Chapter 27 - Snow in the mountain

Riin's POV

Bottom of the Stoney Mountain - Stoney region, Late Fall.

We were forced to moved in small groups of three to five, when we went out hunting, with fresh tracks of our enemies, being found almost daily, yet only once since the raid, had the hunting group encountered the bandit in direct combat. Unluckily for the enemy, our hunters were far better archers than the ones that was encountered that day. They left none alive, killing them quickly of fear for alluding any nearby allies that they might have.

So, for now our food was slowly becoming more and more smoked meat, since we needed any food that we could get our hands on to last as long as possible and with the weather slowly becoming colder each passing night, any meat are sure to last even longer. But as the weather change so does the growth in wild vegetables, so what we have in the storage becomes even more treasured. Still, I know that some stuff grows even in the winter, it is just that much harder to find, but I'm not going to give up on looking. Once a week I tag along with the hunting group to find anything that will add flavour to our meals, I even went and used some of my spices that I had traded myself too from Greta, just to get the taste of something else than pure smoked meat, much to the joy of the others that evening.

Still with the winter at our doorstep we are finding it harder and harder to locate any traveling packs of animals, and with the constant threat of bandits ambushing us on the hunts, we dare not go on more than a half day trip from the encampment. At the new moons coming we will have rabbit stew - yeah, I'm still calling it rabbit stew, just deal with it. It is going to be a surprise for the rest of the men, on our hunt we set up some snares and got lucky, in all we got ourselves five hares. They will make for a good stew, together with a few of the winters vegetables that I had come across over couple last trips, wild carrots, beets and a sack of apples. I was very excited when I found the small apple trees that still had a good amount of fine apples on them, needless to say that I went to work on getting them all with me back to the camp. Yet, if this continue for long I fear that we will be finding ourselves with a shortage of food sooner rather than later. Our diet the last few weeks has been more and more meat and no bread or vegetables to speak of. I know of a cold resistant corn type, but I can't for the life of me remember the name… It will come, the name, just like lightning from a clear sky…

As if all the trouble with the food was not enough, Galore is still watching me, so I have taken to sleep with my knife under my pillow, better safe than sorry, as they say. The time in the mine is now mostly spent with Heca, he is a man of few words, a former soldier and a old friend of Galore, so he got the babysitting job it seems, not that I mind him really, he is far easier to read than Galore.

Just as the season changed we finally got our very own blacksmith building up and running, with its own smelting oven. So far we have been making a good amount of copper bars, we even found some iron. I had asked why it was not smelted into coins and was told that only the royal blacksmiths has the tools to make copper, silver, gold and lastly platinum into coins, so we had to deliver our copper and other coin metal to the noble house of Asperd. At that moment, I was like, waaaiiit a moment… We have a noble running this island of ours? The answer was… Yes, of course we had a noble household, I know silly me for even asking such a thing… So, I did the only thing one could do in such a situation, I spent the few days pestering Heca about information of the noble houses of our kingdom.

So after a good deal of time Heca finally had enough of my constant talking and asking that he told me the basic, that according to him, ‘Any citizen, with respect for himself should know.’ Or so he said, guess mother and father didn't get to that point in life yet and honestly I can fully understand them, I mean what good is these nobles anyway? I have yet to see a banner or a single man talking of any noble house, so yeah, I'm fine without that part of respect for myself, really. On the other hand, I do need to learn more about this place, therein the pestering of Heca and I just enjoy pissing him off, I mean his face as he gets annoyed, what's not to like. Anyway, the kingdom's noble houses was a followed.

House of Eastfair, the most powerful of the noble lines, also according to Heca, it was the house of the current queen, queen Laila's birth house. The house of Eastfair governs form the middle east cost to the capitals border, marking it as the biggest of the houses.

House of Edgefield, rules over the central part of the country, even as the land they govern over is small compared to other noble houses, they hold their own in form of pure wealth. Marked by many as one of the most powerful and influential houses.

House of Zormengrand, governs over the land surrounding and the great forest of Zormengrand. With their eleven crafters the house of Zormengrand stand at the top of the houses since no other house hold power over the elves, who inhabits the Zormengrand forest.

House of Ehathhold. One of the guardian house of the kingdom, the guard the northwest borders against attackers. With their hold spending west over, the house of Ehathhold holds great power in its own right.

House Glorvlesf, rulers of the southern borders. Gatekeepers of the south, they are named, for they guard us from the everlasting wars of the south, the warring tribes of the dessert and kingdoms of the land beyond that.

House Bellfort, the second smallest noble house, the guard the north side of our kingdom, Bellfort, the walled city of the northern border. Their land is small, but they are all that stand between the kingdom and the lords of the vast nord, the land covered in snow year round. They also deals with the inhabitants of the northern lands, they are most known for the trade in cold iron, a type of metal only found in the cold and polar climates.

And after much talking he finally got to the part that had any meaning for the normal citizen of Asperd, the noble house that governed the cost.

House of the Isles, the smallest of houses in terms of land, wealth and power. Yet they had guarded the kingdom's coastline with their small islands and surrounding any navel attackers that feared cross into their waters, getting surrounded from many places. As such they had held their seat of power in the kingdom, with many trading ships crossing into the Isles waters, bringing with them goods of far off kingdoms. With the threat of not letting in trade ships they had held onto power that governed the Isles, weak, in all but the mind.

