by Ember Lane
They all drew back. Aezal crossed his arms and nodded knowingly. Crags tapped his nose and blinked in understanding. Ozmic coughed.
“They will,” the dwarf replied. “They—any of them. Might be Muscat, might be Sutech Charm, might be Zybandian, but as soon as they find this place, they’ll want it, and they’ll come and take it.”
Lincoln’s eyes widened. “So,” he said.
“Yes?” they all replied, their voices hushed.
“You lot think we need an army.”
“Yes,” they all said.
“You lot think we should throw up a great big stone wall spanning the valley like the bridge does, then level all the forest behind it—apart from some nice patches like around the One Tree—and then build barracks and training grounds, have archer towers and trebuchets and take on any who dare lay siege and smite them like ants?”
“Yes,” they all said, beginning to glance at each other like confused children.
“Once we’ve got the resource fields all leveled, we could start on that. That all right with you guys?”
Their jaws dropped as one.
“One thing,” Lincoln said.
“Yes?”
“Aezal, I’ll need a commander—that’s you. Ozmic—you’re logistics. Grimble—defenses. Crags—scouting. There. Anything else?”
“What about me?” Glenwyth asked.
“I was thinking weapons. Elves have a knack of getting the most out of a bow and with an entire village; we could have some of the best weapons around. I can’t wait to see what you can do with a ballista or two.”
“It’ll take a lot of wood,” said Aezal.
“And stone,” muttered Grimble.
“Iron,” added Ozmic.
“And food, is that why you planted all those fields on top of the old castle?”
Lincoln nodded. “And I’ll tell you another thing we’ll need.” He fiddled in his sack and brought out the script Spillwhistle had imbued with their wager all those days ago. I need a hammer and a nail.”
Grimble fiddled in his sack. “Here,” he said. “What is it?”
“A thought,” said Lincoln. “It might just pay off. It’s called a Hero Hunting Script. If it works right, I pin it up outside and it attracts heroes in the same way the cottages attract population, and hopefully, the barracks attract soldiers.”
“You seem to have it all planned out,” said Glenwyth.
Lincoln winked at her and lit his pipe. “Not quite the soft touch, eh? But say the word, and we’ll leave it all like it is. Say the word, and we’ll trust fate. The last thing I want is a city full of soldiers, but then I look at those twenty-five folks who came here, sick and starving, and I wonder how many more we can take. But this place, this vale, stays. If the elves want to relocate up here, then they can. Oh, that reminds me—Edward’s cutting, we should plant it.”
Glenwyth took it out of her sack and put it on the table. “But where? It should be in the center of the village.”
Lincoln tapped his pipe’s pot on the tabletop. It should, he thought, be planted near the family’s farmstead. Edward had kept repeating it as his mantra, and had then chosen to be buried under its sacred roots. Lincoln had wondered why, but had come to the conclusion that it was because he wanted to stay with the elves forever. He stood and wandered out onto the stoop.
The town hall had been built between the tavern and the river, almost like the side of a street that led to the settlement’s bridge. The warehouse was set back a bit on the other side, continuing that imaginary road. All the cottages were built along the banks of the river, making a large, open triangle on both sides of the river. Ozmic and Grimble had built the fire pit in the center of the triangle on this side of the river. To even things up, Lincoln decided to plant it in the same location on the other side.
A village green on one side, and a place to eat, drink and be merry on the other—that would be ideal, he thought. He made a mental note to build a feasting hall next. Both villages, cities, whatever they became, would always have communal feasting halls. It was important that folks wanted to be together, wanted to live together, and wanted to eat together.
“Over there,” he said. “But we’ll plant it when Gillian comes back, and not before. For now, we'll put some soil in one of the empty barrels, add a speed-up and see if we can’t get this thing growing.”
“And put it just here until she comes back,” Glenwyth said, pointing to a space in the corner of the stoop.
Lincoln went out back and retrieved a barrel, part filling it with soil from his closest field and then rolling it around the front. Aezal came out and offered to go and fetch a barrow full of loamy mud from the riverbank. Crags skipped off with him.
