Chapter 9

Well, we had started moving again as soon as the weather had let us. We were well south of our starting point and we no longer saw any signs of the giant prairie fire. Our river had joined another river, and we were now traveling almost due west as we followed this new river which was more than twice the size of the one we had been following.

I began to think that we had been in danger of missing the Black Sea. I figured that we had been too far east and would have gone sort of between it and the Caspian Sea if we had kept on the way we were going. It really made little difference to me which sea we found. I just wanted us to be on the edge of a major body of water and far enough south to miss the bad winters. Frankly, Chief Umgallah was beginning to show signs of advanced age, and I wanted us to get far enough south that he would not have to fight the harsh winters any longer.

I had a selfish reason for this. I was afraid that when Umgallah left office, I might well be stuck with it. Many people had started coming to me for the solution to problems having nothing to do with the normal shaman's duties. At first, I was afraid that Chief Umgallah would be annoyed at this, but now I can see that he has been relieved to be able to shift so much of the petty details to someone else's shoulders. Well, I am glad to help any way I can, but I sure don't really want the job of chief of the Olgars.

As a case in point, we have started to encounter more people than we had ever seen when we lived farther north. I was sure that this meant that we were getting near to a major sea, but I could not be sure without asking questions. My opportunity to ask the necessary questions came when our caravan approached a small town. Umgallah was not feeling well, so he asked me to go as his representative to talk to the locals and to see if we might find some useful trade items.

Well, now that I had official approval, I made ready to visit the town. I asked Wogal and two of his men to go with me to act as sort of an honor guard. I would have my assault gun with me, so I did not expect to run into anything I couldn't handle. The honor guard was more "to impress the natives" than to do anything else.

We rode into town and stopped at the main gate. This town actually had a protective wall! That made me a bit suspicious of local conditions, but it was just another one of those pieces of information I wanted to uncover. We rode up to the guards posted outside the gate and halted when they ordered us to. We were in luck as to language: they spoke a version of the same Greek we normally used, so we could understand each other.

I said that we were from a caravan moving south to escape the bad weather farther north, and I would like to speak to the town fathers (that's the way the word translated). The chief guard asked us to wait while he sent a man to see if the town fathers were available to meet with me.

While we were waiting, I gave each of the guards a piece of our auroch jerky to chew on. That was an especially welcome gift, since the common folk rarely were able to get beef lately. It seems that a warlord had moved in and was keeping the usual hunters from going after aurochs and similar creatures. Aha! There was a business opportunity for us to exploit. All we needed was a contract, and we were in business!

The messenger had received his piece of jerky before he left with our request, so he was able to point out to his superiors the potential advantages of talking to us. We were invited to city hall at our earliest convenience.

At the city hall, all that the dignitaries wanted to talk about was the possibility of us supplying them with meat. They were serious enough to offer us metal cash money for the meat. I seemed that a warlord had just recently moved in. He was leaning on them very hard and had made life very difficult for everybody, but especially for the lower classes. The only protein readily available now was some low grade fish which came from the Dark Sea only about 25 klicks away. This comment told me a hell of a lot. For one thing, we may well have found the large sea I was looking for.

Anyway, I spent about an hour negotiating a contract for us to supply the town with the equivalent of 20 aurochs per day until they had received a total of 200 animals. The deal was that we would slaughter, butcher, and deliver the meat to the town, and the townspeople would take it from there. We would receive 100 copper pennies for each animal we delivered. I was not sure that we were getting a fair price for the meat, but I figured that it was a good starting point. We had no immediate need for the money at this point except to buy vegetables, and I was assured that I could get plenty of vegetables for that kind of money.

They were amazed when I demanded a written contract. No "barbarian" had ever done that before. They were even more surprised when I was able to read the contract, something not all of them could do. I read the contract, discussed a few minor points to prove that I had read it, and then signed the contract. They had also signed, some with "Xs," and we had an agreement. The first delivery was scheduled for six days, hence.

As part of the agreement, we would park our caravan next to their southern wall where the water supply entered the town. I insisted on that because I wanted to be sure that our water was available before it could be polluted by the town. I thanked the town fathers for their business, and we left to return to the caravan.

I showed the contract to Chief Umgallah, and he was pleased at what I had done. We were in need of a good place to stop for a short rest, so this was a great chance to show a little profit while we did some R&R.

Wogal and I had talked about the way we would handle the meat harvest, it could hardly be called a hunt, while we had ridden back to camp. The first thing we would do would be to set up our camp at the town. Once we had the camp set up, wagons would be freed to haul meat. We had been given the general location of the auroch herd, so we would go there next.

The caravan was moved up to the town wall, and we had quite an interested audience as we set ourselves up. From the conversations I heard, I learned that we were the first "barbarian" group to visit the town of Oricantha in over 30 years. With their usual speed and aplomb, the women set up the yurts and had meals cooking in plenty of time to start mouths to watering inside Oricantha. Meanwhile, the men had set up the defensive line around the camp, and had saved aside 10 wagons to be used to haul the meat.

It was less than half an hour before there were townspeople lined up around our camp asking to purchase meat. That's when I found out how badly I had been "cheated" over the price of the meat. It appeared that we should have received at least 400 copper pennies for each carcass, but I didn't quibble at the moment.

Unfortunately, we did not have any meat to spare, but we did promise to provide the meat called for in our contract, starting in no more than five more days, sooner if we got lucky.

The next morning, Wogal and I led 30 men out to find the auroch herd and to look for any of the warlord's men. We had traveled about 12 klicks when we spotted the herd. It was a gigantic gathering of animals. I was sure that it was larger than the herd we had visited at our original home, so I knew that we could live for a long time on the gods' largess displayed here. The herd was too damned big for us to ride around in a reasonable time, so we didn't bother.

The only humans we saw were two horsemen who rode quickly away when we showed up. The remainder of our work crew was waiting for word from us back at the camp, so 10 of our current party were sent back to escort the 20 women who would do the butchering and the 20 additional guards back to us. Meanwhile, I would start the slaughter.