Chương 710: Chapter 5.5: To Market, To Market

After my shift, I walked over to Merris' scales feeling the price of a night out of my bedroll dawning upon me. Merris watched me approach, and he pulled the tusk-hare out with surprise. A rare silence. Merris looked at the beast's bristled body and my sagging one, and began with the only one he could price.

"Iron," he said. It almost sounded like he was impressed. He pressed two fingers into the dense shoulder meat, inspected the scar tissue and lifted one thick tooth away from the broken skull.

"Old enough to survive what should have killed it, angry enough to continue the experiment. Your smaller hares are Common."

"Is it valuable?"

"You're addiction to the coin might be your downfall, if it does not come with reasonable care, my boy." Merris peeled the hide back near the flank and examined the cut.

"Forty-one for the tusk-hare. Eighteen for the pair." He continued appraising, "This part here cost you." He pointed at the foot of the hare. I leaned against the scale post.

"It moved."

"Most animals won't mercifully jump into your axe. They all ought to have some kind of survival instinct." He set the hide down and looked at my torn gloves.

"Fifty-nine total." PAYMENT RECEIVED You received 41 iron pieces for an Iron tusk-hare. You received 18 iron pieces for two Common marsh hares. Your Current Coin is now 2 copper and 58 iron pieces. Fifty-nine iron nearly equalled a week of ordinary labour before food. I checked the sum once, then again, watching as Merris exchanged my 100 iron pieces for a second copper piece. I rubbed them together as if they would light a fire.

Merris watched me silently, and then dropped the two marsh hares and fell to the ground like a sack of carrots.

"Merris?" I asked surprised. No response.

"Merris?" I asked shaking his shoulders, alarmed. No response.

"Merris! Merris!" I shook him harder now. Panic set in. Without a moment break, his eyes flashed open, pupils dilating, "You shake me any more and I'll throw up, boy." He stood up as if nothing had happened.

"Whaaat...?" I asked. He looked different.

"Did you just—""Don't say it aloud, but yes. Iron, early. Seems that tusk-hare was rarer than I thought. Enough to offer a single iron (early) ledger skill," he said in a hushed tone.

"If Talvek finds out, he'll send me on trade missions." He returned neutrally to separating the smaller carcasses from the Iron one, arranging each piece according to buyer and use. The tusk-hare's bristled hide would go to the tanners, its teeth into a shallow tray and the denser shoulder meat beneath a cloth marked for iron kitchens. Rank remained visible after death in the quality of everything it left behind.

Merris needed no system notice because the market had spent generations learning how to recognise whatever could be sold.

"Proper hunters go in groups," he said without looking up.

"One tracks, one carries, one keeps the animal occupied. They also own bows, spare blades, and rope," he says calmly.

"Are you not going to talk about—""We are talking about your hunting," he replied without separating his teeth. The afternoon horn ended the discussion, but it was not over. I returned to the yard with my thigh stiff beneath wet trousers and the charcoal lines hidden under a fresh strip of cloth. Once my body warmed, the pain settled into the work. Harl had learned I could sustain double shifts and had every intention of abusing it. The overseer stopped my work on pines, and sent me to the blackpine stack.

Old trunks lay beneath damp canvas, their bark almost black and the grain twisted tightly around knots that caught careless blades. The men beside the pile gave me room without being asked. Perhaps they had seen the tusk-hare. Perhaps my pace had become another reason to watch. I set the first length across the block and tested its weight through the axe edge. Timbercraft found the grain, Axe Strike held the line through my wrists. The first strike was poor, but the second entered cleanly.

The third widened the split until resistance moved lower through the timber. Blackpine punished poor technique. Every poor strike travelled back through my torn palms and made the cuts answer. I shortened when the grain tightened, delayed when the timber shifted, and committed only after the line opened. Rain began above the yard, stopped, then began again while axe, grain and correction narrowed into the same piece of work. I remained exhausted, but without the power to stop the shift allocations.

The work demanded less fear than the forest and allowed more correction. A missed blow bruised my hands instead of opening my throat. I could stop, inspect the mark, and change the next angle without something charging through the time between decisions. The final length resisted near the base. A week earlier I would have swung harder until the knot bruised both shoulders. This time I changed my footing, turned the edge by less than a finger's width and let the weight fall better.

The blackpine opened with a dry crack that carried across the wet yard. ABILITY ADVANCED A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Axe Strike has advanced from Iron (early) to Iron (mid). Your axe blows now carry cleaner timing, narrower waste, and stronger correction through imperfect lines of force. You better identify the moment a strike should be shortened, redirected, delayed, or fully committed.

Iron (mid) had come through ridgefox blood, tusk-hare teeth, wet pine, blackpine knots, and many failed swings. The ability felt narrower, not larger. My hands knew instinctively more ways a strike could go wrong and wasted less strength pretending otherwise.

"Vey." The overseer stood beside the stacked lengths, looking from the clean split to the axe in my hands.

"You planning to admire it until dark?"

"No." The overseer pointed at the pile where the lengths should be stacked. I stacked it. Rank had improved the cut without lifting the timber. At the end of the shift, Harl entered nine iron for the same work the yard would have bought from me before any ability had a name. PAYMENT RECEIVED You received 9 iron pieces for day labour in the timber yard. Your Current Coin is now 2 copper and 67 iron pieces. Four iron bought stew that evening.

