A/N: Chap 6 review responses in my forums. As for this chapter-it turned out much shorter than I intended. It also made me realize that I may have been watching too many Primitive Technology and Homesteading videos on youtube.
For those who celebrate it, enjoy your long July 4th weekend.
Chapter Seven: Ready to Ride to the Realm of Men
The homestead felt oddly empty after the two Crows left. Two-Toes was ambivalent, but she found Aemon to be a completely different type of person than she'd met so far. His was a gentle heart, and his soul was that of a scholar. She was sorry she had to cut short their conversation, but she knew he would never forgive her if she caused all his fellows to die from exposure.
Fluffy came padding into the clearing, proudly displaying the turkey-sized fowl he'd caught. It might as well have been a turkey for its size and flight abilities, but a turkey that looked vaguely like something from Jurassic Park, given the teeth in its beak.
"Yes, I'll feather it for you," she promised.
His tail wagged hard enough to make his entire hind quarter shake. Fluffy hated feathers, but loved eating the birds. He would not mind if she took a cut of meat for herself. And soon enough, she'd have a feathered mattress.
She filled one of her larger clay pots with water and set it on the rocket stove to boil before she went back and took a quick inventory of her planks and joists for the first floor. It took only a few minutes of sketching on bark with some of the chalk from the lake to realize that despite her determination to build a brick house, she was still going to need a lot of wood.
As it turned out, cutting planks was hard. The frame saw was sharp enough, but it was a medieval tool using medieval metallurgy that she had to resharpen after every use. She spent an entire day building the frame just to guide the cuts on the timbers.
She actually had to call an elk from the forest every time to help her move the first timbers. It took quite a bit of talking to convince Fluffy not to kill the generous beast. But using twine and her best guess, she believed she had enough wood now to build the first floor over the stone basement she'd shaped.
With her stomach full of a stew rich with vegetables from her garden, she walked to the pile of split soldier pines and the two solid posts that would support the floor. With a grunt of effort, she lifted the first onto her shoulder and carried it to the basement. Once she had the second, she gathered the pot where she'd taken lime, and sand from the river bank, and wet her mortar to set the posts.
It took Taylor a while to learn how to use the plumb bob and strings to measure for level, but she'd seen her father work enough to get the gist of it quickly enough. She coaxed the spirits of the stone to craft holes at roughly ten-foot intervals that ran down the center of what she planned as her cold-storage basement.
The mortar would take many hours to set, but the hole was deep enough to hold the posts with the mortar where she wanted it to remain. With both posts set, she paced out the dimensions again. Thirty feet east to west, so that the long side of the house faced south, and twenty feet north-to south. Though it looked huge as she shaped it over the course of several days, the total square footage was only six hundred, or the size of their combined living room and kitchen back in Brockton Bay. With the basement, first floor and sleeping loft, the total usable space would still only be 1,500 square feet. At least, that's what she had planned.
While she gave the mortar time to set, the pot had come to a boil. She dunked the turkey long enough to loosen the feathers before pulling them off. She kept the feathers for arrows, but once the bird was bare she cut a slice of the breast and tossed the rest to her friend. Fluffy snapped it out of the air and then happily walked to the section of the forest on the edge of the clearing that he'd claimed as his space.
The day passed with Taylor positioning floor joists. Though it took a lot more work with an axe, she was able to get three or four ten-by-six planks from each pine. Placing each one from the fitted stone socket to the central support timbers that she'd placed over the posts took work. Nothing was cut to a perfect fit, so every single placement took chisels and a mallet to make it work. This included using each individual joist to measure the primitive tongue-and groove half- joint she had to chisel into the central post, and the matching side on the end of the plank.
It took half an hour on average to place each single plank, and spacing them at one every fifteen inches meant twenty four planks on each side, or forty-eight total.
Needless to say she didn't finish that day.
~~Voluspa~~
~~Voluspa~~
Taylor woke before the dawn. Flurry lifted his head and turned ice-blue eyes to her, as if to ask if she were insane. "You don't have to get up," she told the direwolf.
