Coming of the Warlord, Chapter 1

COMING OF THE WARLORD

a novel by Spencer Gorman



Chapter One: The Blacksmith



Spray from the harbor splattered the cracked wood of the docks under the afternoon sun, rolling across it and soaking into the footwear of most of the people on the docks as well. The few people that were not crewmen on the ships that rode the tidal swells moved quickly, here and there, in a futile attempt to keep dry. Despite the sun overhead, beaming down with the heat of Summer’s Height, the water remained quite cold, and none wished to catch a summer’s cold.

Of the ships riding the waves, most were still, the crew taking a few minutes to enjoy themselves with the quiet and calm of the afternoon. Of course, only a sailor could call this calm and truly get away with it, with the stiff yet balmy breezes sending cloaks flying if they weren’t held tightly, or turning parchment and paper into kites if the officials carrying them from ship to office were careless enough to keep less than a grip of iron on them. Few seemed to make that mistake, but those that did paid with their precious forms falling into the harbor, the ink and the numbers written in it dissipating into the sea.

The town connected to the harbor seemed small, in comparison to the number of ships that stood still in the waters, with more still circling outside of the comparatively still waters of the harbor. Small enough to be seen from the harbor and still be surrounded on both sides by the green and lush countryside, it deceived the eyes into thinking that there was less to it than there was. The small stone houses bunched together like loving children to a parent, with little to no space between most of them, and what little space there was taken up by carts and other such methods of conveying materials here and there and everywhere.

Whereas the dock had been near empty, save for officials and a few crewmen sent out to get supplies, the town bustled with activity, as if trying to define the differences between itself and its harbor. Large men, shirtless in the heat, walked back from the dock, carrying loads of ore and metal through the streets. Smaller men, but no less shirtless and muscled, aided their fathers in carrying the metals to the forges in the center of the town. In some few houses, a passerby might see a woman hanging out the window, keeping an eye on her husband as he went about his work, or perhaps making some food and sharing it with her neighbors.

It was so clear, so utterly practiced, that one could live their entire life in the small town and never see a deviation from the happy activities of day to day life. Even should one leave, they would ever after be able to picture the sight in their mind’s eye, simply through the sheer repetition of the tasks that kept the town alive.

He saw all of that in his mind’s eye, holding it there for a minute before opening his eyes and looking down at the seventh pier of the harbor. A ship waited for him at the end of the pier, waiting to carry him to his new life on Reman Isle, a few weeks of sailing to the north in the archipelago. He could read the name of the ship from here, the Caronal. According to the dockmaster, it was on a journey from Dorlyn, one of the seven kingdoms on the continent of Civon, to the east. He’d never heard of it before, but apparently Dorlyn was larger than all of the islands in the Trade Isle alliance put together. It boggled his mind, if he let himself think about it, that a place was over the seas, a place so large as to put his entire world into it, and still have room left over.

“Will you be alright on that ship for two weeks, Garen?”

He turned around with a small smile on his face, looking up at his father and mother, holding arms with one another. His father, standing just slightly taller than him and wearing a sword at his side, was dressed in the apron and leather clothing of a blacksmith. His mother on the other hand, was more than a foot shorter than his father. She wore some silver jewelry around her neck, and a swath of white cloth that she had wrapped around herself in two sections. Hardly the natural fashion of the town, but it was a nice look on her, as she would often say to anyone that gave her more than a slight glance.

They had gathered to see him off, as well as a few family friends. It wasn’t a common thing that someone born to this village would leave to another place. For that matter, it wasn’t common that a person born on this entire island would ever leave. Others would come, and others would leave, but the people of Gallas Island almost never did, and the smiths and workers of the small village of Helles, the little village behind him, were even more stubborn about leaving. It was one reason the houses never spread far out, with newly grown children building their own houses as close to friends and family as they could.

“Do you really think I can’t handle two weeks at sea, father?” Garen asked, tossing his head a little bit, his short hair rippling much like the grass around them did in the wind. “Besides, it’s either a few weeks at sea before getting a new job, or staying here and trying to compete with the other swordsmiths for a job. We’ve talked about this already, you know,” he reminded him.

