Shadows of the Past
Chapter 2
The morning after Kaidan's escape from the Thalmor prison was mainly one of travel. Edna felt time was pressing, so she set a pace that would have left most people gasping after the first quarter mile. Even Kaidan wasn't so sure he could have kept up with her if she decided to 'quick-march'. They passed Valtheim Towers, a known bandit lair, by mid-morning, and a woman stopped them.
"Hold it right there," she ordered. "This here's a toll road, see, and you're going to have to pay us, say – two hundred gold to use it."
Edna never blinked. She strode up to the woman and leaned into her face.
"How about you let us pass," she replied in a deadly calm voice, "and I don't kill you?"
The bandit woman visibly gulped.
"Y-yeah…that sounds fair," she stammered. "Only get out of here before the others find out."
Disgust warred with amusement within Kaidan. Disgust at bandits in general, and amusement over Edna's solution to the bandit's attempt at extortion. Amusement won out. He doubted anything cowed Edna.
They quickly resumed their journey and made it to Whiterun, where Edna insisted they stop and stock up on food and supplies. "I can't cook for you if I don't have anything to cook with," she explained. But it meant they both had to shoulder the heavy packs until they got outside the city once more, and Kaidan was able to set up his tent again.
"And you're sure they won't spoil in there by the next time you set it up?" Edna queried, giving the tent a critical look. From the outside it didn't look like much, which was why it had amazed her upon entering it.
"Nothing's gone bad yet," Kaidan assured her easily.
"Except animal skins that should have been tossed back in the Third Era," Edna said sourly.
Kaidan felt his face grow hot; it was not a feeling with which he was comfortable. "Those were my first attempts at skinning," he protested. "I was saving those."
"For what?" Edna frowned. "Posterity?"
"So I could learn from my mistakes," Kaidan said defensively.
"Next time write it down in a journal," she countered. "It will smell better."
Kaidan sputtered, but made no reply. Edna's brashness told him she had definitely spent time in the military. But he sensed under it all that she meant well, and he had to admit that there were probably a few things he could learn from her.
"So where did you actually get that tent, Kaidan?" Edna asked as they continued their journey. "You'll never make me believe you created that yourself."
Kaidan sighed. "Alright," he conceded. "I got it as a reward for a bounty job I did."
"A bounty?" Edna repeated. "You're a bounty hunter?"
"Aye," Kaidan admitted, watching her warily. "Does that surprise you? You have something against bounty hunters?"
"No," Edna replied, shaking her head. "They serve a purpose in this world. Sometimes it's the only way to remove trouble-makers from society. I can't say I've known any bounty hunters in my day, so you're the first, my boy. Well, then, you did a bounty job and got the tent in return. I wonder if its former owner knew what they were giving away?"
"Oh, he knew," Kaidan said with confidence. "He was a mage, and he told me to ask for anything I wanted as a reward. I told him I wanted a tent, a pack, that would hold anything I ever put into it. He made me this." He patted the backpack on his back. "No matter what I put into it, it gets put into the tent. A place for everything, and everything in its place."
"That must have made traveling all over the country very convenient indeed," Edna smiled.
"Aye," Kaidan smiled back. "I've been all over Tamriel, and crisscrossed Skyrim many times, and this tent has always served me well."
They reached Riverwood by mid-afternoon, and Edna decided it was too late to attempt Bleak Falls Barrow. "We can stop in and visit with my niece and nephew for a bit," she suggested, "and we can pitch your tent somewhere nearby and stay there tonight. We can get a fresh start in the morning."
"I like that idea," Kaidan agreed. He, too, had no desire to be halfway up a mountain when darkness fell – or worse, in the middle of a dungeon where one couldn't stop to rest.
They entered the Riverwood Trader and came into the middle of an argument.
"Well, one of us has to do something!" Camilla shouted angrily.
"I said no!" Lucan yelled at his sister Camilla. "No adventures, no theatrics, no thief-chasing!"
"Well what are you going to do then, huh?" she glared.
Lucan shifted uncomfortably. "We are done talking about this," he simmered, then caught sight of the two figures standing in the doorway. "Oh, uh…hello Auntie Edna. Sorry you had to hear that."
Camilla looked as though the wind had been knocked out of her sails and scurried over to sit at a nearby table.
"What's going on with you two?" Edna demanded, frowning. "Squabbling again? Haven't you both outgrown that yet?"
