Chương 18: Chapter 10: Heartstone

The Cataract's common room had grown louder while I was gone. Ferrymen argued over the broken main chain near the hearth, stranded merchants had claimed every dry stretch of wall for crates, and the forest deer drew hungry looks before I finished dragging it through the kitchen door. The innkeeper came around the counter with a cleaver in one hand and pressed two fingers into the haunch where I had wrapped it against the rain.

He checked the clean cut, the hours left before spoilage and the amount his kitchen could use before salt became necessary.

"Four nights," he said.

"Breakfast each morning. I'll serve the fresh cuts tonight and salt the rest before bed."

"For the meat?" I asked. The words left too quickly, and his eyes moved from the dressed carcass to the blood dried beneath my coat.

"For meat I can put on plates without paying someone else to clean it." He wiped his fingers on the apron and pulled the room slate closer.

"You keep the same room, and you stay out of my kitchen while that bandage is leaking. If you want less than four nights, I'll give you coin instead." I watched him cut four fresh lines beside the room number. Yesterday, shelter had lasted until breakfast. The new marks carried me through four more nights without touching the thirty-one iron in my pouch, and I read them twice before lifting the pelt from the dragging frame.

The innkeeper had already turned towards the kitchen, calling for hooks, salt and space on the long table. TRADE ACCEPTED You traded dressed forest-deer meat for four nights of lodging at The Cataract, with breakfast included. Your Current Coin remains 31 iron pieces. The kitchen served the first venison before I left for Merris. I ate standing beside the rear table because every stool in the common room had been claimed, cutting meat from a thick heel of bread while onion grease ran over my thumb.

The stag tasted cleaner than the marsh animals, with no reed-water in the fat and no muddy bitterness near the joints. I finished the bread and took a second cut before a kitchen boy could carry the plate away. Merris was closing the front of his stall when I reached the lower market. Bundles had been raised above the wet stones, the smaller weights were already inside, and only the lantern remained hanging beneath the awning while rain struck the canvas hard enough to shake its flame.

He looked first at the pelt, then at the resin-dark repair along my axe haft and finally at the narrow cut beneath my ribs. His face settled into the expression he usually reserved for goods whose owner had reduced their value through enthusiasm.

"Put it down, dear boy. If you drip on the clean side, I shall charge you for your own blood." I spread the hide across the counter. Merris found the damaged shoulder immediately and followed the bruising with his thumb until it reached the two long cuts I had taken for the axe repair.

"Two men tried to claim the deer after I killed it," I said.

"The haft broke when one of them swung at me."

"Did they take anything?" His hands kept moving while he spoke, separating the clean back from the damaged shoulder and checking where the wet hide had begun to cool unevenly.

"No. I offered one shoulder before they struck me. They left without it." Merris looked across the pelt at me.

"Then you have preserved your property, offended two hunters and removed perhaps twenty iron from the shoulder panel. An expensive success, though cheaper than surrendering the whole animal." He flattened the hide again and tapped the two repair cuts.

"These cost less than a failed axe. Keep taking from damaged sections if you need binding leather." Merris dealt with usable sections. The clean back could become a cloak panel; the belly was fit for lining; the shoulder would need trimming before anyone paid for it. He named each part, wrote three figures on a narrow slate and added them with the same attention he gave every other damaged thing I brought him.

"One copper and fifty-five iron," he said.

"I can have the clean section drying before midnight. Another half day in that bundle and the price drops." The leather pouch landed against my palm with enough weight to pull my fingers closed.

"The men said they'd finish it in town." Merris's attention shifted past me towards the market road.

"They have already told three stalls that the northern ridge belongs to their party. Repetition is cheaper than buying a claim marker, and sometimes nearly as effective." He drew the pelt back beneath the awning.

"Use another route for a few days. I prefer my suppliers alive and my goods free of revenge cuts." Merris had warned me without suggesting I surrender the ridge or pay the men to leave me alone. I tied the pouch beneath my coat and left him to the hide before he found another price my injuries had reduced. The rain had driven most traders inside, though voices still carried beneath the covered stalls, passing along the story of a young hunter taking another party's deer.

By morning, the ridge might belong to them simply because more people had heard their version first. PAYMENT RECEIVED You received 1 copper and 55 iron pieces for a damaged but valuable forest-deer pelt. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Your Current Coin is now 1 copper and 86 iron pieces. Upstairs, I counted the pouch once and separated one copper from the iron.

The larger coin went beneath the folded blanket at the bottom of my pack, where reaching it would require unloading everything else first. I had always saved towards the next meal, the next room or the repair already waiting to fail. This copper would remain untouched until I could buy a sound haft, weatherproof boots or enough shelter to refuse a hunt with blood still drying under my bandage. I slept until the noise below became breakfast.

The cut along my ribs had sealed beneath the bandage, my shoulder lifted without opening again, and the repaired axe survived three careful tests against the bedframe before I stopped finding reasons to distrust it. Four nights remained on the slate downstairs. One copper and eighty-six iron sat beneath my shirt, more coin than I had ever carried and still less than the price of replacing the axe if the repair failed. The hunters knew my marsh trail and the ridge where I had taken the deer.

