“How did we hear it way out hear over a hundred miles from land?” Tia asked, truly fascinated by the communication system.

  Tic wondered why they didn’t have something like this from Lemure to the capital, but then realized almost immediately. This was frozen, barren land that was covered in ice and rock where sound would carry for many miles. It was nothing but forest between Lemure and the capital so sound simply wouldn’t travel well. They did have a signal system using flags and semaphores, as well as watch fires and reflections. Maybe the sprints used something like that?

  “That is a good question, one that we are not sure of, either way we are leaving by the end of the week so get as much of your work done as you can,” he said, indicating the boots.

  “But our skiff is a mess,” Tic said thinking of the broken mast and lack of supplies.

  “Your skiff has already been fitted with a new mast and resupplied for you.”

  “Great, another mast to split,” Tic said, letting his feelings be known. He had come close to dying that night, in fact he felt that he had died and waking up in a flooded cabin would forever haunt his dreams. He didn’t need to go through that again just to say he lived an exciting life.

  How people can spend their life on the sea is beyond me, Tic thought, not wanting his dread of the next leg of their journey to show on his face.

  “Really? That’s very nice and unexpected,” Tia said, knowing that they weren’t giving out any discounts on their boot repair set up.

  “Yeah, some of us felt a little guilty at how Rowen set you up and thought they would make it up to you. Rowen paid for the materials and product so it all worked out.”

  “Once I saw Uncle Rowen, I knew that I should have expected it. He is famous for putting all of his nieces and nephews through hell until they figure it out or start crying. He’s a good uncle really, he just has a twisted sense of humor that always keeps you looking over one shoulder.”

  “That he does, boy, that he does. Hmmm, I wonder if he put his own kid through that.”

  “Luckily, Uncle Rowen doesn’t have any children,” Tia said sarcastically as a small trail of dust was seen across the clearing and back in the woods, it was coming their way very, very quickly.

  “Oh, the sprint is here already, let’s go up to the lodge and hear what’s going on,” he said dropping the current subject. Tia was watching the sprint and didn’t catch the side eye from Kyle. Tia was marveling at the speed of the small terrier sized humanoid…at least most of him was human the lower half being like a goat but with shorter hair like a bull or kind of a horse. The creature rippled with muscle and moved with a perfect symmetry that it looked as if running was actually more relaxing for it than standing still.

  Tic on the other hand was watching Kyle, and at the mention of Rowen being childless there was the barest slip of…something or some sort of reaction.

  A reaction to…what? Rowen, as our representative outside of Lemure, was away from home for long periods of time. Why wouldn’t he have relationships elsewhere, he certainly never did back home. Then why would he keep them secret, there certainly wasn’t an heir to the business as that was established as soon as Dad stopped having children.

  It was nothing but a glance, Kyle never said anything, but that glance meant something. Whatever it was, was enough for Tic’s curiosity to perk up. Maybe there is more to his uncle than he had originally thought?

  With frost piners being an independent lot, they didn’t have a king or any type of parliament. Instead it was co-ops, unions, and communities, that controlled their economy. It takes many piners to harvest Tekundralokai, so many gather together for the event then share equally in the profits, provided everyone pulled their share of the load. They were a powerful group used to living off the land, so the idea of a slacker was absurd and a virtual non-factor. These ventures, however, did need an organizer and in this instance, it was Bjorn.

  “The elves, it seems, have had a rough time of things lately. It seems…” This was quickly becoming his intro into every sentence. “…their high king was killed; assassinated they say, murdered by sorceress’ beasts. Now, I don’t buy into that business any more than you do, but there was the sorcery issue at the west gate of the Riverhouse and some of you have claimed to have met that spider…whatever.”

  “She calls herself Dyanna, but I don’t think that is her real name, if she even has a real name,” Nikki spat showing her disapproval of the meeting.

  “She’s a creeper, but she’s also something special to look at, not that I would entertain the idea of a human being anything to interest my tastes,” Byran said and getting the rest of the group laughing.

  “Yeah, have a jump with her and you’ll find things shriveling up and dropping off like roasted plums,” Nikki replied, eliciting even more laughter.

  “It seems…” Bjorn said getting everybody's attention again. “That there are some things going on back home and I’m feeling the urge to get back there, so I am calling for us to pack it in here for the year. We have had a good harvest up to this point so we are leaving in three days because that is the fastest I can see us breaking down and moving.” He paused for a long bit, but nobody left as they could see he had more to say. The news of their departure didn’t take anyone by surprise after the horn sounded.

  “It seems…” Kyle prompted.

  “Ah, yes…it seems that the elves have asked us to join with them in this war. We are few, but we are strong and they feel that we are in need of each other right now. I can’t make any decisions for you but I can tell you for my own self, I will not be joining in an elven war. We had a warm winter last year and I need a good cold winter to make up for lost profits, so I will not be going off to fight against some magical creatures that I do not even believe to be real,” Bjorn finished and the siblings could tell that pretty much all of them down to a person agreed. They had recently found out that frost pine has to be harvested in the coldest days of winter while the sap is frozen or it is useless for anything but fire wood.