"It's nothing, Auntie," Lucan tried to reassure her, but Kaidan noticed the man refused to meet his aunt's eyes.
"Did something happen?" he asked of the storeowner.
"Yes, we did have a bit of a... break-in," Lucan admitted. "But we still have plenty to sell. Robbers were only after one thing. An ornament, solid gold. In the shape of a dragon's claw."
"You mean that ugly claw thing that was sitting on your counter just the other day?" Edna asked, her eyebrows raised.
"That's the one," Camilla said. "I told him he should put it away. That he was just asking to get robbed. But did he listen to me?"
"Alright Camilla," Edna censured. "That's quite enough. Recriminations help no one."
Camilla subsided, abashed. "Yes, Auntie. I'm sorry."
Edna turned to her nephew. "Do you have any idea who took it?" she asked him. "And was anything else taken?"
"No," Lucan admitted. "Are you saying you'll go after it?"
Edna sighed. "You are my brother's son, Lucan. I could have wished you had inherited a little more of Cassius' common sense, but yes, I will help you."
"Wonderful!" Lucan beamed. The look of relief on his face was, Kaidan thought, almost comical. "If you're going after those thieves," the shopkeeper continued, "you should head to Bleak Falls Barrow, northeast of town."
Edna exchanged a look with Kaidan. "Bleak Falls Barrow, you say?" Edna clarified.
Camilla snorted in disgust. "So this is your plan, Lucan?" she sneered. It was clear she'd seen this sort of thing happen before. Kaidan had the feeling that the Imperial often counted on others to get him out of the messes he'd put himself into.
Lucan stiffened at the rebuke. "Yes," he said firmly. "So now you don't have to go, do you?"
Kaidan threw a glance at the younger Imperial woman. She was prepared to go after the thieves? Points for courage, he thought, but she doesn't have any more sense than her brother.
Camilla refused to back down. "Well I think Auntie Edna needs a guide."
Lucan spluttered, non-plussed. "Wh- no…I…Oh, by the Eight, fine. But only to the edge of town!"
Camilla gave a smirk of superiority as she led Kaidan and her aunt outside. She paused on the front porch. "We have to go through town," she said, "and across the bridge to get to Bleak Falls Barrow. You can see it from here, though. The mountain just over the buildings." She put her hand on Kaidan's arm and pointed with the other.
"I know where it is, dear," Edna said, just short of sarcasm. "It's right there in plain sight. Hadvar pointed it out to me just the other day. Just show us which trail to take."
"Oh, sorry." Put in her place, the younger Imperial led them to the bridge they'd crossed coming into town and stopped. "The path up the mountain to the northwest leads to Bleak Falls Barrow," she told them, pointing it out. I guess I should get back to the shop. Lucan will throw a fit if I'm not there. Such a child…!" She gave a dismissive sniff and tossed her long black hair.
Kaidan wasn't fooled. He'd noticed her stealing looks at him the entire time they were in the shop, and how she had laid her hand on his arm to point out the mountain. She was clearly flirting with him, but she really wasn't his type.
Edna sighed as Camilla headed back into town, stealing a glance back over her shoulder at them. "Ten minutes older and she acts like it's ten years," she muttered. "And not a lick of sense between them."
Kaidan chuckled. "They're your brother's children, you said?" he asked.
"Yes," Edna nodded as they crossed the bridge. "Well, you know what they say: you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your relatives."
They camped on the other side of the river near the trail and packed up again early the next morning.
The trek up the mountainside was marred only by a lone wolf who made the mistake of attacking them. Once they got into the higher elevations, the warmth of the day vanished in a literal cloud of mist.
"Can't see anything in this bloody fog," Kaidan muttered. "Won't know if anything's in it until it bites you!"
"Just stay alert," Edna cautioned. "With the wind moving the way it is, these clouds will break soon."
She was right. By the time they approached the watchtower the mist had cleared away. It made it easier to clear the bandits from the tower and continue on to the Barrow itself. The few brigands hanging around outside were not a challenge, and Edna seemed impressed by Kaidan's skills. She sat down on the steps of the Barrow, declaring she needed a 'breather.'
"You handle that nodachi almost like you were born with it," she commented, pulling her cloak more tightly around herself.
