Chapter 5

The young, shirtless man with the longish dark hair and very tan skin was fascinating to watch. He wasn't that much taller than her brother, who was on the shorter side of average for his age at 175 centimeters, but he was definitely wider—especially at the shoulders.

And his skill with an axe was amazing. It did not take him long at all to drop one of the larger trees with the white peely bark and black diamond shaped patches on it. And when he did drop it, he made it miss all the other trees around it. Actually, the whole forest here looked like it was mostly made up of the same kind of tree. But it didn't seem like the man was trying to cut them all down, just the bigger ones.

Miri fidgeted a bit in her hiding spot. It was difficult to stay still for so long. They'd stayed in that first tree for two days before Tory felt it was safe enough to come down, and she didn't want to do anything like that again, if they could help it. That was almost three weeks earlier. Since then, they'd stayed on the move, avoiding towns and farms—actually avoiding people in general—until they came across this man deep in the woods, working all by himself.

Unfortunately, most of their food was now gone, so Tory was off checking the small animal snares he'd set earlier. He'd told Miri to stay close to the camp but she wouldn't. She couldn't stand to watch what he'd have to do to the poor little rabbits he'd be bringing back. Besides, she liked to come watch the lumberjack man work. This was the third day she watched him and she never saw anyone else join him. Tory wasn't happy, but he let her do it—only warning her to stay hidden. His plan was to stay another day or two, allowing them to restock on food, and then begin moving again.

With the tree down, the man was hard at work trimming off all the branches with a hand axe. Then he went to work doing the same to the larger limbs. Before long, the tree cutter had the whole area around the fallen tree covered in bits of tree branches. The bigger ones, however, he then cut into lengths that Miri figured were about as tall as her. Having watched him over several days, she knew what came next—he would start stripping the bark off the big log with a long blade that had handholds on each end.

Totally engrossed in what he was doing, Miri had not realized how much time had passed. When the man stopped to retrieve what appeared to be his lunch, she looked up through the canopy to see that the sun was indeed high in the sky. Suddenly her stomach growled. She had left her own lunch back at the camp.

"Wow, I heard that all the way over here."

Startled by his voice, Miri glanced back at the man, only to see him looking in her direction. Preparing to run for her brother, she heard him speak again.

"I don't get many visitors back in here, but I brought plenty of food if you would like some." He had opened his basket and began laying out what he'd brought on the tree trunk next to him. "Let's see ... I have some bread with butter ... some hard cheese ... smoked sausages ... and a jug of cool spring water."

He sat patiently but Miri was still nervous. She just couldn't bring herself to go out there.

The tree cutter, however, was not done. "Oh, how silly of me," he began, acting as if he had forgotten something. Quickly grabbed two other things from the basket, he held them up in my hands. "Would it help if I said I have cups?"

He looked so silly, waving the cups in the air and wiggling his eyebrows. Miri couldn't help but giggle.

"Aha!" he exclaimed. "Now that I have made you laugh, you must come out and join me." With that, he proceeded to fill each of the cups with water from the clay jug and set them on the tree trunk with the rest of the meal.

Miri knew she should probably just head back to camp, but the smoked sausages looked good and he did make her laugh. With that, she got up and made her way cautiously out into the clearing.

Lunch proved to be both pleasant and informative for Miri. Her host introduced himself as Pavel the Collier. She, of course, had no idea what a collier was. So, over their meal of bread, sausages, cheese and water, he proceeded to extol the wonders of making charcoal and birch bark tar. She let him talk while she ate. It was pretty obvious to her that he was lonely and wanted someone to talk to—so she listened.

He kept talking well after lunch was over. By this point, he had packed his basket back up with the leftovers, and had begun using what he called his drawknife to strip the bark from the trunk. Still, he kept talking. He even started asking questions—some she was willing to answer, some she wasn't. He didn't mind. She even started helping him by picking up the strips he cut off.

"Why are you cutting all the bark off?"

"That, my girl, is a good question," he replied, setting down his drawknife to look at her, "a very good question, indeed." He slapped the trunk of the tree with his open palm lightly several times. "The wood will become charcoal. But the bark," he said, lifting up a piece, "the bark is special."

"How?"

He motioned to her. "Put it to your nose. What do you smell?"

"It's kind of minty," she replied, more than a little surprised.

"What you smell is an oil and it's that oil that makes this bark special and so useful. For example, you've been walking a lot, right? I bet your shoes don't smell very good, do they?"

A little embarrassed to answer the question, she shook her head no.