  “I would help an elf out if I found something going on in my woods, but to tell the truth, I haven’t even seen an elf in years and I have never sold one so much as a cured staff,” Byran said from the crowd.

  “They have been having problems up in their own lands, I have a cousin who went up there with his friends to play mercenary. Several of our kind have, but they rarely come back, they either like it or…well, you know,” a woman Tia didn’t recognize said.

  “Aye, I’ve got a sister doing the same thing,” Nikki said.

  “Is that where Natalia is?” Bjorn asked.

  “Yes, but she asked me not to tell ya.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “She says you won’t take no for an answer,” she mocked and the crowd again started to scream with laughter until Bjorn’s waving hand calmed them down.

  “It also seems, there is a new threat in Riverhouse. Have any of you heard of the muridai?” No one responded. “Well keep an eye out, the sprint said they are raising more than a little bit of havoc in the tunnel.” The tunnel being the offhand reference for Riverhouse.

  The group dispersed and Bjorn looked at the two siblings who sat there still quite stunned by what was going on.

  “It’s not too late for you to turn around and go home,” Bjorn said, causing Tia to look at Tic as if she was actually considering it.

  “No,” Tic said without hesitation. “I want the closest port and hope I never get on one of these god-awful contraptions ever again.”

  It was later as they worked that Tia brooked her question.

  “Tic, do you remember the dwarfs that stayed at our travelers house a couple months ago?”

  “Kind of hard to forget them, Tia, as they are the only dwarves I have ever met, why?”

  “Well, I snuck out that night and was listening to them talk to Dad and they mention these muridai. They are devilish creatures from what they say.”

  “Okay, and…?”

  “No and, just thought you should know that I have heard of them is all” Tia said and Tic shrugged and went back to work.

  17

  Passage

  The frost piners kept them back from the canoes that launched on the opposite side of the logs to guide them toward the main current. There were floating platforms on the north side of the caravan of timber, but they were just there to count and catalog numbers and sizes as they passed to verify what had already been counted. It seems the dwarfs at Riverhouse had a problem with counting logs, with the numbers always leaning in the dwarf’s favor, so the piners kept their own accurate and up to date counts. They even used matching pieces of tin that were numbered. One was spiked on to the trunk while the other was thrown in with the records so a man could take and simply count the discs for the most accurate count all because they couldn’t trust the dwarfs to not try and skim a few trunks for themselves.

  Once at sea, they soon met up with other groups of piners who had reacted the same way to the horns and were hurrying back to care for their homes and family they had left on the main land. It looked to the siblings like one massive unruly beast of which any part could sling out wildly to maim or kill.

  On the second day after they had joined with the other piners coming in from some of the other islands of the Matoone. Bryan was out walking on the massive path of floating logs, which wasn’t unusual as there seemed to be a lot of jambs that had to be unraveled. Tic in particular was amazed at the courage that it must take to walk on top of the floating logs that looked to be no more than sticks under the large booted feet of the frost piners. Bryan and four others were struggling to break up a jam that had seemed to form for no particular reason. They prodded and pried with long poles and cant hooks, trying to get two of the logs that had gone crosswise back into the flow.

  Their huge arms bulged and shoulders rippled as they pushed and prodded the logs, feet planted solidly upon the floating platform. Tic watched as they hammered on the log they walked upon moving it a little more with each step. Then with a tearing noise that sounded more like the scream of a wounded animal, the jam broke free.

  The logs they walked upon started to shift and spin causing four of the five to jump back to more stable footing, but one of the trees spun opposite of what was predicted and a burly blond piner neither Tia or Tic knew was suddenly pinned between the logs. With half of his foot in the water and his leg pinned above the knee he tried to avoid his leg being twisted off completely. He gasped and there was a loud snap that Tic and Tia knew wasn’t wood.

  To the frost piners credit he didn’t scream, instead he put his head down and started to pant. The men who were at one time right next to him were suddenly several feet away as the log jam separated naturally from the flow of the current as the offending log was removed.

  Another man roared and they looked quickly to see Bryan running toward the injured man at full speed, but there was nothing but fifteen feet of water between him and the trapped piner. He leapt, forcing his massive bulk through the air in a low arc that shouldn’t by all rights have made the distance, yet he did. He landed on the far log with both feet forcing it off the pinned piner’s leg, freeing him from the confused mass of logs. His leg hung limply, obviously broken.

  Bryan’s effort was valiant to be sure, but failed in the sense that the log spun again, dumping the injured piner he had freed into the icy water. Tic thought he saw a couple of heads bob for a second before they disappeared under the current. Tia cried out and several of the piners rushed over to the opening between the logs but there was nothing to grab, Bryan and the other man were gone.