“I know, I know, Garen,” his father said, his face covered with a rueful smile. “Just don’t get too cocky, okay? It’s not like it is here, over on Reman Isle. You’re going to have to fight to get a shop there-“

“Eolser, you’ve beaten this horse to death, and now you’re trying to get it up to ride again,” the woman standing beside him said. She patted Eolser on his back lightly, and smiled at Garen. “Don’t worry about what waits for you out there, Garen. Just remember that you have a place here, whenever you need to come back to it,” she said. Garen almost chuckled when she grabbed Eolser by the shoulder when he opened his mouth. Almost. She was his mother, after all, and Halleen was nearly as strong as him or Eolser, due to her work making jewelry from metal ores.

Clearing his throat, Eolser nodded. “You’ll always have a place here, son.” He leaned in, and whispered, “Just make sure that you do well out there, so you don’t have to come back unless you want to. Reman Isle is tough, but if you can make it there, the rewards are glorious.”

Smiling at that, Garen nodded, and patted his father’s arm. “I’ll remember that, father,” he said, folding his cloak around himself to keep out the wind. “Is there anything else, or do you want me to just stay here, after all?” he asked.

Eolser and Halleen looked at one another for a minute, and the glance they shared made Garen pause for a moment. They were staring at one another the way two people shared a secret. It was very strange for him, to see that, the way that they had always had open and honest looks before. “What is it, father?” he asked.

His father sighed lightly, and looked back at the town. He paused for another minute before lowering his hand to his waist. His fist clenched lightly around the hilt of the sword he wore, squeezing it lightly. Eolser had to physically pull his hand away from the hilt. He quickly unbuttoned the sword belt, and grabbed the sheath and hilt of the blade, holding it out. “Take this with you,” he said, his voice holding no chance for an argument on the matter.

The sword hilt glinted a bit in the sunlight where it wasn’t covered by his father’s calloused hand. Its sheath was rude, crude, made of rough leather and a few little designs of stone and marble along the length of it, designs and craftsmanship that was older than anything else on the island. There was no proof of that, nothing that Garen had ever heard, but it was something his family believed, something his father had told him. He had always been told that this sword was passed down along the male line of the family, but he hadn’t thought he’d get it this soon. Looking from the hilt to his father’s face, Garen asked, “Are you sure?”

“I’ve carried this sword for a long time, Garen, and I’ve never had a need to use it,” Eolser said with a shake of his head. “The guard here does their job well, and I’ve never regretted not having to use it, but…well, call it a hunch, but I think you’ll have need of it in Veleran. The capital of Reman Isle is not a good place, from what I’ve heard. I don’t want to lose you to a footpad just when you’ve gotten a good life for yourself. Take it,” he said again, pushing the blade at him again.

Garen looked down at the blade again, and slowly lifted his hand to it. For a moment, his hand clasped both his father’s hand and the hilt of the sword. In that instant before Eolser removed his hand, when they both touched the sword, Garen imagined he could see all the others in his family line going through this same thing. The blade passing from father to son, the handing down of the single family heirloom that had been kept for all these years; it was breathtaking, even in his imagination.

Then the moment passed, and it was just him holding the hilt of an old sword again. Eolser pulled back with a grunt, tucking his hands into his pocket and looking at the sword with a mix of fondness and regret. “It’s yours now, Garen,” he said, his eyes looking down at him intently. “I’m going to tell you what my father told me when he passed it on. Don’t take the sword out of the sheath unless it is a matter of life or death. It’s a good blade, from what I’ve seen of it, but he was very firm on this. Do not draw it, do not pull it from its sheath, unless you need it to defend yourself.”

“Do you understand me?” Eolser asked, leaning in until he was face to face with Garen, close enough that it would be an even bet whether a thin plank of wood could slip between their faces.

Garen nodded. “I understand, father,” he said. He slowly strapped the belt around his waist, admiring how the old, yet sturdy leather fit well with the thick cloth he wore, an essential around a smithing fire. He adjusted the belt and scabbard lightly, making sure that it would fit around him, before turning back to his parents. He flashed a small smile, and nodded at both of them. “I’ll make you both proud, you know. And I will be back, with more money than we’ve ever dreamed,” he said.

He turned away from them, and from Helles, the town behind them. That was the past, and what was in front of him, the harbor and the Caronal, was his future.

#

Garen barely caught himself as his boots slipped along the soaked surface of the wooden docks. Saturated with the tidal swells and waves, it was a wonder that anybody could make it from one end to another without dunking themselves into the harbor at least once. He actually was surprised that he hadn’t gone over the edge himself already, considering the wooden dock extended more than sixty feet from the edge of the water to the grassy hill that led up to Helles.

