Blood and Silver III
Sweat streamed down Falrielle's face as the axe eclipsed the sun. It hung there, its black iron quivering the anticipation.
Then it fell, sending chips and splinters flying.
It had been days after the Vigilants left and no one had really spoken to her since. The wench still attended to her and at times, the innkeeper, a whey-faced beanpole of a man with a moustache but they never were keen in meeting her in the eye. Falrielle felt less like a patron and more like a stray dog – to be fed, to be pitied, and to be kept at a respectable distance. With her strength returning, Falrielle needed something to keep her busy. The fresh air and exercise were motive but it was mostly out of boredom.
She raised the axe and took aim.
A tree a day was a meal. Two trees, earned a warm bed. Three trees were five Septims to her purse. Woodcutting was an unthankful work but someone had to do it. Without woodcutters, what would the hearth feed upon or what would they build anything with?
She swung.
Woodcutting was more than just cutting down a tree, hacking it to pieces, and then brought back for kindling. Woodcutting was an art and knowing which tree to fell and which to pass up can take years of training to master. For example, aspens and elms make for terrible firewood – they don't burn well and they stink to burn. Ash and oak however warm many a king's hall, burning hot, long and fragrant.
She swung.
Then there was cutting the tree itself. Swinging an axe like a jilted lover finding their wife in the arms of another was wasteful at best and suicidal at worst. Felling a tree required precise cuts and unless one fancies having to explain to Tsun, Gatekeeper to Sovngarde how they were valiantly killed by a tree, they needed good sense to know where to stand.
She swung and the tree came crashing down.
Snedding the branches and diving the log was simple enough. All she needed to do was not to hit herself in the process. Still, this was something she did half-a-hundred times before she even came of age and before long, she was almost done. Ma and Da would be proud. Now to make one last swing and-
The axe lodged itself on the log.
Falrielle frowned. Birch was amongst the easiest of trees to cut and for her to trap the axe was embarrassing. She wiggled the axe free and along it, splintered the final portion of the log, taking a good portion of the bark. Falrielle cursed. If she were just in it for the money, this log would be unsellable. Splinted bark made it difficult to season properly for firewood and the uneven cut made it especially undesirable for furniture.
A tree was a meal. Two was a bed. Three was for coin. This one was her twentieth and Falrielle hadn't even broke a sweat. Even so, why did she feel so tired?
Falrielle sat on the tree and snapped the bark free. She drew her knife and shaved the inner bits, leaving pale flakes in her hand. She then stuffed them into her mouth. The bark was tough and bitter, not what she would call appetising. There was something funny about a Wood Elf eating trees, she knew but the joke was lost to her.
She swallowed and took another bite off the bark, imaging that it was a flank of juicy goat off the bone - that always helped making these things more edible. She swallowed and took another bite.
This was the flavour of her childhood. Every winter when food grew scarce, Falrielle and her family would feast upon the barks of wood. She always hated the taste and the worst of it was that she had a favourite: pine. It wasn't even the flavour she admired; it was just that pine was everywhere in the Pale.
She spat.
Life wasn't fair. The Gods only protected the strong, this was the Nord way and when Falrielle and Faerin left the hamlet, they vowed that one day, they would be strong. That vowed they never again have to live in hunger. That they never again have to feast upon barks, roots, rats, voles, or weeds. That one day, they will feast upon suckling pigs, great pikes, swans, larks, linnets, and anything they wished with no one telling them they couldn't. They vowed and hoped.
Falrielle reached into her jerkin and pulled out a wad of browned sheepskin. She opened the letter which had deep creases from being folded and unfolded many times. There were lines of chicken scratches but Falrielle was more interested in the wax seal: a mattock crossed with a pickaxe. She didn't exactly know what this symbol meant; nobody really explained it to her but she did know that it belonged to however hired them for a promise of a thousand Septims upon delivery. She still had the cargo; some ores and a few bottles of Imperial hootch but still…
A thousand Septims. A thousand Septims.
That'd be the most she ever held at once. She brushed her finger against the seal and smiled. With a thousand Septims, what would she even buy with that kind of money?
Maybe a new weapon, she mused. Beater, her oaken club, was reliable and everything but she always wanted something with more heft and less termites – like an axe or even a mace! She need not the replacement be too fancy, honest Nord steel would do. After a new weapon, Falrielle figured she should have leftovers to finally buy a hauberk that was actually her size. Then maybe a drink after and if the Gods be kind, a decent drink of ale. After that…
A pig, the fattest she could find. A cow would be better but a pig would do. Then an altar, where the ravens fly. Kyne, the Envoy of the Gods, and Orkey, the Old Knocker demand a good sacrifice to ensure a warrior's passage to Sovngarde. Her stomach grumbled. Falrielle remembered the sow she and Faerin bought in honour of Ma and Da. The Gods demanded that all was to be sacrificed: the blood, the guts, the flesh, and the bones – nothing was to be wasted.
She gathered the logs and hoisted them on her shoulder, the defiant bark prickling against her ear.
It was her nose that caught it before her ears. She sniffed again and detected the familiar stench of pack animals – specifically, the scent of mule.
Parked in front of the Silent Stone Inn was a cart practically armoured with horse meat. Its driver, a rotund man covered in robes that made him resemble a pumpkin, embraced the beanpole innkeeper.
Falrielle hawked and spat. Her thoughts on her next destination: Markarth, the City of Stone.
The point I'm trying to say is you townies always looked down on us country folk. They think us stupid because we can't read. Yes, we can't read but that doesn't mean we're stupid – just different, you see? Yes, I can't read but reading don't get you no bread out here in the wild. You want to eat out here, you don't go around reading books to people unless you're a priest or a taxman, and we don't like no taxman – nobody likes the taxman, yes?
Alright, here's what I mean. You listening, yes? See this axe? Do you know how to cut a tree? No, I don't think so. It's too dark for me to show you and I don't think you can really explain it in your book if I did anyway, so I'll keep it easy for you to understand.
There's more to cutting a tree than just swinging your axe like a maniac, see? You need to stand proper; I'll stand up and show you. Just like this, see? When you swing, you need to use your legs and your waist, and you have to make sure your axe hits where you want it to hit. Where do I hit? That depends on what tree I'm cutting. Out here in Falkreath, its usually spruce or pine, and I hit about me waist. If I do have to cut birch though, I go near me shin. What? The biggest tree I've cut? Oh, that be an oak. It was be in Harvest's End, about forty winters ago when I was a wee lad. That's how I got me axe and me wife, see?
~ Excerpt of an interview from The People of Skyrim, collection by The Historian-Errants