Maiden’s Stream homestead trade piles were stacked with a disturbing amount of armor. A mail harbegon, spectacle helm, another helm and more mail pieces. Shields and weapons as well as grains and meats. There was a decent looking wool overcoat that Calle admired.
Herppa explained, “We just met traders. One of their company passed away from eating bog mushrooms. They traded his goods for valuable furs to take him to his family. They just went north.”
Calle did catch up to them but once again none had anything of silver to spare. They confirmed the poison story.
Calle pointed out a spirit mushroom, “Those take you places. Most mushrooms don’t provide any where enough nutrition to be worth the risk of getting it wrong.”
Moving north another group of traders was on what Calle was understanding as a trade route. One called Bevisin had a silver necklace to trade but all of Calle’s furs were back at the cabin. Calle started hurrying to get them and return but it wouldn’t be in the same day.
“Woah hey!” shouted a man.
Calle was startled. His hand shifted for an arrow to notch. The man made the signs of peace.
“I am Herppa,” the man said, “Herppa the younger. Safe guarding these lands. Many foreigners about and they sometimes draw trouble behind them like when a wolf has caught the scent of a kill.”
“Trouble isn’t may name. I am Calle of Swan Cabin,” replied Calle making the signs of peace, “Yes there are many foreigners this time. Just passed two groups of them south of here.”
Calle decided to give them man a bowl he’d made while passing the hours to meet the water spirits. They departed peacefully.
Hurrying on to Swan Cabin the recent berries were set to dry. Importantly a greater amount of wood was put in the smokehouse. He needed to make up for having not tended it that day between the two overnights to meet the water folk.
A fox was caught in the paw trap, its winter coat already in. By the time that was skinned and the tanning started evening was starting. It would be risky to try to rush out in the darkness. Instead Calle went to bed early and rose in a few hours while it was dark. He trudged the stack of furs to Maiden’s Stream but couldn’t find the trader with the silver.
Called decided to trade away some of the lesser furs for the woolen overcoat. It would be warm without being as heavy as the bear overcoat. It wasn’t as protective but for around the cabin that should be fine.
In the morning Calle checked on chores.
He let out an angry howl.
He had forgotten about the bear leather. The leathering hide of a whole bear was ruined!
Calle paced along the shore. He had gotten distracted. Was it … a week over due? More than that. He really had no one to blame but himself. The reindeer hide had been dehaired as leather well enough. That bear leather he had planned for many big pieces for.
Calle took a breath then another. Had to focus on what’s working. The bear’s meat had been smoked up now. That was an important success. He had plenty of meat for deep winter. The reindeer was almost done.
Calle also decided that for the next while to travel with the more valuable small winter furs. Those might trade off a silver thing for the spirit ritual. Silver for that was a big thing on his mind that he was missing. Meeting the traders was uncommon but finding them with silver to trade was rare. He had see it offered only twice since his First Winter challenge. The other thing to try would be take more furs and seek the traders or maybe the Driik. Winter and skiing season was coming. Traveling meant carrying the skis or just wait until then.
For now Calle needed to focus. Crafting helped get his mind on producing. Back to the smithy. He began bonding steel to an iron shaft. Then flattening the steel to a rectangle, then flaring the corners, then twisting it for an even turn. This would be the cutting part of a drill. Attached to this would be the middle weight fly wheel, a top handle, cross bar and the cords. By twisting the top bar then pushing it down the steel would both turn and be pressed. A pump drill.
That drill was the tool needed for making a steel dome. Iron turned to steel pound over the hollowed stump and the iron anvil. Holes then worked in by the pump drill. It was a rather wobbly looking piece and he’d need a second.
Striding to rest his arm Calle saw across the lake an elk. He’d got a lynx at the same spot before. Circling the land Calle closed in only to result in two arrows onto the lake and one broken on a tree. Shaking arms shivered with frustration.
A determined wrath came over him to get the lake arrows. Circling the lakeshore back to the cabin he brought the punt down to the water. With his hand axe he smashed the thin ice inch by inch into yard by yard. Slowly the punt crept through the band of forming ice into the central lake where the waves still lapped. From here he recovered at least two of the arrows.
Shifting around he saw the elk again.
Gritted teeth and glaring eyes shined as he chipped ice to beach the punt on that shore. He stalked again on the shore pinned elk, fired and the arrow broke.
A strange idea came to him. It would be his strangest hunt yet.
He slide quietly as he could to the peak of land the animals kept trying to cross at it. He crouched among the trees and just waited. A blind spot to them. Half an hour went when the elk bawled, probably smelling him it was that close. Calle fired and missed. The elk trotted away.
Calle slipped back nearby to a different hiding spot. He waited. He hummed tunes in his mind. He waited.
Before him the green spruce turned brown. The brown of the elk’s fur!
He raised but they were so close he hadn’t got he bow fully up when his instincts said to shoot as the elk had seen him too. It scarred a leg badly squirting blood. Confused where to run and flopping a leg Calle swung up not his bow but a leg and kicked out. He kicked it again and again. The battering, startled, wounded confused elk took several before making for a path out of the pocket. It flopped now dragging its hind quarters. Calle pulled out his round headed smithing hammer to smash its skull once and twice to be done.
Now he crossed through his cuts to take the skin back to start dehairing to replace the lost bear hide. The next day two more crossings were needed. Each time he had to chip the ice at each shore. The freezing was quickening indeed!
Into the smokehouse the elk meat went. The reindeer meat had finished. Calle’s food stocks would be quite deep now.
<CALLE 127 shore elk>>>