“Never thought I’d say it,” Lincoln said, sitting on the stoop, his mug between his legs. “But Crags seems to be fitting right in. Why do gnomes have such a bad reputation?”
Glenwyth scoffed. “You’re asking me? An elf? Ever since, ever since, elves and gnomes have despised each other.”
Lincoln shifted around to face her. “But why?”
“Because they’re chaos. They appear through a portal, cause absolute chaos—trample crops, set up camp the first place they see, burst through temples, party in enchanted vales, and then, all of a sudden, they’re gone.”
“Why are they trapped in the portal?”
“Trapped? I never said they were trapped.”
“But they must be, they can’t have chosen to just be bounced around the globe.”
“Globe?”
“Land. I meant land. Take now for instance, where the hell are they? What’s Digberts king of? Marngs, is she the queen?” He stared at her, his face betraying his urgency. “Where the hell are they?”
Glenwyth grabbed his hands, holding them tight. “Why does it matter? Gnomes are gnomes; they do what gnomes do.”
“Because it doesn’t make sense. The demon under the mountain—I get that—you awake an ancient bane and then you have to deal with it. You get a peaceful vale, and you have to build a battle city just to protect it. Opposites, balance, I can handle all that, but what I can’t handle is that a tribe of gnomes can appear here out of the blue and possibly destroy everything. It’s the randomness I can’t come to terms with.”
Glenwyth let his hand go and skipped down the stoop to welcome a returning Aezal. She scooped out the sodden loam into the barrel, patting it down. Then she reached into her sack and brought out a vial of stodgy, white liquid, emptying it into the middle of the packed mud. “Come hold the cutting,” she asked Lincoln.
Lincoln pushed himself up and ambled over. “Like this?” he said, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger, and planting it in the white goo.
Glenwyth nodded, and began covering the base of the cutting. “The idea is,” she said, her breath hot on his bare arms. “The idea is that the tree binds to the village, to do that…” she said, her voice nearly a whisper… “It has to pair with the elder, or lord in this case.”
“Lord,” Lincoln scoffed. “Can I let it go?”
“Nope. Just wait and watch.”
Lincoln rolled his eyes and wished his ale was closer, but then he felt a tingling sensation in his fingers. It traveled up his thumb and forefinger and then over his palm like a swarm of crawling ants, then on to his wrist and his forearm. As it spread through his body, it no longer tingled but turned into more of a warming sensation that infused him with a glow. He looked down and saw the cutting had grown, budded, and its new shoots were curling around him.
“What?” he murmured.
“It’s pairing with you, in the same way that the one tree paired with Forgarth.”
“Pairing with me?” Lincoln said, but he knew it already. He could feel the fledgling tree, feel its roots stretching, and feel its leaves growing as they soaked up the sun. As the stem of the cutting grew up and past his hand, the touch of its energy faded from him, coursing back into its self, the energy he knew it needed it for its journey upward.<
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“My tree,” he said, standing like a proud father, watching it grow until it was almost a sapling. “If we’re not careful, it’s going to be too late by the time Gillian gets back.”
“No, I think it will be fine. The white paste was an accelerant; it helped the cutting establish itself. At least now, it is not completely defenseless.”
“Defenseless?”
“Like this little settlement, all things are vulnerable when they’re young.”
“Nothing is young for long,” Lincoln said.
They spent the rest of the day in the fields out back. Lincoln showed Glenwyth how to brew ale, hang leaf, and prepare the fruit to yield plenty of yeast. He organized his shed out back so that the brews were all in order, and he planted a load of vine seeds that came with his original starter pack, popping a speed-up with each.
Aezal and Crags set the bar up. Bethe spared them a bot that fashioned a whole load of mugs, bowls, pots, pans, spoons, and anything else that Aezal asked for. Grimble and Ozmic made a load of outside benches and tables by splitting logs and fashioning branches.
