked from the acre with the bell at his side and a grin that could steady a hangman's rope. He kept his mother's voice warm against his hip, and he brought his pa along for the ride. He hoped beyond hope that she would understand why.
       
       

       Three days north of the acre, the marsh thinned into coastal scrubland where cypress roots gave way to salt grass, and the air smelled of brine and rot. The path, crushed shells and packed mud, wound between black willows and stunted pines.
       Tater plodded beside Silas, stopping occasionally to chew marsh grass. The bell stayed comfortably warm on Silas' hip, and his pa's head swung from his belt, muttering about the heat, the bugs, and the utter foolishness of walking.
       "This is fool's work," Pa grumbled. "We'll be gator bait by sundown."
       "We're following the road, Pa," Silas said mildly. "Even I can't get lost on a road." He was still pondering his lack of plan when he heard it: creative, inventive cursing in a voice like gravel scraped over iron. Silas rounded a bend and stopped.
       An orc sat in the middle of the road beside an overturned cart, its contents scattered in the mud. Swords, axes, leather armour, and tinker's tools sprawled out on the road. She was massive, even sitting down, easily seven feet tall, with grey-green skin marked by old scars and tusks jutting from her lower jaw. One leg ended at the knee, the stump wrapped in weathered leather. A crutch lay beside her, snapped clean in half.
       "Blasted, rotted, thrice-damned piece of swamp-cursed nonsense," she snarled, trying to right a heavy crate one-handed as it slipped back into the mud. She punched the ground hard enough to make Silas wince, and for a spray of muck to launch into the air.
       "Excuse me, ma'am," Silas said, approaching carefully with his hands visible. "Came to see if you needed help." The orc's head snapped up. Her yellow eyes narrowed as she took him in, all three-and-a-half feet of him, round-faced and soft-handed. He was clearly no warrior, maybe a bandit? Then her gaze dropped to his belt, where his pa's head swung gently. She blinked. Opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
       "Is that a head?"
       "My pa," Silas said cheerfully.
       "Of course," she said faintly. Then she barked a laugh that startled birds from the trees. "Well. A halfling with a talking head. Come to rob me, have you?"
       "No, ma'am. Like I said, I've come to see if you needed help." She looked him up and down again, clearly reassessing.
       "Help? From you?" She gestured at herself, seven feet of muscle and scar tissue. "No offense, little man, but I've seen stouter mushrooms. What exactly do you think you can do about," she waved at the overturned cart, "this?"
       "Don't rightly know until I try," Silas said. He set down his pike and approached the cart. "What happened?"
       "Hag. Brackwater Bess. She's been haunting this stretch for weeks, demanding tribute. Thought I could get past her. I fought in the Red Marsh campaigns and killed a crocodile beast twice my size." She gestured bitterly at her missing leg. "Almost killed one thrice my size. But this hag's got tricks. Makes you see things, I thought the beast had come back to finish the job. My cart just. . . tipped. I tipped it."
       Silas crouched down and started gathering her scattered goods, sorting them into piles--blades here, tools there, armour in between. The orc watched him with an expression caught between suspicion and bemusement.
       "She wants tribute, you said?" Silas asked.
       "Food, drink, silver. I told her where she could shove her tribute. Got this as thanks." She kicked the broken crutch.
       "Sounds like you need someone to talk to her," Silas said simply. The orc stared at him like he'd suggested flying to the moon.
       "Talk to her? Boy, she's a hag. You talk to her, she'll eat your liver and use your bones for soup stock."
       "Not always," Pa's head piped up, making the orc jump despite herself. "Swamp hags are territorial. They don't want you dead; they just want you gone. Big difference. If the boy here's polite and brings a gift, she might just let him pass. Might even strike a deal."
       "Listen to your father's head," the orc said slowly through a huff of hot breath, as if testing out the absurdity of the statement. "Right. Sure. Why not?"
       "What's your name, ma'am?" Silas asked, stacking a neat pile of daggers.
       "Grukka," she said. "Grukka Skoll. I was a warrior once, First Spear of the Red Marsh Legion, commendations for valor, all that. Now I sell good steel to folks too smart to swing it themselves." She watched him work, something softening in her expression. "You're really going to help me?"
       "Yes, ma'am."
       "Why?"
       Silas paused, the wooden sword balanced across his small hands. The bell at his hip was warm, not hot, not cold. Steady. His ma's voice hummed faintly inside it like a heartbeat.
       "Because it's needful," he said simply. Grukka studied him for a long moment, her scarred face unreadable. Then she grunted, not with disagreement, exactly, but with the sound of someone accepting something they didn't quite understand. "Fine. Hag's den is half a mile east, near the standing stones. You'll smell it before you see it."
       "Thank you." Silas straightened, shouldering his pike. "I'll be back before dark."
       "Oi, boy," Pa hissed as Silas started walking. "You know what you're doing?"
       "Not particularly," Silas admitted.
       "Good. Keep humble. Hags respect that. And for the love of the hearth, don't accept any food she offers. They like to test folk that way."
       "Noted." The bell at his hip chimed softly, warmly. "Be careful," his ma's voice whispered.
       "I will, Ma," Silas said. And he set off into the marsh, humming softly to himself.
       