"Aye," Kaidan nodded. "I trained every day with Brynjar, almost from the time I could walk. I learned to use a sword before I learned to read."
"I hope this Brynjar, whoever he was, didn't neglect your formal education," Edna frowned. "In the Legion, if a recruit didn't know how to read or write, it was mandated that they learn…fast!"
"He taught me to read," Kaidan admitted, "and how to do numbers. But any history I learned, I learned from books. We were always on the move, so I never had much of what you call 'formal education.'"
"Who exactly was Brynjar?" Edna asked. "You've mentioned him a couple of times now."
"He's the man who raised me after my mother died," Kaidan replied.
"He wasn't your father?"
"No," Kaidan chuckled. "He most definitely was not. He knew my mother, though. I don't know if he knew my father. He never spoke to me about him."
"That must have been difficult," Edna said softly, "raising you and being constantly on the move. What did he do for a living?"
"He was a bounty hunter," Kaidan explained, "so I spent most of my childhood traveling Tamriel and crisscrossing Skyrim. Of course, as I go on I'm finding there was more to it than that. The constant moving, teaching me how to live in the wilderness, training me every day to fight. I learned how to use a sword before I'd even learned how to read."
"Sounds like you had an odd childhood," Edna snorted.
Kaidan laughed. "For my thirteenth birthday, he took me on a hunting trip in the wilderness – and when I woke the next morning, he was nowhere to be found. All he'd left me was some flint, a knife, and an empty waterskin. It took me two days to get back to civilization, but I'd learned to importance of self-sufficiency by then."
"I learned that too, in the Legion," Edna nodded. "We would be taken out somewhere, blindfolded, and dropped off with little more given to us than you had, and were told to find our way back to our fort. Sounds like maybe your Brynjar might have had some Legion or other military training. But you aren't either. Why teach you that?"
Kaidan shrugged. "I think Brynjar was running from something, and he spent my whole life teaching me how to defend myself from whatever it was. Not that he ever told me," he added. "He was always vague about his past, and even more so about mine. Always promising to tell me one day, and then dying before he ever got around to it." Bitterness edged his voice as he spoke the last part. Kaidan paused and looked out over Skyrim spread below them. "That run-in with the Thalmor seems to have shed some light on it, though."
Edna seemed to hesitate before she asked, "And your mother…?"
Kaidan shook his head. "No, I don't know much about my mother," he replied. "Only that the sword I have once belonged to her, or so Brynjar told me. He also told me she was brave and beautiful and clever, but never anything actually useful. After his death, I took up the job of bounty hunting – it was all I knew, really, and it's led me to some interesting places. And some other years, I…" Kaidan stopped and frowned to himself. "Well, perhaps the less said about parts of my past, the better."
Edna nodded in sympathy. "We all have regrets," was all she said. "And we all have secrets we'd rather keep. Are you ready to tackle that Barrow and find that silly stone Farengar needs?"
"Aye," Kaidan agreed, eager to put old memories behind him. He launched himself to his feet and offered a hand to Edna to pull her up. She smiled her thanks and turned to the huge iron doors of the Barrow.
"Now," she mused pensively. "Let's just see what you're hiding in here."
Their exploration of the Barrow discovered two things: the first being that the band of thieves who had stolen Lucan's golden claw were indeed holed up in here. They soon found a Dunmer by the name of Arvel who had taken the claw deeper into the Barrow, ostensibly to find some kind of treasure for the band to share, but actually with the intent of keeping it all for himself. He had run afoul of the largest frostbite spider Kaidan had ever seen, and the younger man noticed Edna went several shades paler.
"Kynareth save us!" she breathed. "I hate spiders!"
Kaidan had no such qualms. "Well, let's do something about it then!" he roared, and charged forward to battle the abomination face-to-face. Edna hung back and used her bow with pin-point accuracy, though her steel-tipped arrows did little damage to a creature half the size of a mammoth. At one point, Kaidan got splashed with its poison, and he felt the caustic sting on his exposed skin, but his armor took the brunt of it, and soon the creature was dead.
When they cut Arvel down, however, the Dunmer showed his true colors by running off with the claw as fast as he could, deeper into the dungeon.
"Son of a bitch!" Kaidan muttered as Edna retrieved as many of her arrows as she could find.
"It's alright, dear," Edna said, coming up to him. "Arvel doesn't strike me as particularly bright. If he allowed himself to get caught by this spider, he's probably not clever enough to avoid the traps that burial sites are generally laden with."