It wasn’t exactly a day off, but when dusk came, and some of the new people started drifting in from the farms to see what was going on, the sounds of laughter, incredulity, and then contentment filled the inn and the yard outside. A large pot was placed over the fire pit and filled with water, crawfish, sweet corn, potato, cabbage, squash, anything and everything that had grown and was ready. Lincoln’s ale was a hit, and folks cast their ailments aside. Even Robert and his father, Jack, turned up, though their mood was quite rightly lower than most. When Jack heard the story of the tree and his father, he looked at it in awe and smiled, promising to water it every night.
“She’s been gone two days,” Jack said, once he was alone with Lincoln on the stoop.
“How far was she going?” Lincoln asked.
“Can’t tell you that. I was mad with fever. We coulda walked fer a day, coulda walked fer a week. Didn’t really come to until the day my dad left fer the elven village. What was that? Only yesterday? Is time slower here, or does it just seem that way?”
Lincoln grunted. “It’s a new village, a young village. Heck, when you were young, didn’t the days seem long? Now? I guess they’d shoot by if we were anywhere else.”
“Don’t like getting old. Say, I know the priority’s food at the moment, and please don’t think I ain’t grateful and all just to be here, but farming, well, it ain’t quite my thing. I’m a Crafter by trade, well, on account of that was what was needed when I was young.”
“We’ll need crafters,” Lincoln replied. “Say, what was Edward? Your father...what did he used to do? Seemed to know a lot about logistics and that.”
“Edward. He was our village elder. Pretty much run the place, and he had none of the luck of this place. We were doing all right until the king’s men came. They came one too many times, and we tried to fight back.”
“What happened?”
“Hung a load, killed a load, and chased the rest of us. Gillian, my wife, she blamed herself.”
“Why?”
“Said we were the king’s subjects, said the king would protect us because we were his.”
“I won’t make that mistake,” Lincoln muttered.
20
Thremjin
Glenwyth’s dreams were getting worse. She’d gone from snuggling into him, whimpering and moaning, to screaming his cottage down, her wails blanketing the vale with her torment. Lincoln lay awake all night, hugging her close, and brushing her fine hair away from her sweaty brow. He yearned for morning, and for the end of her suffering. So he welcomed dawn’s amber rays when they sprayed across the vale, and he slid away from her as her nightmares appeared to flee with the kiss of the rising sun.
He pulled his front door open, ready to welcome the new day, and Elleren’s unconscious body slumped in. Jumping back, Lincoln looked down, confused, and Elleren opened her eyes and grinned. “Morning,” she said.
“Err, morning?” Lincoln scratched his head. “What…why…where?”
“You have to do something about her,” Elleren said, still grinning. “Surely you can’t stand by and watch her suffer?”
“I…” Lincoln scratched his head again, but it didn’t rid him of his confusion. “I don’t know what to do.”
She sat up, spun around and crossed her legs. “But I told you.”
“Go see Forgarth’s brother, yes, I remember. The trouble is, I don’t know where to find him.”
“Well, that’s easy.” And Elleren sprung up. “You see, Forgarth’s brother is not like Forgarth at all, so you’ll find him where you’d never find Forgarth. So that’s where you should look.”
Lincoln made to scratch his head, but as it hadn’t helped either of the other times, he didn’t bother. “Can you look after her for a while?”
“Sure,” Elleren replied. “Are you going to see him?”
“Let’s say yes.”
“Good luck then.” Elleren skipped past him, shoved him out of the door and slammed it shut. Lincoln stood just outside of his cottage and wondered what the hell had just happened. He kneeled by the lake and splashed a whole load of water over his head, but when that wasn’t enough, he plunged his whole upper body in the lake, then shook out his wet hair and thought he’d start the day again.
Deciding to check out the peace and tranquility of the academy, he ambled along toward the woods. Something about the place had calmed him yesterday, and after the broken sleep of the past night, its solace was a thing he yearned for. Once he was within its peaceful walls, he sat in its center on its reed-strewn floor, just by the low table. Though he’d never been one for meditation, Lincoln closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind.
