Alaric was worried about Erik, when winter had started Ulr, Erik’s father had spent the better of a week trying to acquire more food, rumours had it he had spent autumn fighting for the duke of Blackriver and his rebellion against the king of Goldhill and therefore had failed in hunting enough deer to trade. SIlver and copper was fine for most of the year but in autumn people rarely traded food for money, especially since the storm had ruined their emergency supply. If anyone would be short on food this year they could not hope to get their hands on the supplies and work them off in the next spring.

Ulr Jotunn was a smart man though, he wouldn’t have left his family if he had not enough food. He missed being with his friends, as a carpenter his father and he were spending a lot of time in their workshop making new furniture and restocking on tools. They had enough food to last through twice as many months as they needed but when Alaric had asked if he could sell some of the food to the Jotunns he had nearly beaten him. The Jotunns were not well liked among the villagers, they had come to Crossingrivers from the Northwall and were the only ones moving to the little town in over a century.

Alaric couldn't understand the reason of their mistrust, Ulr was a fine hunter and a much more likable man than his father. He looked across the room where his father worked relentlessly on a sled, sweat was soaking his shirt as he dressed the wood, strands pooled to his feet. Alaric looked at his own hands and the wooden figure he was working on, he wasn’t built for a carpenter’s job. Scrawny and tall he was a failure in his father’s eyes and the man showed it at any time he could. Alaric’s brother was more like his father, short and about as smart as the bread he ate, Daren did everything in his power to embarrass his older brother.

If not for Cara, the little runt would have been too much for Alaric to handle.

She had always had his back when Darren, who was only one year younger than his older brother, tried to beat him up with his friends. Alaric might be older but Darren was strong as an ox and just as tenacious. Cara might be a girl but she had grown up with five brothers before she moved to her aunt in Crossingrivers to learn the art of weaving. A task she loved about as much as getting shit on her boots, but dutifully she helped her aunt whenever it was needed the other times she went on adventure with her only friend Alaric

As they grew older Erik joined Alaric and Cara and luckily for them the entire village was scared of the boy.

The first time Alaric and Cara had met him was when the two of them were building a small castle below cliff. Alaric was collecting wooden pillars while Cara was forming clay bricks a few feet down at a close by river.

He had to smile when he thought about it, they couldn’t have been older than twelve. Erik had been armed with a small crossbow and an axe when he stumbled out from between two bushes. He had been covered with cuts and bruises, Alaric had been convinced he was a soldier of the duke coming to take over the village until he heard the angry dog approach. Back then the miller had a beast of a watchdog that was known to attack anyone getting to close to it.

Seconds after Erik had stumbled to a halt Cara stumbled over a tree root into the light after Erik. One of her arms had a bleeding bite mark, in her other hand was a bloody knife.

“Did you stab the dog of the miller?” was pretty much the only thing that Alaric had managed to say before the dog jumped at Erik that had the bad luck of being considerably taller than Cara and therefore the easier target.

Before the flying beast, with nearly as much weight as the boy, jumped Erik pulled the trigger of the crossbow and hit the dog’s throat with the small bolt.

The dog bit right into the boy’s hand holding the crossbow, Cara was already back on her feet reaching for the dog’s tail.

Alaric did the only thing he thought would help the both of them he picked up one of the sharpened branches he had intended to use as a defencive fence around their castle and ran towards the other two.

Erik pushed against an earth ridge struggling with the dog, he was constantly cursing while he hit the dog with his axe. The axe had twisted in his hand so the blade did not manage to penetrate it’s skin.

Cara had switched from the beast’s tail to one of the legs and was now pulling at it to get it off Erik.

Alaric had landed a lucky thrust with his make believe spear and punctured an artery. The dog had let go of Erik and tried to escape, but the three of them had hunted it down and killed it.

After that they had celebrated their victory by cooking the dog and eating it in their new castle. Alaric had been crowned king of the hill, Cara was the kingly healer and Erik general over their armed forces consisting of a painted rock and a small tree they had relocated to the entrance of their new ‘High Tower’ as they called it.

They had all gotten sick the next day, the flesh had not been done yet. Alarc had gotten stitches by the town healer, which was Cara’s aunt.

The years after that they had been inseparable, the castle had grown and even gotten furniture. Alaric’s first tries at making chairs, which horribly failed, they were uneven and had the bad habit of tipping over when you sat on them. Still it had been their own little house.

Last year in spring the river had cleared out the entire area and with it their high tower.

The only thing they had found was Alaric’s throne, the thing still stood in his little room. Daren had tried to throw it into the river once, but Alaric had for the first and last time fought with him to keep it. The throne was a symbol for their friendship as much as it was the first thing he made that had not been garbage.

After the both of them had bloody faces and bruises all over Daren had retreated, when Alaric’s father had found out about the fight he had not said a word but treated his sons with salt water, expensive but effective to avoid infection.

The three of them had planned on building something else after the winter, something a bit larger and maybe more grown up.