He chuffed at her in an elegant, wolffish declaration that he had no intention of doing something so silly. Even so, it was a chore to get out of the cave and pull on her thoroughly washed, Crow-made linens without stepping on the very large, sprawled wolf. Despite her complaints, she didn't mind. Fluffy made the cave nice and warm on the cold nights.
By the time she walked down from the cave, the first spirits of dawn had begun their never- ending battle against the night's rearguard. Gentle mist rose from the moisture in the ground, left from that night's rain. Taylor lifted her hand to greet her brother in the sky as the sun breached the horizon and his vast armies of light vanquished the night.
She walked among her garden to gather vegetables for the day's stew. The few wild seeds and beans she'd planted had become a full, rich garden with the bounty of her magic. She'd used part of the fallen elk's huge antlers to shape a scythe for herself, enchanted with runes for sharpness, that she used to harvest a bundle of rye stalks to begin drying.
Her flour supply was running low, after all.
Once she had food gathered for the day, with strips of dried elk and a cut of the dino-turkey ready for the stew, she went up the creek for her daily run of clay and limestone. In the week she'd spent at the homestead, she made at least two runs a day in preparation for actual construction to begin. It was hard physical labor, but at the same time she still felt a little thrill when she put the previous day's dried bricks into the kiln. Like all the kilns she built, it was lined with runes that burned with all the heat of a Nidavillir dwarven smithy.
The bricks were far from perfect, even with the molds she'd so carefully crafted. Nor were they very large. But they were easier to make in numbers, and once fired would be resistant to the weather and last much longer.
The kilns worked for limestone as well as the bricks.
Once she had the previous day's molded bricks and limestone in the kilns to fire, she spent an hour with the new clay, molding it into the next day's bricks. Only when she was done did she put the cauldron on the top of her brick kiln and with water, turkey and cut vegetables from the garden. She suspected that she would have more company today. Once the pot was set to cook, she resumed her work with the floor joists.
Her crude joinery ladder hurt her feet, but it allowed her to get the joists in place for her to carve the simple joins in both the central support and the joists themselves. One at a time, she meticulously fastened them together as she made her way down the length of the magic-carved stone basement.
The second day of hanging the joists went much faster–so much so that she was working on the last one when Morag came to the clearing.
The girl came quietly, as if fearing what she might find. Given that a column of 50 Crows came to kill Taylor the previous day, it was a reasonable fear. But when she saw Taylor working on securing the outline of where the stairs down to the basement would be, she broke into a little run. She barely even looked at Taylor as she studied the foot basement that was literally formed into the granite of the hill itself. Her eyes traced how the granite seemed to have grown out and around the front, as if the rock had stretched out into a shelf to house the basement.
There were no seams because Taylor merged the split rock from the pit to the sides.
"How'd you do all this?" Morag finally found her voice.
Taylor climbed her ladder up out of the basement–the ceiling would only be seven feet tall, so it was very low to her, but she at least wouldn't be hitting her head. She smiled at Morag when she reached the top. "It looks good so far, right?"
"'Suppose," the girl said. "I mean, what is it?"
"It's going to be my basement," Taylor said. "Once I have the floor planks in, then I'll start laying bricks for the walls and fireplace."
Morag frowned further. "Why's it so big?"
Taylor started to protest, but then thought of the hovels at white tree. Two of those huts could fit inside her basement, and up to seven people lived in each one. "If anything ever happened to White Tree, I want enough room for your family to come here," she finally said.
Morag bent down on the edge of the basement. "What's those things at the bottom for?"
She pointed to the bottom where Taylor had shaped some clay drainage pipes. "In case water gets in," she said. "The pipes drain out. I'll probably carve out a cistern a little higher in the hill."
"What's that?"
"A hole to hold rainwater."
"Oh." She touched the wood, noticing how the outer ends of the joist fit snugly into a socket in the rock, and there secured by mortar. "How do you know how to do all this?"
"My father taught me," Taylor said. "Are you hungry? I have stew."
"Really?" Morag perked up at the thought.
They left the basement and settled down for lunch. Morag continually looked around the homestead as she ate. She saw the garden in the land where the creek curved out with its vegetables and barley; she saw the stand where the cured elk fur was stretched out like a tarp.
She saw Flurry eating the remains of his dino turkey. She froze with the wooden bowl halfway to her lips.