  Tia pulled her hands to her eyes and started to weep. She hadn’t gotten to close to any of the piners, as they are typically a stand-offish lot, but Bryan had been one of the few who had gone out of his way to make sure they were getting along alright. He was friendly, outgoing, and would sit with them while they worked on boots, talking about the land that they were headed to.

  “So young,” Tia managed to sob before burying her face in her palms. She was so consumed with despair that she didn’t even hear Tic calling for her the first few times he tried.

  “Tia!” She pulled her face from her palms and looked irritably toward her brother who was wrestling with something over the side. “Get some ropes and come over here please.”

  She practically threw the rope in his face wanting to lash out in her grief until she looked over the side.

  “Oh gods, Bryan…but.”

  “Help,” Tic grunted as he struggled to hang on to the rope that held two piners, dragging them through the water.

  Tia went instantly from heartbreak to woman of action as she dropped the sail, threw out the drag hook, and lashed the end of the line to a bullock. Then she ran to the cabin and got the ladder with the rail hooks and dropped it over to Bryan who instantly grabbed the lowest rung.

  Tic in turn looped the rope under the arms of the unknown piner and tightened his grip.

  “Tia, help me with this rope,” he said and she stepped up beside him and wrapped her hands around the braided hemp and braced her feet. “Okay, Bryan, we can hold him up until you get up here but we can’t lift him without you.”

  In an instant, Bryan was on deck, and much to Tic and Tia’s surprise he was smiling as if this was just another part of the job that he loved. Together, though mostly due to Bryan, they hoisted the other piner up and over the side of the skiff, the craft rocking violently with the weight of the two giant men. He too was smiling as he allowed himself to be dragged on to the deck.

  “Hello, little people,” he said with obvious sarcasm. “Thank you for having your boat so handy, my name is Thorvald and it seems that I am to be your guest for a time.”

  “Well, let’s see if you can pay the rent first,” Tia said sarcastically. “What happened to your boots?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t even feel them leave my feet.”

  “Hmmm, this sounds like it is going to be an expensive trip for you,” Tia said with a smile as she laid a hand on Bryan’s shoulder.

  “What was that you said?” Bryan asked, serious all of a sudden.

  “What, it’s going to be an expensive trip?”

  “No, before that.”

  “Ahhh, I don’t remember.”

  “It sounded like… Oh Bryan, no… boo hoo…I’m so sad,” he suddenly started mocking Tia for her reaction to his falling into the water.

  Tia growled and shoved with all of her might and, even though she could never budge someone of Bryan’s girth, he fell backwards into the water, laughing all the way. He swam back to work while Tic tended the sails and rudder and Tia tended to Thorvald.

  It was an internal break that hadn’t come through the skin, but still took both of the siblings and a rope around the mast to set his massive leg.

  “Oh yeah, that feels better,” Thorvald said after a slight wince. “Yep, much better indeed. I should be moving around by the first snow.”

  “First snow, that’s in two and a half months. It is going to take you longer than that to get back on your feet, that’s a femur…it needs time to heal,” Tia said forcefully as Tic wondered how thick a frost piner’s femur must be.

  “No, no, no…that will never work, I will starve if I take that much time off. I am already operating at a loss by not being able to work the herd the rest of the way, not mention the boots that I have lost and then what I owe you on top of it. I will be working in two weeks, three at most. Then I will have to get off of my lazy butt and get back to business.”

  “Owe me? You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Oh, but I do, we have a long way to go and I need a ride.”

  “You don’t have to pay me or us. We’re going that way anyway.”

  “You have a lot to learn about business, son,” Thorvald replied to Tic.

  “We have better ways of getting money out of you than preying upon your weakness,” Tia said with a smirk. “Now how big is your foot so we can get a temporary on you while your new boots are being made.”

  A pack appeared from nowhere and landed in the center of the skiff. “I won’t be needing the temporaries as I got some lokai furry’s in here,” Thorvald said and grabbed the pack. “However, a set of stompers with those newish toes I been hearin about would be mightily appreciated.”

  “Done. Tic, steer the skiff for a bit while I take care of something.” Tic didn’t argue, after having grown up with her, he knew what that particular sentence meant and he personally used the pot once or twice a day himself.

  Once they hit the main current there was a definite change to how everything flowed and they marveled at how quickly the current moved them along. Thorvald simply sat and watched the shoreline pass by as if he had never seen it before, but then he would smile as if the terrain was dotted with long lost memories of forgotten times. He was an old man looking upon some memory he held close to cherish its very existence. Memories are like that for some people, it’s as if everything they lived through happened strictly for the purpose of making them who they are. Others pass it off with a shrug, preferring to live in the present or look toward the future. Thorvald was the former, and memories were why he lived. He hummed lost songs from a childhood spent upon the frozen wastes of Bjorvic that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  One day, the man gasped and Tia looked toward him to see him gazing deep inland, and she too saw it. A fire set far back into the trees blazed fiercely without regard or fear of notice. Off to the north there were more fires, huge fires, blazing through the mist for miles, the harder she looked the more fires she saw stretching all the way to what looked to be mountains in the distance.