"You sound like you speak from experience," Kaidan remarked.
"Oh, I've been in a few Ayleid ruins in my time," Edna dismissed. "Nordic ruins aren't much different."
"That sounds like this is old hat to you," he said.
"Oh, don't mistake my casual attitude for incaution," Edna replied. "I never take places like these for granted. One must always remain alert, when you poke around in places where the restless dead sleep, because after all, in most cases they are only sleeping!"
Her companion smiled as she led the way further in, following after Arvel. Kaidan had had few real friends growing up, but he was beginning to feel a closer bond with this older woman. She was smart, she was sassy, and she could fight. And cook! he amended to himself. The memory of last night's venison steak, baked potatoes and grilled leeks was still fresh in his mind. He hadn't eaten so well since he couldn't remember when!
It wasn't much further before they caught up with Arvel…or rather, what was left of him. But before they could find the claw on his body, they had to take care of the draugr, because the fool had wakened them. And this was the second thing they learned about Bleak Falls Barrow: the dead didn't stay that way.
Draugr were harder to fight than beasts or men, because of the fact they were already dead. A slash that would have lopped off the arm of a living person barely scratched a draugr. Fighting them was exhausting, because one had to work so much harder to snuff out the unnatural life force that drove them. It was several minutes before all was quiet again.
"I've read that draugr used to serve the Dragon Priests ages ago," Kaidan mentioned, "and they were cursed to continue to serve them after death. That's why these ruins are so dangerous to explore."
"That makes a certain amount of sense," Edna nodded. "In a few of the Ayleid ruins I've explored, I've encountered zombies: mindless, rotted bodies animated by dark magics of necromancers from ages past. Ghouls, wraiths and mummies were common in those places, too."
"It's one reason I don't hold much respect for magic," Kaidan said. "Too much power in the wrong hands usually corrupts the people who wield it."
"Magic can also heal," Edna pointed out, as she used her own magicka to heal the wounds she'd just received.
"Aye," Kaidan admitted. "But too many people tend to use it for other, darker purposes."
Edna said nothing, but indicated they should push on.
As they progressed through the Barrow, Kaidan had to admit that Edna seemed to know what to look for with respect to traps, or draugr that were only 'sleeping' as opposed to actually being dead. Often she would use her bow and target a draugr that would shudder and collapse when she hit, if it didn't rise from its niche and lumber towards them.
"You couldn't just leave it alone?" Kaidan complained as they fought another she had awakened.
"Never leave an enemy behind you," Edna intoned, as if quoting from some Legion guidebook. "It's one of the first things we're taught. I had a feeling those last three weren't entirely dead. I was right."
The swinging blade traps they encountered almost made Kaidan want to turn around and head back.
"We can't get through that," he pointed out. "We'll be sliced to ribbons."
Edna refused to listen. "There's usually some kind of lever or pull chain on the other side that deactivates it," she told him. "I can slip through and throw that, then you can come through. Wait here."
Not waiting to listen to any further protests, Edna stood in front of the deadly swinging blades and watched them carefully before moving swiftly forward between the first two sets. Kaidan felt his heart leap into his throat, but he held his peace. Edna seemed to know what she was doing.
She jumped between the second and third sets of blades, then finally cleared the other side and found the chain to stop the razor-sharp sickles from swinging. She returned then and said, "See? Nothing to it." Kaidan couldn't help but notice, though, how pale she was, the sheen of sweat gleaming on her tanned forehead, and the shaky quality of her voice when she spoke. She wasn't as unaffected by what she had just done as she pretended to be.
She's bloody fearless, that one! he thought in admiration.
An hour later, after battling several more draugr and negotiating another swinging blade trap that Edna almost didn't make it through, they found themselves in a long hall with carvings on the walls on either side. At the far end was a round bas-relief with concentric rings circling a central plaque embedded with four holes.
"This must be that Hall of Stories Arvel spoke about," Kaidan observed, looking around. "It's too bad we can't figure out what these carvings mean."
"A lot of history has been lost," Edna agreed. "I read a book once that spoke of a time back in the late Third Era when 'time was reshaped.' They called it the 'Warp in the West,' when certain events that had happened suddenly no longer existed in memory. It was a strange time."