The dock divided itself into eight different piers, spreading out from a small waterfront section of buildings that were connected directly to the wooden parts of the dock that remained attached to the land, rather than to poles dug into the mud under the water. A building at the far right, and another at the far left, were inns for the travelers that took ship here and would stay for longer than a few hours, but everything else had been developed to speed the ships in the harbor through whatever business they might have here in Helles, and then get them on their way again. Custom agents, cargo warehouses, offices staffed with runners to run messages from the docks to the town, and more still inhabited the various structures that jutted up from the wooden surface of the dock, waiting for merchants from far and near alike.

Most of all, they waited for the Reman Traders of the Trade Isle alliance.

Garen snorted to himself at the sight of the ships from Reman Isle out in the harbor, with many more at anchor out in the sea, waiting for the piers to clear enough for them to come in and offload their cargo. The prices had already been agreed upon between Reman Isle and Gallas Island, so there would be no negotiating over new purchase prices, much as it would grieve the Reman Traders. They thrived on the give and take, the bargaining, the threatening, everything and anything that could go into the negotiation to purchase goods. It was why they were so successful and rich, richest of the Trade Isles.

“And that’s where I’m going,” Garen said to himself with a shake of his head. It was where he’d decided he needed to be, where he believed he had the best chance to succeed. In reality, he admitted that he was diving into a swarming mass of the best merchants in the world, where even a single customer produced a reaction akin to sharks when blood was in the water. Trying to succeed there would put all the skills he had to the test. He would need to be the best smith there to have even a slight chance of making a life for himself. Anything less, and he might as well just stay here.

He shook his head a bit, running a hand over his forehead and through his hair. “Not even on the boat yet, and you’re thinking of turning around. Show a little spine,” Garen muttered to himself. Hefting the sack of his possessions that he carried in his free hand, the one not holding the sword hilt, he pulled it over his shoulder and walked down along the docks.

The Caronal was far back on the seventh pier, anchored and tied to the dock as firmly as could be. Several of her crewmen lingered on the docks. Perhaps loitered would be the better term, because not a one seemed to be doing a thing, except for resting and lounging on the support poles of the pier. To a man, they seemed to be tired, resting, and Garen shook his head at them. Whether they were men of Dorlyn, off to the west, or from somewhere else, they certainly had this in common with the other sailors he’d seen. They rested whenever they had the chance.

As he stepped over the ones that were lying down on the dock and around the ones that were merely leaning against the poles, Garen wondered if this ship was really worth taking. If the sailors were like this on-board, during the voyage, it couldn’t be a safe ship. A lackadaisical watcher would let the weather creep up on him, and a lazy navigator would let the ship get swept away by the currents. This was the ship that he was going to trust his life to?

One of the crewmen near the plank leading up to the ship stood up at his approach, lifting his head and meeting his gaze, bleary eyes looking at him through a patch of red hair. Though he looked haggard, it was clear that he wasn’t just a drunk that had passed out at that location. He pulled himself to his feet, and shrugged out his shoulders, adjusting a black vest that he wore over a baggy white shirt. Surprisingly, he barely stood as high as Garen’s chin. “I assume you bought passage on the ship?” the stranger said, pulling the stray strands of his hair back and pulling it into a semblance of a ponytail. “Not sure what other business you’d have here, but then, I’m not a person to judge. Might be looking for some apprentice among the sailors, after all. Wouldn’t make much sense, but then again, most things don’t, do they?” the red haired man said.

“Yes, I’ve bought passage on the ship,” Garen said. He reached down into his sack, and pulled out the scrap of paper that had been his receipt. “Purchased passage yesterday, to Reman Isle. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, really,” Red Hair said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Mostly out of boredom, and a little bit of a need to know who my fellow passenger might be. Captain mentioned that there was someone else leaving this boring little rock, and I wondered just who it might be. Just my luck that it happens to be some blacksmith, rather than someone interesting,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Swordsmith, actually,” Garen corrected him. “Swordsmith, not blacksmith. It’s a rather important distinction, here, so try to keep that right.”

“Swordsmith, blacksmith, either way, you work with metal, most of your brains are in your arms, and you have a temper as hot as your forge,” he said, tossing his head back a bit with a sniff. “No different from anything back west.”

Each word had pulled Garen’s eyebrows further and further downwards. There weren’t many that could rile his temper so quickly, but his fellow passenger was starting to get on his nerves. “Look, I’m not sure what blacksmiths you know-“

“Blacksmith? You said you were a swordsmith, I believe,” he said, shrugging and flicking his hand as though it were unimportant. “I guess the distinction isn’t as drastic as you were insistent it might be.”