He really wanted to help Glenwyth, but Elleren’s advice was next to useless to him. To solve the conundrum of where Forgarth wouldn’t go, he’d have to get to know the elder elf, and even after that, surely there would be a multitude of places Forgarth wouldn’t venture?
Opening his tired eyes, he saw two pieces of paper on the table.
“Bethe?” he said.
“Lincoln.”
“Research?”
“Farming and Lumbering, level 2. You need to upgrade the academy to research, quarrying, or mining.”
Lincoln nodded. “Do I have enough gold for these?”
“Yes.”
He took the first. It showed a picture of a trunk and three stone wedges. The three wedges were then shown partly hammered into the trunk, and then there was a final one showing the trunk split in two.
Congratulations! You have advanced your lumber research to level 2.
Picking up the next piece of paper, he grunted as it taught him the finer points of composting. Again, a prompt came up and told him he’d advanced to level 2 farming.
“And that gives me?” he asked Bethe.
“A twenty percent increase in production.”
“Then we must upgrade, if we can afford to carry on. Twenty percent would be a welcome boost for our iron and stone production, especially in Sanctuary.”
“You will get gold reward bonuses for everything researched to level 1, so with a bit of…”
“Cheating?” Lincoln smiled. Was Bethe learning?
“Cheating, yes, you can level up your mining and quarrying, but you will need a source of income eventually.”
“Agreed,” he said.
“What are today’s tasks?”
Lincoln pulled up his city menu.
Settlement name: Joan’s Creek.
Population: 24. Population capacity: 260
Attributes: (Level, Bonuses)
Politics: (12, 0), Culture: (0, 0), Defense: (0, 0)
Build speed: +12% , Learning advancement: N/A, Defense bonus: N/A
Buildings: Amount - levels
Cottages: 14 – 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,1. Warehouse 1 – 1. Inn 1 – 1, Town Hall 1 – 1, Academy 1 – 1.
Production
Farms: 11
– 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2. Sawmills: 3 – 2,2,2.
Quarries: 6 – 3,2,2,2,1,1. Mines: 5 – 2,2,2,2,2.
Resources (Amount, Production rate, Bonus, Consumption-food only)
Food: (185,280, 3300/ph +20%, -240p/h), Wood: (33,850, 900/ph +20%), Stone: (15,050, 1600/ph), Ore: (5200, 1200/ph).
Settlement name: Sanctuary.
Population: 0. Population capacity: 160
Attributes: (Level, Bonuses)
Politics: (12, 0), Culture: (0, 0), Defense: (0, 0)
Build speed: +12% , Learning advancement: N/A, Defense bonus: N/A
Buildings: Amount - levels
Cottages: 12 – 2,2,2,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1, Warehouse 1 – 1
Production
Farms: 8 – 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 Sawmills: 4, – 2,2,2,1
Quarries: 4 – 1,1,1,1, Mines: 4 – 1,1,1,1
Resources (Amount, Production rate, bonus, Consumption-food only)
Food: (35,230, 800/ph +20%, -0p/h), Wood: (8100, 1000/ph +20%), Stone: (5750, 400/ph), Ore: (3550, 400/ph)
“So, we’re still light on resources in Sanctuary. Let’s go with two level 2 iron mines and two level 2 quarries. You’ll have to stagger them until the extra iron gets there. That’s gonna have to do today. Joan’s Creek, I think, feasting hall, marketplace, academy level 2, three sawmills to level 3, two quarries to level 2 and all five mines to level 3. We’ll put a marketplace in Sanctuary first thing tomorrow and then we can start shifting resources to it easily.”
“All instructed,” Bethe said.
“How’s the ridge work going?”
“Around thirty percent complete, certainly much more passable.”
A slow clap rang out, followed by a haunting laugh, and at first, Lincoln was plunged back into confusion. He glanced around, searching out its source. The sound seemed to be bouncing around the open-plan room, yet Lincoln knew that was not possible.