"You're very well read," Kaidan observed. "Most of my childhood was spent learning how to fight. Maybe now I should work on improving my mind, eh?"
Edna smiled. "I think that's a fine idea, Kaidan," she nodded enthusiastically. "I'm a great believer in learning. I could lend you some books, if you like. I'm afraid I don't have many on me at the moment, since I'm traveling light, but I'm sure I've got a couple you might find interesting."
"I'd like that, Edna," he grinned. "Thank you."
"When we get out of here and get to a place we can rest, I'll dig through my backpack," she promised. "It's not like your pack, so it shouldn't take me long to find the books I want." Her eyes twinkled and he chuckled.
"So, how do we get through this thing?" he asked now. "I'm assuming this is the door Arvel mentioned."
"Oh, yes," Edna agreed. "I'm sure it is. What did he say in that journal of his?" She pulled the book out of her pack and turned to the last entry. "' The legend says there is a test that the Nords put in place to keep the unworthy away,'" Edna read, "'but that When you have the golden claw, the solution is in the palm of your hands.'"
"The claw is the key?" Kaidan frowned. He dug it out of his backpack and looked at it. Carvings on the palm of the claw showed the effigies of a bear, a moth, and an owl. He looked at the door and noticed the same effigies, but in the wrong order. "Hold on a minute," he said, and moved over to the door. Straining against the weight of the stone rings, he shifted them, one by one, until they showed the correct order. Breathing hard, he gestured to Edna. "Try that claw thing in the center now."
She did, pressing in and turning it slightly before removing it.
With a groaning, grating noise, the wheels turned again of their own accord until three owls lined up perfectly. With another creaking grind, the stones sank into the floor. With a resounding thud, the hole sealed over and silence resumed once more.
"I guess that's our cue," Edna quirked a grin. She climbed up the stairs that led into an open cavern. At first they couldn't see much, but light was coming from somewhere, and soon they could see it was moonslight pouring in from an opening in the cavern roof. It was so cold in here they could see their breath coming out in a frosty mist.
At the far end of the cavern rising above everything else, was a huge curving wall surmounted with a carving of a stylized dragon head. A stone bridge crossed over a stream running through this chamber, and stone steps led up to a platform upon which rested a large sarcophagus. A table nearby held a soul gem and a potion or two, and near the stone casket was a chest.
As they drew nearer, Edna paused, and a frown furrowed her brow. She moved over to the wall and studied the glyphs and scratches there, as if trying to make sense of the hieroglyphs. Suddenly a boom resounded through the cavern as the lid to the coffin blew off, and the largest draugr Kaidan had yet seen sat up and climbed out of its tomb.
"FUS RO DAH!" it bellowed, and Kaidan felt himself flying through the air to land several feet away, bruised and stunned. It lasted only a moment, however, as he got to his feet and shook his head to clear it. Edna was staggered under the blow from the draugr's greatsword, which left a frosty trail through the air when it hit.
"Augh!" she cried out. She lashed out with her sword, but it did little damage as it only struck a glancing blow.
"You will die this day!" Kaidan roared, and lunged into the fight. He swung the nodachi with all the power in him, and was satisfied to see it cut deeply into the draugr's back. The creature turned to glare at Kaidan with baleful blue eyes lit by an unnatural life. It swung the greatsword at him, but he blocked with his own sword and did an envelopment that allowed him to slide his blade around his opponent's in order to deflect it, and clear the way for his own attack.
Edna had regained her feet by this time and shield-bashed the draugr from behind, staggering the monster. She swept her gladius at the creatures' legs, in an attempt to hamstring it, but it moved more quickly than she expected and side-stepped the maneuver. Kaidan brought his nodachi around again, but the draugr blocked his attack and countered with its own, catching Kaidan on the shoulder. His armor took the brunt of the blow, but Kaidan felt the bruising of tissue underneath, and the slight numbing and tingling down his arm as the cold of the enchanted greatsword sank into his flesh.
The draugr reared back as if to shout at them again, but choked and coughed when Edna smacked him again, this time in the back of its head, with her shield. She thrust her sword towards the draugr's vitals – or what would have been its vitals, had it been alive – and met with resistance, but pushed through. The draugr staggered back, taking her sword with it, ripping it out of her hand. Seemingly unconcerned by this, Edna raised her hand and channeled what little magicka she had into a burst of flames directly into the draugr's face.
