by Ember Lane
“And some, probably too nice,” she replied. “The other dwarves tell me his ale is good.”
“Meh! Looks like an age or longer since they done some honest toil.” He showed her his palms. “Hard skin. Dwarf’s skin, like the mountain itself.” He grunted and slapped his knee. “Glad I don’t have to wear this clobber too often. Good fer bangin’ sense inta heads though.”
Lincoln disappeared out back, pulled out one of the barrels and gave it a taster. “Rubbish,” he muttered, and fiddled in his sack, bringing out the last of Pete’s herbs. He sprinkled some in, popped a speed-up in with it for good measure, and sighed. “Not the way to brew a good ale.”
Congratulations! Practice makes perfect. You now have level 2 brewing. The taste is in the testing.
Back in the tavern, he set the barrel onto a stillage on the bar, tapped it, and filled Dunaric’s mug.
“Now,” Lincoln said. “It’s not—”
Dunaric drained it in one. Held his lips tightly shut, and looked seemingly through Lincoln before appearing to come to a conclusion. “That is some sweet tasting ale,” he said, smacking his lips. “Where did you get it?”
“Where? I brew it myself. The decent stuff will be ready in a few weeks. Once I’ve got some vines matured I’ll ferment some wine, then whiskey. By summer, I should be fully stocked. Just one problem though…” He refilled Dunaric’s mug.
“What’s that?” Dunaric asked, taking back his mug.
“Fledgling village. No gold, no way to employ folks to do stuff like farming, lumbering, that kind of thing. Tell me, Dunaric, you seem a clued-in dwarf, how would you go about paying folks, without any money?”
Dunaric puffed out his chest. “Same way we did before humans stamped the coin. Food, ale, and a warm hearth were all we needed. Good times them, not like it is now, all rush, rush, rush.”
“Really?” Lincoln said. “And for that, folks'd mine and quarry? Mind you, when you taste my decent ale, well, I’ve known folks to beg fer it. Did I tell you that the king of Brokenford tried to have me arrested, just so he could make me his brewmaster?”
“Nope, but if yer real ale is better than this, it’s a mighty fine ale.”
Lincoln tapped his fingers on the counter, made to go over and sit with Dunaric, but looked straight at Glenwyth instead. “I can’t see folks quarrying and mining just for a warm hearth, good food, and outstanding ale, can you?”
“I reckon they might,” she said, clearly trying to keep a solemn expression in place.
“They might and they will,” Dunaric declared. “And make a better job of it than those copper-colored things. Wouldn’t want to live down here though. Up in the foothills, near the rock, that’s the place to live.” He gave his now empty mug back to Lincoln. “Why? You reckon you could swing it with them?”
Dunaric pointed outside.
“Who, Crags, Aezal, Ozmic, and Grimble…reckon so?” Lincoln leaned in. “Reckon they might even cut you in on traded stone and ore if you’d rouse a bunch of dwarves. Say, twenty max while the ale gets brewing.”
“Paid as well?”
“Once the settlement’s trading. No gold till it’s trading.”
Dunaric thought about it, then nodded. “Reckon so.”
Lincoln handed him a small block of leaf. “Grow this out back too.”
Dunaric straightened. “Then I reckon we’ve definitely got a deal. Twenty folks starting tomorrow, cottage up in the hills, and ale and food with tobacco thrown in. I’ll drink n’more of your ale till I’ve earned it.” He stood, shook Lincoln’s hand and marched out.
Congratulations! You have proved a shrewd trader and struck a bargain where none was easily available. You have leveled the skill commerce. You are now level 3.
“Now I can have the day off,” Lincoln grinned.
“I think I’ll try me some of that ale,” Glenwyth said, a smile finally gracing her lips. “Oh, and if that’s the going deal, there’s a small tribe of wood elves in the eastern forest. They’d take on your sawmills for a few decent tree houses.”
Lincoln poured her a mug of ale. “Do you know, that might just make it worth taking the day off. Bethe?”
Bethe floated through the front door. “Yes, Lincoln.”
“Add two level 1 cottages to today’s build, by a stream, up in the foothills near the quarries. Once the bots come into being from the new cottages get them to upgrade them both to level 2—it’ll give the dwarves a nice hearth. They’re taking over our mining and quarrying activities.”
“Very good. It’ll have to be later when you have iron reserves.”
“Good enough. Now, let’s brew some more ale.”
Aezal burst into the inn. The big warrior looked confused. “What the heck did you say to the dwarf?”
Ozmic pushed Aezal out of the way.
“Don’t you tell me you’re paying that lowlife, stone-eating, ginger-bearded growler. You don’t want his lot. They won’t lift a chisel t’help anyone. Trouble, I’ll tell yer.”
Grimble spilled in and pushed Ozmic out of the way. Ozmic barged Aezal farther into the room.
“Stone dwarves, bah! Greedy ‘tards, you’ll get nothing for free from them.”
Crags burst into the inn and barged Grimble, but Grimble didn’t budge.
“So, yer gettin’ the dwarves to cut and mine fer free. Nice going, Lincoln. Can I have some ale?”
“Eh?” said Aezal.
“Eh?” said Ozmic.
“Eh?” said Grimble.
“Guess what?” Lincoln shouted. “No adventures today, no trees to move. We’re just sticking here. Who wants ale?”
Grimble and Ozmic muttered some unheard words. Crags muttered, “Someone needs to say it.” Aezal took a seat close by. He sat like he had something important on his mind.
“And about time, we need to have a chat,” he eventually said.
Lincoln lofted his eyebrows. Aezal appeared a little grim for someone who’d just been given the day off. Lincoln poured ale in each of their offered mugs and then sat with them. Aezal looked like he was trying to come up with a tactful way of saying something bad. He cleared his throat.
“You’re too nice,” he said, as if the words had been stored in a dark place and could now finally burst free.
“Too nice?”
“Yes.” Aezal nodded his head. “This land will butcher you and hang out your entrails ready for any to pick at.”
“Really?” Lincoln’s eyebrows arched even higher.
“They’ll come,” said Crags, “and they’ll take everything from you. They’ll slaughter the men, rape the women, and press all the children into slavery.”
Lincoln leaned in.
Opposite, Aezal, Crags, and Ozmic leaned in.
Next to him, Glenwyth and Grimble leaned in.
“Who will?” Lincoln finally asked.
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,” Lin
coln 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.
“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 c
ame, 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.