       

       Pa was right about the smell. Silas found the den by following the scent of stagnant water, spoiled meat, and something sickly sweet like overripe fruit left to rot in summer heat. The standing stones rose from the marsh like broken teeth, ancient and leaning, covered in moss and strange carvings that hurt to look at too long. Between them sat a hovel of woven reeds, gator bones, and salvaged driftwood that looked like it had been built by someone with a good eye for structure but no concern for aesthetics.
       Brackwater Bess sat outside, stirring a pot over a low fire. The steam rising from it was greenish and smelled like low tide. The bell on his hip went instantly cold, so cold that when he touched it, it burned with frost.
       She looked like a woman who'd been left in the marsh too long, with skin the colour of pond scum, hair like Spanish moss, and eyes black as swamp water, reflecting light back in strange patterns. She wore tattered sailcloth adorned with shells and bird skulls, and her hands were long-fingered and webbed. She looked up when Silas approached, and a grin split her face.
       "Well, well," she crooned. "A little halfling. Come to bring Bess her tribute?"
       "No, ma'am," Silas said. He stopped a respectful distance away and set down his pike where she could see it. It was clear it was not a threat, just honesty about what he carried. "I've come to talk, miss." Bess cackled, like the sound of mud bubbling.
       "Talk! Talk, talk, talk! Everyone wants to talk. The orc wanted to talk too; before it called Bess a dozen names Bess won't repeat, and told me demands could rot in the deep places. Rude, it was. Very rude." She pointed her spoon at him accusingly. "Is that any way to treat Bess? An old woman trying to make her way in the world?"
       "It's not," Silas agreed. "But she's had a hard time, too. See, she lost her leg to a crocodile beast, and with it, she lost her warrior's life, her legion, and everything she knew. She's just trying to make her way, same as you."
       "And Bess is just trying to keep Bess's home!" Bess snapped. She stood, towering over Silas. "This stretch of road is Bess's. Has been for sixty years. Then the tall folk come tramping through, tearing up Bess's marsh, scaring off Bess's frogs--" She jabbed a finger at him. "So Brackwater Bess demands tribute. Fair's fair. Brackwater Bess keeps the worst things off her road. Bess warns travellers about sinkholes. The least they can do is pay."
       "It is fair," Silas said. Bess blinked, one eye, then the next, like a frog.
       "What?"
       "It's your home. You've been here longer than the road. Stands to reason you'd want something in return for folks passing through." Silas sat down cross-legged in the mud, right there in front of her hovel. "You provide a service; I personally think you should be compensated. That's just practical." The hag squinted at him suspiciously, like she was trying to figure out the trick.
       "You. . . agree with Brackwater Bess?"
       "Sure do." Silas pulled a small pouch from Tater's pack, filled with good-quality Elven Moongrass, saved from his family's stash. "But the thing is, most folk travelling this road don't have much to spare. Like Grukka. She's selling goods, not hoarding them. She gives you tribute, and she can't afford to eat. Then she goes hungry, can't make her way, maybe dies in some ditch, and you've got a body rotting up your road, and one less folk to pay tribute. Nobody wins." Bess sat back down slowly, her black eyes never leaving his face.
       "Go on," she croaked.
       "Here's what I'm thinking," Silas said. He held up the pouch, letting her see the quality of the leaf inside. "What if instead of demanding tribute from everyone, you only ask it from folks who can afford it? Rich merchants with full purses, noble caravans, and elven traders with their fancy goods. Let the poor ones through, like the sellswords and tinkers and folks just trying to make their way."
       "And what do Bess get in return for this. . . generosity?" Bess leaned forward, her webbed fingers steepled under her chin. Silas held up the pouch.
       "This, for starters. Good Elven Moongrass, the kind that goes for silver in town. And I'll tell folks in the next settlement that Brackwater Bess is reasonable. That she keeps the road safe from worse things, because I bet you do, don't you? Keep the gators off the path. Warn travellers about sinkholes and quicksand. Maybe even scare off bandits from time to time." Bess stared at him. Slowly, very slowly, a different kind of smile crept across her face--not cruel or mocking, but genuine. Pleased, even.
       "You're a clever little thing, aren't you?"
       "Just practical, ma'am. I just wanna help."
       "And you brought Bess a gift without me even asking. Polite, too." She reached out and snatched the pouch from his hand, sniffed it deeply, and sighed with pleasure. "Ooh. Good stuff. Very good stuff. The tall folk never bring gifts anymore. It's all threats and demands and 'get out of my way, hag.'" She looked at him thoughtfully. "You've got sense, halfling. Your mama raised you right."
       The bell at Silas's hip grew warm, so warm it nearly burned. His ma's voice whispered through it, proud and strong: "Good boy. I'm so proud!"
       "She's gonna trick you," Pa hissed from his belt. "Don't trust her. She's got that look…" But Bess just laughed, pointing at the severed head.
       "Quiet, old man. Your son's got more brains than you ever did, and better manners besides." She turned back to Silas. "Fine. Deal. Bess'll let your orc friend pass, and Brackwater'll go easier on the poor folk. The rich ones can still pay up, since they've got it to spare." She leaned in close, her breath like swamp gas and rotting vegetation. "But you owe Bess a favour now, little bell-keeper. One day, when Bess calls, you come. Agreed?"
       Silas considered this. Owing a favour to a swamp hag wasn't ideal, but it wasn't the worst thing either. And his ma had always taught him that fair deals were the foundation of peaceful living. "That's fair," he said. "One favour. Not asking me to hurt anyone, though."
       "Wouldn't dream of it," Bess said, grinning wider. "Brackwater Bess likes you too much for that." She waved a webbed hand dismissively. "Go on. Tell the orc she can pass, and tell her Bess says sorry about the cart. Got a little carried away with the ground-shaking. Old habits." Silas stood, bowed respectfully, and collected his pike.
       "Thank you, ma'am. Pleasure doing business."
       "Likewise, little one. Come visit sometime--bring more of that Moongrass, and I'll tell you stories that'll curl your toes."
       As Silas walked back toward the road, Pa muttered darkly, "That was stupid. Now she's got a hook in you."
       "Maybe," Silas said. The bell was warm and steady against his side, his ma's approval radiating through it. "But it worked. Nobody got hurt, and Grukka can pass."
       "For now," Pa grumbled. "Just wait until that hag calls in her favour."
       "I'll handle it when the time comes," Silas said simply. And he meant it.
       