Kaidan came up behind it again and swept the nodachi across the draugr's unprotected back, and it jerked forward in response before whirling around to face what it must have considered to be the more immediately threat: the man with the big sword.
"FUS RO DAH!" it shouted again, but this time Kaidan was prepared, and while he felt the push of that percussive attack, he leaned into it and swung his blade once more, connecting with the joint between the neck and shoulders. Had this been a living person, he might quite possibly have taken the head off. But this was a dried-out, desiccated draugr, and the tough sinews had had centuries to become as hard as iron. Still, it brought the creature to its knees, and with a final bash and a burst of flame from Edna, the creature lay still.
For several moment all was quiet except for two warriors breathing heavily.
"Well," Edna said at last, retrieving her sword, "I won't say that's the toughest fight I've ever had, but it's the toughest one I've been in for a long while."
"Are you alright?" Kaidan asked, concerned, as she fired off a healing spell.
"I'm fine, dear," she insisted, handing him a healing potion. "You should drink this, though. I'm afraid I don't know a spell that can do the job for you." She looked around. "This looks to be the last chamber. The dragonstone Farengar wanted should be here, unless he's sent us on a wild goose chase."
"If he did," Kaidan rumbled, "I'm going to have some words with him."
"You can have him when I get done with him," Edna promised, a severe look on her face.
They found the dragonstone in the chest, along with some gold, gems and other items which they carefully packed away. There were a couple of items that radiated magic, but neither Kaidan nor Edna could tell what their purposes were.
"I'll have to have Farengar take a look at them when we get back," Edna said. "Maybe he can tell us."
"I think that's the least he owes you for finding this thing for him," Kaidan growled, shifting the pack to a more comfortable position.
"Oh, yes," Edna agreed happily. "That would be the very least! But I can think of a few other things, as well!" She chuckled as they headed back down the mountain to return to Riverwood.
"What happened back there?" Kaidan asked as they walked along. "Back there at the wall. You were staring at it as if you were a thousand miles away."
"You didn't hear the chanting?" Edna frowned. "You didn't see the glyphs light up or the energy stream out from it?"
"No," Kaidan replied, shaking his head. "What was it like?"
"It…it almost felt like the wall was calling out to me," Edna said slowly, as it sorting it out in her mind. "I couldn't understand what it was saying, but it seemed like it was trying to tell me something."
"I've heard those curved walls were meant as memorials," Kaidan mused. "They're meant to be messages left behind for those that can read them. But I don't know of anyone who can. Could you read it?"
Edna shook her head. "No," she answered. She seemed to give herself a mental shake. "I'm not really sure how to describe what happened to me," she continued.
"Maybe that court mage, Farengar, can tell you," Kaidan suggested.
Edna brightened at the idea. "Maybe," she agreed. "I'll ask him."
Lucan was delighted to have his claw back, and looked suitably subdued when his aunt scolded him about being more careful when decorating his store. Camilla looked smug, but Edna whispered something in her niece's ear that wiped the smile from her face. They both hugged her warmly, however when she and Kaidan left to return to Whiterun.
"What did you say to your niece?" Kaidan asked. "She didn't look happy about it."
"I just told her to stop playing around with people's hearts," Edna said. "I know you're not aware of it, but she's been playing Sven and Faendal off against each other for weeks now, and it's disrupting both their lives. I told her to grow up and make up her mind."
Kaidan chuckled. He was liking Edna more and more. She was a no-nonsense type of person who wasn't afraid to give her opinion about something. He disliked indecisive people. No one could accuse Edna of that.
They made Whiterun just as the sun slipped below the horizon, and the sky was all scarlet, mauve and indigo. Masser and Secunda were both out; there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the auroras blazed overhead. Edna paused outside the gates and gasped in wonder at the display nature was putting on.
"Aye," Kaidan murmured. "I've traveled all across Tamriel, but nothing compares to the wilds of Skyrim. She's beautiful as she is dangerous."
"Let's set up camp out here tonight, Kaidan," Edna suggested. "It's too late to see Farengar tonight anyway. We'll get some rest and take the stone up in the morning."
"Sounds good," Kaidan agreed. "And is there a chance of horker stew tonight?"
Edna chuckled. "Are you ever going to get tired of horker?"
"The day I do is the day they lay me in my grave," he announced, and prepared to set up the tent.