A week earlier, losing four pieces would have tightened my stomach before the food reached it. Now the expense looked small beside the pile I earned overnight. PAYMENT SPENT You spent 4 iron pieces on a meal. Your Current Coin is now 2 copper and 63 iron pieces. I tried to sleep for a few hours. I had to. ⚜ ⚜ ⚜ The allure of the night's offerings was too great to stay in my bedroll, as I awoke and tossed and turned at somewhere close to midnight.

I rose and carried only the axe, knife, salt and enough cord to secure what I could manage. Orven's broken spear remained wrapped beside the bed, its bent iron head waiting for coin I had begun treating as too valuable to spend. I stayed on the drier side of the southern marsh, further west than before where the marsh meets the ironwoods. The tusk-hare had showed coin, but I was too tired for another tussle with an iron beast. Iron (mid) Axe Strike did not improve my tracking.

I followed bark squirrel marks in the wrong direction for half an hour and mistook old deer sign for fresh where rain had sharpened the edges. The ability only made each limitation easier to see. I could place a blow once close enough to use it; the forest still decided whether I reached that distance safely. The bark squirrel appeared first, clinging head-down to pine with its flat tail wrapped around the trunk. I waited until it moved to a lower branch and killed it with one shortened strike.

The body offered little meat and a narrow pelt that would punish any slip. I dressed it beneath the tree, keeping the belly cut shallow and drawing the hide from the legs with the point of Orven's knife. The doe took longer. I found her tracks near a low ridge where the herd had crossed, one set wandering away from the others towards exposed roots. She was lean and Common if size, gait, and lack of old scarring meant anything.

I followed until the ground narrowed between stone and fallen timber, then waited with the axe held low. Waiting cost nothing except cold. Rain gathered on the axe head and travelled down the haft beneath my fingers. Several times the doe moved beyond a clean line, and I let her go rather than forcing a chase through the trees. The tusk-hare had made every poor opening look different. Restraint felt less satisfying than the bravado of a stand-off against a boar. She saw me before I moved.

Her eyes were not the same as the albino one I met a week or two back. Its eyes were brown not red, and it looked unintelligently at me unlike the albino that acted like it knew me. The first bound carried her towards the open slope. I stepped across the line and swung once, letting my axe with Axe Strike shorten the blow as her neck turned. The edge landed cleanly behind the jaw. She fell hard enough to kick snow and leaf mould across my boots, then gave one broken breath. The killing had taken seconds.

Dressing her took the remainder of the night. Skinning found the long seams along the legs and showed where the belly hide would stretch before tearing, while the ridgefox had taught my fingers what wet fur concealed. I kept tension with one hand and cut with the other, stopping whenever the flesh lifted with the hide. The haunch still lost a narrow strip where I pulled too quickly, though the waste was small enough that Merris would not punish me too hard.

I returned after dawn with the folded doe hide, the smaller pelt and usable meat bound across my shoulders. My thigh still hurt. The load hurt more by the time Dunmere's palisades came into view, yet neither injury carried the frightened shaking the tusk-hare had left behind. Choosing easier prey had reduced the price and allowed me to arrive with most of myself. Merris inspected the hides with theatrical suspicion.

He held the bark squirrel towards the light, ran his thumb along the doe's belly seam and turned the haunch until the damaged strip showed.

"Less terrible," he said, nodding. He continued onto the deer, "too much pull at the haunch. Belly is cleaner. Squirrel is intact, which some buyer will mistake for rustic charm after I charge accordingly." Merris winked and laid both hides across the scale.

"Twenty-two." He counted the pieces into my palm, then kept one finger on the last coin.

"You are still working days?"

"Not today at least, its my rest day."

"Tomorrow?"

"For now, I guess."

"Those are the words of a man whose newfound iron intelligence might be scheming." He released the coin.

"The awakened path is expensive. Boots wear through. Blades chip. Salt costs, rope costs, bad nights cost, and a room costs when Harl stops including a bunk with your back. Healers cost more than your entire face is worth. Hunting pays because it is willing to take payment first."

"My face is worth something?" Merris snorted.

"To your mother, perhaps. To the market, little." A terrible joke to make to an orphan, but a joke nonetheless. Merris pulled his slate closer and made a column beneath my name.

"New spear haft, at least twelve. Straightening the head, perhaps six if the smith doesn't charge you just because you're awakened. Axe grind, three. Gloves, five for rubbish or eleven for something that survives blood. Replace the salt and cord you used, another eight. Your twenty-two has already spent itself once and is considering doing so again."

"The spear can wait, it isn't really my weapon of choice."

"You prefer an axe it seems?"

"I'm used to the axe, Orven gave it to me as opportunity, but neither feel quite right."

"That sounds like an expensive quest for you, if your ability is forcing you down the axe path," Merris pondered, as if assessing the opportunity. PAYMENT RECEIVED You received 22 iron pieces for a Common doe and Common bark-squirrel. Your Current Coin is now 2 copper and 85 iron pieces. Merris looked at Orven's axe, then at the fresh cuts crossing my palms.

"Orven knew the difference between a good risk and a thirst trap. Do not honour him by pretending they are the same." The warning followed me across the yard. A cart passed carrying river pine towards the saw trench, and the men behind it leaned into the same weight for the same daily wage they had earned before I awakened. My pouch held enough to refuse several days of that work. The bent spear, split glove and chipped axe held claims against much of it.

I tied the pouch and walked back towards the bunkhouse before he could price anything else. Beneath my mattress, the broken spear waited for a new haft. I placed my coin pouch beside it, then laid Orven's axe across the pouch. I laid looking at the shadows cast by the moon, and wondered why Merris did not want his awakening announced. Why he would not revel in the chance to be more than common.