With my curiosity satisfied, I gave Heca some peace, much to his delight. That was until I came to think of Gerta, she had more… Well… european, look to her, with her blond hair and pale skin, that is all I could compare her too at the moment. He is so going to strangle me… Ah, the joy of life.

“Hey Heca”

A deep growl was my only answer, not that is was anything new, it had more or less become his first response to me, whenever I opened my mouth. He really was not a man who enjoy taking part in long conversations or for that matter talking in general.

“Galore's wife, Gerta, is she for the northern lands?”

He sighed before giving me a nod of confirmation.

“How did they meet, if the north is closed off?”

He stopped his work, turning to glare at me before taking a deep breath, calming himself is seems.

“Galore comes from Bellfort, as to how they met each other, that I don't know. Now work.”

Ending the conversation with a glare my way. Hmm, if he is from Bellfort, can it been that Heca is too?

“He--”

As I started to speak he turned around, rather fast I might add, for one who was mid swing, and threw the pickaxe my way. I jump to the side in a rolling fall narrowly avoiding the sharp lump of iron thrown my way. And while I'm not proud of saying it, it let out a really girly scream as I jumped to avoid the flying object… I mean, I could have died! Holy shit on a stick! Let me get the fuck out of here until he cools off and so I ran up the mineshaft, with as much speed as one could have on an uneven stone floor.

As I more or less jumped out of the mine, I got few looks, my answer?

“Heca has gone crazy!”

A few of the miners placing the raw iron ore into the smelter just laughed it off.

“Cus’ ya’ be talkin’ to much.”

I gave him big innocent eyes, as I ran past him and the other miners, yelling back towards them.

“I would never do such a thing!”

All I got as a response was more laughing.

Elisa's POV

Flood Village - Flinty region, early winter.

Half a year my sweet boy had been away, half a year I had done my best to not run after him as I got the letter, telling me that he was going to follow along on the opening of a new mining outpost in the Stoney region. He had been gone for almost ten months now, I just needed to believe in him once more. Believe that he would be fine out there in the wildness that was the Stoney region, the lawless region… I had to believe, I just had to, I mean, he was a smart kid, fast learning and quick to improve, so I had strong hope for him, yet I still found night where I sat at the window looking into the night. He was almost a fully grown up man, I had to start to let him go… Still I had four years before I really had to let go of him, my sweet child.

As the first snow fell, we heard the first reports of increasing bandits near Flinty Village… my first thought was to my child, was he doing fine, had they been attacked, was he alive? I prayed to the gods that night and the nights since.

Galore's POV

Bottom of the Stoney Mountain - Stoney region, mid winter.

The snow keeps slowly falling and had done so for the last six weeks, with no sign of stopping anytime soon. The hunters are having a hard time locating any type of wild in the increasing layers of snow, yet with the help of the kid they have made reheatable stew of the game that they do catch. While they may be great hunters, they are not miracle workers, with them being forced to stay within a day travel from the camp, there is only so much they can do and food is slowly becoming less and less.

I had a two man team scout the surrounding area to see if they could find out where the bandits that we kept finding tracks of where located, but still after a week there is no word of them, it is starting to worry me. Have they been taken prisoners or killed, I don't know and I don't like not knowing things.

Heca is still watching Riin, I had not told him why he needs to watch the young man, yet… No, I do best in not telling him of the blood magic, he would surely try and kill the boy. While I too hate blood magic, I do not wish dead on the child, but Heca, he would kill him, not that I can blame him for his hate of that foul magic… his whole family was after all ripped to shreds in front of his eyes by that same magic…

We have to last the winter, in spring, a fresh batch of guards will come to change out the ones that are here now, the same with some of the hunters, so we just have to last the winter… we have to.

Riin's POV

Bottom of the Stoney Mountain - Stoney region, mid winter.

Snow, smoked meat and hacking away deep within the mountain… That is all there is to my life at the moment it seems. Weeks of snow with no sign of it stopping anytime soon and with that much snow, we are saving outlets food ration, so that means smoked meat and stew. I'm telling you now so that we are clear in this… I am really starting to hate the sight of smoked meat - even with spices on, and the rabbit stew is also starting to give a bland taste in my mount. Smoked meat rolled in cabbage, smoked meat with garlic and let's not forget smoked meat with dill sprinkle over it… And not least, Stew with a fine mix of rabbit and apple, beets, green onions and carrots… Yeah, I'm so done with smoked meat and stew, when this trip is over.

Once again we head into the mine after breakfast, it took two weeks of me hiding out at the blacksmith's hut and a good long talk between Galore and Heca, before we were on speaking terms with one another again, or at least before he was not trying to kill me the moment he laid his eyes on me.

Two hundred twenty some days we have been digging into the depths of the earth, with a good mining speed of around forty feet mined á day, give or take, sixteen hours in a shift of two man rotating four hours each. We have reached just around four miles deep into the main shaft, the only mining shaft that goes down into the deeps of the mountain. We have gathered mostly copper and iron ore, a single gold vein has been found too, all in all we are getting a big fortune out of the mountain.

As the snow falls and the white veil lays itself down on the roof of the mountains and the forest is filled in a white blanket, we dig in the darkness of the earth, away from the blazing cold winds and the ever falling snow.

At mid winter, we made a break in our constant hacking away in the deep. We had been mining away at our wall for around two good hours, the other team had taken the last of the ore with them back, when it happened, a cracking sound that shook the very floor we were on. As if it was not there, the floor and lower wall broke apart from the shaft and gave us an unexpected view of… Well, darkness and nothingness and so we fell, down into the darkness.