I chose the eastern cedar runs instead, planning to mark a second route, collect blackpine resin for a stronger haft repair and return before dusk. Two marsh rabbits crossed near the lower fern beds within the first hour. I took both cleanly, dressed them beside the creek and kept the meat wrapped inside the pack, where it filled the empty space without giving me a reason to follow larger tracks. The land rose beyond the last regular hunting markers.

Cedar roots held the slopes together where rain had washed soil from the stone, and the narrow game paths crossed one another without any cut branches or cord to show which belonged to hunters. I stopped twice to check the resin binding and once to tighten the hide strips as they dried around the splints. Toolsmith recognised the repair's weakness each time my grip turned sideways, although recognition supplied no replacement timber.

Blackpine grew thinner along the eastern runs, but I found one storm-broken limb with resin pooled beneath the torn bark. I scraped enough into a cloth twist for two repairs and marked the tree with a shallow cut facing Dunmere. On the return journey, that mark would lead me back towards the lower creek even after the ridge shadows swallowed the smaller paths. Three more cuts established a route that reached the ridge without crossing another hunter's sign. Near midday, the small noises disappeared.

The change began with the crows, whose calls had followed me from the lower ridge, then reached the insects beneath the wet bark and whatever had been moving through the ferns ahead. Wind continued through the cedar crowns while the ground below them held still. My boots sounded too large against the stone, and I shortened each step to keep loose gravel from carrying farther uphill. The first carcass lay beneath a shelf of fern at the base of a cedar rise.

A deer larger than the one I had killed rested on its side with the ribcage torn open and most of the hindquarters missing. The exposed muscle carried Iron (late) density beneath Appraisal, yet the ribs had been broken inwards and dragged apart. Blood remained wet beneath the body, gathering in the moss each time wind shifted the carcass. I backed away before examining the tracks.

Broken saplings marked the slope above, bark had been stripped higher than my head, and three deep impressions crossed the mud where the shape of a paw should have remained. Whatever made them had crushed its own sign under the weight of each step. I could follow the disturbance without Hunter's Eye and wanted no part of the animal waiting at its other end. The safer route towards Dunmere ran south along the ridge. I had turned towards it when a strip of torn canvas moved between two stones below me.

The fabric belonged to a shelter, not a cart cover, and a second length hung from a cedar farther down the slope. I should have left both for a patrol. Instead, I counted the distance back to the markers, checked that the wind carried from the ruined ground towards me and descended far enough to see whether anyone remained alive. The camp occupied the edge of a narrow ravine.

One side had folded across the firepit, broken poles and wet canvas driven into the ashes, while the other had been flattened through bedrolls, packs and a stack of split wood. A cooking pot lay crushed against the stone with its handle pressed through the base. Blood darkened two blankets and the mud beside them, although no bodies remained. The camp had supported at least three people.

Three bedrolls lay at different distances from the fire, three cups had been packed inside the crushed pot and a set of boot prints crossed the mud in sizes too different to belong to one traveller. One print ended beside the bloodiest blanket. The others passed over it towards the northern slope, deep at the heel where someone had been carrying weight or dragging another person. I called once and received only the cedar wind above the ravine.

A shattered lantern rested beside one bedroll, its oil washed into a rainbow skin across the nearest puddle. Packs had split under weight rather than knives, scattering spare cloth, cord and food into the mud. Whoever had survived left quickly enough to abandon everything that could not be carried in one hand. The smell near the rear of the camp stopped me. Iron came first, heavy beneath the rain, followed by fresh-cut sap where no timber had been split.

The charcoal veins around my wrist pulled tight beneath the sleeve. I moved one overturned pack with the end of my axe and found a narrow oilcloth bundle pinned beneath it. The bundle was shorter than my forearm and too heavy for its size. Crimson showed through a tear in the wrapping, deep within the grain of something polished and dark. I kept the oilcloth between it and my skin while Appraisal pressed into the material.

The ability found refined organic structure, high trade value and a blood affinity strong enough to make the charcoal markings contract again. APPRAISAL RESULT You have identified a refined organic core of unknown origin. The object carries high trade value and a strong blood affinity. Your current Appraisal is insufficient for full identification. I wrapped the torn section in a second length of cloth and fitted the bundle between the rabbit pelts inside my pack.

Leaving it for a patrol would have been sensible if I knew a patrol would reach the camp before the thing that destroyed it. Carrying it back gave me coin, evidence and another object that reacted to the marks in my arm. I tightened the straps, and warmth spread through the pack where both rabbits had already gone cold. ABILITY ADVANCED Appraisal has advanced from Common to Iron (early).

You can now better recognise refined materials, concealed faults, affinities and dangerous properties when surface evidence is incomplete. The notice cleared. The oilcloth bundle gave one slow pulse against my back, strong enough to move the pack strap beneath my hand.