       

       Grukka was still by her cart when Silas returned, though she'd righted it and fashioned a makeshift crutch. She looked up sharply.
       "You're alive," she said in disbelief.
       "Yes, ma'am," he said, smiling wide with a hearty wave.
       "And the hag?"
       "We came to an understanding. She'll let you through and even said sorry about the cart."
        Grukka stared. "You negotiated with Brackwater Bess."
       "She seemed polite to me," Silas smiled, oblivious to her amazement.
       Grukka laughed--a real, booming laugh. "I'll be damned," she laughed. "A halfling boy bested Brackwater Bess!' She rummaged through her cart and pulled out a sword, simple but well-made. "Here. Payment."
       "Oh, I don't need--"
       "Take it. You helped when you didn't have to, and that's worth something. Besides, if you're wandering around talking to hags, you'll need better than a wooden prop." She tapped the sword's guard. "Good steel. Balanced for your size, actually. I had it made for a dwarf who never picked it up." Silas looked down at the sword. It was perfectly balanced, the kind of weapon that felt like an extension of your arm.
       "Thank you, ma'am."
       "See that you use it well." Grukka clapped him on the shoulder. "If you're ever near Saltmere, up north by the coast, ask for me at the Broken Tusk. I'll buy you a drink."
       "I might just take you up on that," Silas smiled. "You like dwarven rye?"
       "I knew I liked you, Bell Knight." Silas beamed; he had never heard that title before, but the bell on his hip went warm. It felt like a fitting title.
       Then, they parted ways. Grukka heading north, and Silas heading south. As he walked, the bell chimed softly. His ma's voice came through clear: ‘I'm so proud of you, my boy.'
       "Thanks, Ma," Silas whispered, touching the bell gently.
       "Don't let it go to your head," Pa grumbled from his other hip. "You got lucky this time. Next time, you might not. The next hag might not be so reasonable. The next monster might not want to talk."
       "Maybe," Silas admitted. He walked as he adjusted his new sword and made sure his pike was secure on his back. He bounced the blade back and forth in his hand and twirled it through the air. It was short and thin and whistled as he twisted his wrist. He started humming as he walked. "Hush now, hush now, bones don't bite, sleep through dark and walk in light. . ."
       The road stretched ahead, winding through marsh and scrubland toward towns he'd never seen. Silas Merren, three-and-a-half feet of halfling practicality, carrying his mother's voice in a bronze bell and his father's head on his belt, walked it with a smile made for funerals and a heart made for helping.
       He didn't know what would come next, and he certainly didn't know that word would spread, that people would start looking for him when strange things happened. All he knew was that his ma had asked him to help folks when they needed it, and that seemed practical enough. The road knew, though. And so did the bell.