"His name is Flurry," Taylor said calmly as she also ate her first meal of the day. "I can speak to him, Morag. He knows you're my friend. I promise he won't hurt you."
Flurry sensed they were talking about him. He looked up and released on odd, mewling growl-bark before returning to his meal.
"That's a direwolf," Morag said. "Big one."
"He's my friend, and he lives here with me."
The girl shrugged, then continued eating.
"How are things at the village?"
Around a mouthful of food, she talked about her family. "Pa and Kern built a fifth house. Dobin the Bard came, and told us there's to be a Blot at Ruddy Hall. Ma and Pa's taking me and Birs, and Old Shaen, and a few sheep to trade and sacrifice, and maybe get Birs a woman."
Taylor raised a brow. "He's your age, isn't he?"
Another shrug accompanied the girl's loud slurping of the rest of the stew. "Pa says a man's prolly gonna take me too, but I'd have to live with his family, wherever that is. Blots only come in summer, and this is the first long summer I've seen since I was a kid."
Winter must have been fearsome, if it lasted for years. Taylor considered the word Blot. In her mother's tongue, it was a holy day of sacrifice—usually humans and animals. The word that Morag said was not the physical word Blot, but that's what her magic interpreted it as. "What's a blot?"
Morag's eyes widened. "Last blot was a summer ago, when I was eight. I was too young to go, but Pa said Free Folk from all across the land gather and trade. Men steal women from other tribes, and make new families and homesteads. There's trade and talk and bards and games. Old Shaen said they were the most fun he'd ever had. So…I don't wanna man or anything. But the blot sounds fun."
Taylor bit back a sigh at the thought of being around people again. Then Morag kept talking. "Pa thought you might wanna go. The village has more food'n we've seen ever, and Kern and Nob say it's cause you blessed the fields. Sattie's so healthy she's with child again. So you could come with us, if you wanted."
The idea at once thrilled and worried her. The Crows viewed her with terror; what would the Free Folk think of her? At the same time, she was at a perfect stopping point. All she had to do was peg down the floor planks; any rain that got into the basement would drain away. Simple spells could protect her tools in the cave, and her garden would just go dormant like it did at White Mountain.
"Should I wear my blindfold?"
Morag nodded. "You have Other eyes. Prolly should hide 'em."
"I'd like to go," she finally said. "When are you leaving?"
"Three days. Bring food, though. It's two weeks to Ruddy Hall."
"Good, I'll do that. So, do you want to help?"
"I guess."
"Good. Grab some of the floor planks."
~~Voluspa~~
~~Voluspa~~
For the first time since she woke up on this strange, primitive world, Taylor found herself genuinely excited about the upcoming days. The thought of being around people again made her chest ache with the loneliness of the last week. When Flurry came to give her a lick and show off the small forest boar he caught, she rubbed her hands in the ruff of his fur. "Will you come with me?"
Flurry chuffed at her, as if he thought the question stupid. She was his now, she was his den and pack. He began eating his snack, leaving Taylor to begin cleaning up her worksite for the night.
It was hard for Taylor to control how excited she felt at the idea of traveling. She dealt with the excitement by working. When dawn came the next morning, she was out of the cave with her handful of precious nails to lay the floor planks over the basement that she and Morag didn't get to the day before. She didn't nail every plank, but instead secured the outer edges after laying them out. She used all but two of her planks in laying down the floor, and more than half of her nails, but it went quickly enough that she finished before noon.
She broke her fast with the last of her flour cooked as a flat bread with melted cheese from her stores. She planned to take those beans she didn't plant from the Crow supplies with her to share with her fellow travelers.
She gathered up all the barley she'd harvested so far and put it in one of her less successful clay pots. She sealed the top with the wax from the first cheese wheel she and Morag ate and stored it in the cave.
She wished she could finish her longbow, but the weirwood would take a year or more to be ready for shaping. The magic of the wood would resist any attempt to speed that process up; she knew it instinctively.
The staff that the White Tree gifted her, though, was something she could prepare now.
