Several hours passed, during that time, Graden studied everything in the bridge, including a book explaining the best sailing techniques. Bründ came up eventually to tell him that a fair sized forest was a small way up the coast. Then that's where we'll anchor and let people off, thought Graden.

Graden gathered everyone in the main hold and told them the plan of setting foot on shore. They excitedly made their way to the top deck awaiting their departure. He took Bründ with him to the top deck to release the anchor. After the anchor sank down and brought the ship to a stop, Bründ and Graden, as well as a few other volunteers, furled all the sails. They launched all four of the boats, three holding fifteen people, and the fourth with seven, and pulled them half out of the water once reaching shore.

Graden and Bründ went into the woods to assess their situation. Springy, fifty year old oaks blocked out most of the sunlight. Small clumps of thick grass sprouted up from the sunlit areas, some of which had been gnawed by something all the way to the stem. A small creek trickled down from some hidden spring and dumped itself into the ocean behind them.

At the creek's edge, numerous footprints were embedded in the soft mud. Amongst them, Graden recognized rabbit, raccoon, possum, deer, and another set of tracks that he couldn't recognize. Bründ told him that they were boar tracks, and the best way to "hunt" them was to let them see you to lure them into charging and ram themselves into a spear. The spears one usually brought on these hunts had big spearheads and a perpendicular bar about sixteen inches down the shaft, which would stop the boar before it could gore the wielder of the spear. Graden was also told that these hunts usually consisted of at least half a dozen people, and used dogs to track and corner them.

"We'll go after deer for sure," Graden said, "but we will make some spears…just in case."

Bründ found some small dead pines, about fifteen feet long each, pushed them over, and brought them back to Graden. Graden set to work sharpening the tips and carving out handholds. They had made six spears total, which they set at the edge of the forest. Bründ went into the crowd of people, who were just sitting around talking to each other. Graden noticed several people were missing from his original count. Then Bründ came back and broke his concentration. He had five other people with him, fair sized men who looked like they could hold their ground against a charge.

"The plan will be…" Graden started, and drawing a rough map in the dirt "for you guys to circle around here," he drew a line moving parallel with the coast, but on the outside, "and spread out and come back in my direction, hopefully driving any game my way where I'll get them with my arrows. If you see any boar, you are to engage them and bring them back. Are you all clear?"

He was met with hearty nods or the shrugging of shoulders. Graden thought Bründ couldn't have picked a better bunch after he surveyed the crowd once more. The troupe set off heading north along the edge of the forest. Graden smeared mud from the creek on his face, neck, arms, shirt, and trousers for some makeshift camouflage. He knocked an arrow, stood behind an oak with two trunks protruding from the same base, and waited. The minutes went quickly at first, but then dragged on until they felt like hours. Graden was sure that a week had passed, when realistically, only an hour and a half had passed.