He shifted his seat on the trunk, took off one of his boots, and held it out to her. "Come here, I want you to smell this." He laughed at her skeptical expression and her shivery shake of her head. "No, seriously, come smell this. I use pieces of this bark in the bottom of my boots. They hardly smell at all."

Still skeptical, she drew closer and lightly sniffed at the boot in his hand. She looked up at him in surprise. There was a little bit of a sweaty smell, but nothing like hers or her brother's.

"Would you like me to make some for your boots?"

She nodded bashfully.

"Alright, we'll need a few pieces as wide and as long as your feet," he told her, pointing to the pile of bark she'd collected. "Considering how small your feet are, that shouldn't be a problem," he teased.

She giggled and then retrieved four pieces she thought were the right size. He then had her sit down and unlaced her boots. Immediately after getting them off her feet, however, he began making gagging noises and fell over. Miri started giggling and laughing. For his part, Pavel just grinned back at her.

Eventually motioning for her to get up, he had her stand on one of the bark pieces, while he used his knife to outline her foot.

"This, of course, isn't the only use for this bark," he told her while doing that. "Most of it I cook in a fire pit to get the oil out. Some of that I sell to a leather worker I know, who uses it to condition and waterproof his leather. The rest I boil down even more until it's a sticky tar. That I sell to several different craftsmen as a glue."

It took several tries before Pavel had the bark insert carved down so that it would fit in her boot. So excited that her feet wouldn't smell so bad, Miri had a tough time keeping her left foot still for the second insert. What made her even more wound up was seeing her brother walk into the clearing.

"Tory! Tory! Come here!" she called out excitedly. "Your feet stink! You've got to get some of these!"

"Overall, it's a good plan."

Tory glanced up at Pavel from his bowl of venison stew. He'd been telling the collier of his intent to get help from the hero, King Chandler, at his capital in Ravenrock, before heading south after Daphne. He knew the hero couldn't help in the rescue personally, but Tory hoped he would be able to lend him a few men or something. Even if all he would do was promise to keep Miri safe while Tory went to do the rescue—that was more than he had right now.

"There's only one problem with it, though," the collier continued, taking another bite of his own stew.

"What?"

This time it was Miri who asked. Tory suspected she was feeling like she was being left out.

Pavel, however, indulged her. "You can't get there from here," he told her matter-of-factly.

"What do you mean?" Tory asked him.

"I mean," he replied, his mouth still somewhat filled with stew, "You can't get there from here. The bridge at Horak's Crossing is gone—washed out a week ago. Now, if you want to get across the White River, you'll have to do it at Judgment Falls."

Tory groaned. That would not only lengthen the trip by at least a week and a half, it would also take them to a walled city filled with people—people he wanted to avoid with Miri around. The chance of losing her terrified him.

"Hey," the collier reminded him, "at least you found out now before you made the three day trek there and then had to come back."

"What's the city like?"

Pavel smiled at Miri. "Well, it's the largest city for many leagues—maybe about eight thousand people or so—and it's also the capital of the Duchy of Berkanan. For someplace bigger, there's Rivers Crossing about six weeks ride west in the Kingdom of Jones, or Indigo Harbor—a two week boat ride down the White River to its mouth, past all the robber barons."

"Okay," Miri replied, "but what's it like?"

Pavel shrugged. "It's a city. Big stone wall around it. Lots of people inside. Large castle on a hill."

Miri let out a sigh of frustration. "But what's it like?"

Pavel laughed. "Look, if you're so itching to see it, how about I take you there?"

"Really?"

"Really," he told her. "I was planning to leave in two days for the Harvest Festival they have there, anyway. After that's all over, I'll even take you the rest of the way to Ravenrock."

"A harvest festival?" Suddenly, Miri was excited.

"What are you, a mimic?" he teased. "Yes, a harvest festival. I go sell all my stuff and get to enjoy a big party all at the same time. Which reminds me, if I'm taking you two; you'll have to do something for me."

"What?" Tory asked, with a gut feeling that the earlier offer sounded a bit too good to be true.

"I've got sacks that need to be filled with charcoal and loaded on my wagon. If there are three of us, it should hardly take any time at all."

Turned out his gut feeling was right.

Miri liked Pavel's cabin. Made of birch logs—like the ones he cut down for charcoal—it was surprisingly roomy and pleasant. It had windows with shutters, but no glass, and the floor was made of smooth wood planks—something Pavel was very proud of. At one end of the interior was a large stone fireplace, and opposite it was a loft that extended over half the cabin. Evidently the beds were up there, because all that was on the main level was the large wood table and chairs at one end, and a rudimentary kitchen set up near the fireplace.