That night, over thoroughly cooked pork stew and rye flat bread, she carved Vanir script into the wood of the staff, starting with her name and lineage. She carved the symbols deep but small into the wood, melding the power of her name and magic with the innate power of the wood itself. She carved lines describing her birth, and the journey that brought her to this world. She carved her oath to protect the trees and people of the world, and imprecations against those who would do her or this world harm.
When she was done with the carving, she removed Ser Dalerd's and Mez River's coin pouches. Mez only had a few silver coins, but Delard carried far more of silver, some of which were as large as her palm.
Gold had its place, but Taylor wanted the silver for her staff. Though it could tarnish on its own, she just knew from the truth of the wood that her staff would never tarnish. She whispered to the silver coins, pulling the essence from the shaped metal until the coins melted in her palm. Rather than burn, the silver felt cool to her touch, almost like quicksilver.
"Let this staff be my arm and my fist," she sang in her mother's tongue as she ran it through her silver-filled palm. Where the staff passed, liquid silver soaked into the runes. "Let my magic find purchase and strength within this arm of the weirwood gods. Let this staff return always to my hand, and be a bane to all those with hate in their heart. By my name, Telos of the Trees, by the name of my father, Kratos of Sparta, and of my mother, Freya of Vanaheim, let this staff be the blade and the shield and the might of Telos."
When she finished, the silver in the staff held a powerful, brilliant white glow that filled the cave around her. As she watched, the glow began to fade. The magic did not weaken, it merely turned inward, until all that remained was a six-foot tall staff of weirwood replete with unbreakable runes.
"Perfect," she breathed to herself.
She spent the next day cleaning up and securing her homestead. The tanned leather elk hide she rolled and stored in the cave with the builder's chest. She checked on the weirwood sapling as she did every day, and smiled when she saw a tiny red leaf from the white twig that had emerged from the ground. The spirit within was reaching for the greater magic of the weirwoods deep in the earth. Its survival would depend on if it found that connection.
Preparing a travel pack was a challenge. She had Mez River's Night's Watch cloak, but she knew the large, warm cloak had a bad meaning to the Free Folk. The solution was magic, of course. She whispered to the wool, calling on its spirit to free itself of the dark dye. It answered, shedding the darkened dye like a fine power until only the gray remained.
She fashioned bedding from Chet's cloak and used that as her traveling pack. Her precious, reclaimed linens went in with waxed paper-wrapped food from the stolen stores. Rye, dried berries, walnuts and smoked strips of elk meat made for good travel food. She took the last of the old beans she'd taken from Mez's supplies-she had more white beans growing in her garden for when she returned. Finally, she packed the black cast-iron pot to cook meals in for the whole group.
The hardest part came the next morning. With all her preparations complete, she had nothing else to do but to sit on the edge of her foundation with her staff in hand, Ser Dalard's fine sword across her back under the rolled travel pack she secured with rope and leather pads on her shoulders, and waning patience.
She watched with her bifrost eyes as Morag, her cousin Birs, her mother Usha, her father Shaen and her grandfather Old Shaen made their slow, steady way up the path.
Finally, she judged they were close enough for her to go. "Are you ready, Flurry?"
The giant wolf rubbed against her enough to make her fall over with a laugh. She hugged him around the neck, gave him a good scratch under his chin where he loved it the most, and started down the trail. She slipped her elk leather blindfold on.
She arrived at the wider game trail just as the party from the village arrived. Morag walked beside her mother, just behind her father. The younger Shaen of White Tree walked with a pole that had a moose antler tied to it almost like a flag. Old Shaen looked like someone took a copy of the younger Shaen, and then dehydrated him into a grape of a man, all wrinkles and lines, but with the same protruding nose. Bringing up the rear came Birs, dragging a travoise that held three lambs they intended to trade.
"Good day," she said to them with a nod. "Morag told me I could join you?"
The group of four went still when Flurry emerged beside her. "Will the beast do us harm?" Morag's father asked.
Taylor scratched behind his ear, having to reach up to do so. "This is Flurry, my dearest friend. He will be a good companion on the road. You have my word he will protect, not harm."
"We'll be happy to have you along," Morag's mother declared loud enough to leave the men no choice but to agree. "I'm glad to see you well. We feared for you, when the Crows came."
"Thank you," Taylor said. "Some of the Crows were better than others. I'm ready to go."
With that, the journey began.