“It is!” Garen insisted, his breath starting to come in little pants as he worked to keep his building, budding temper from rushing out. “It’s very important! But you don’t see swordsmiths out there, not like us, so I was trying to use an example that you have seen!”

“Whatever, you’re all metalsmiths,” he said with a small smile, and a glint in his eyes. The bleariness seemed to disappear as he grinned, offering his hand. “And you’re all incredibly easy to tease, with all the professional pride you wrap yourselves in. Name’s Sellas, Sellas Dallin. And yours?”

The change in his fellow passenger’s demeanor was startling, to say the least. It was like the first person had disappeared, and a second had taken his place, like a carnival trick or something. Garen hesitantly shook the other’s hand, squeezing once to make sure that Sellas was real. His smile definitely made him wonder. “I’m Garen. Garen Tallas,” he said, as hesitant to share his name as to shake the other’s hand. “Do you mock people so much for the fun of it, or is there another reason?”

“Mostly for the fun, I’ll admit,” Sellas said with a chuckle. “But there are other reasons. You get a better handle on what a person’s like when he’s angry than any other time, because he doesn’t think about what he says. He’ll be more honest with you than he would be if he were calm, and you’d be amazed at just how much of an advantage that can give you.”

“I don’t suppose you spent time among the company of the Reman Traders?” Garen asked with a chuckle of his own. “I mean, it seems like that would be one of the tactics that they would use.”

“In a way, it is,” Sellas said, still smiling. “But they use it in too limited a way, making their customers angry enough to get a feel for them to get a better chance to sell them something.” He pulled his hair back again, this time pulling out a strand of string from his pocket and tying it off to keep it back. “I, on the other hand, have a few better uses for my little talent than that. But that’s neither here or there, I’m afraid, and the ship’s crew seems to be waiting rather impatiently for us to board so they can set off. See?” he said, pointing up at the ship as he started walking up the plank.

“What are you talking about?” Garen asked as he turned to look up at the ship.

At least twenty sailors, in various levels of being clothed, glared down at him. They were lined along the railing on the side of the Caronal, and under other circumstances, one might assume that that they were lined up to bid greetings or goodbye to a good passenger. Of course, the scowls and sneers spoiled that effect to a large degree, as did the shifting of weight and the gestures for him to get on board that were accompanied by rather…strong…gestures.

“Ah.” Garen blushed a bit as he walked over to the plank and walked up it. It flexed a bit in the middle before pushing back at him, and nearly caused him to lose his footing. A fancy bit of leaping from foot to foot kept him from falling into the water below, if only by the meanest of measures. At least it drew a bit of laughter from the crew, and pulled some of the scowls off of their faces, he thought to himself as he hurried up the last few feet of plank.

Pulling himself off of the plank with a hand to the railing, Garen almost ran into the Captain of the ship. A large man, in both height and width, he was wrapped in a cloak of fur and leather, the leather dyed black, with the fur of a fox on the fringe. Despite the warmth, the fur was wrapped around the captain’s neck, and the cloak held clasped tight around his front. “You have the receipt?” the captain grunted, holding out a gnarled hand.

Garen nodded, and held out the piece of parchment the captain’s clerk had given him yesterday. Snapped up by the captain, and tucked into a pocket presumably in the cloak, the receipt was out of his hand in a blur. The captain nodded at him, and pointed off to the side. Garen followed the captain’s arm, eventually finding that he was pointing at the trap door off to the side that would lead below decks.

He turned his eyes from the trap door to the captain, and asked, “My room is further down from the crew’s quarters, right?”

He got a nod in return, and the captain turned away, shambling towards the stairs at the opposite end of the ship, where a door stood half opened near the wheel that controlled the rudder. Despite his shambling, stumbling sort of walk, the captain moved quickly over the deck, and was soon in whatever sort of room he called his quarters. The captain had effectively removed any chance that Garen might have had to ask further questions, and ensured that he would go to his quarters quickly if he didn’t want to interact with the crew.

Garen looked at the various crewmen that were pulling up ropes and climbing up the masts to release the sails, and he realized that he would only be in the way up here. As much as he might like to ask questions, or see what it took to get a ship up and ready for the trip, he wasn’t about to stick around where he’d be more likely to cause problems and keep the trip from occurring. Stepping around a few people, he made his way over to the trapdoor, and yanked it open.

His eyes and face were assaulted by dust and stale air. He coughed a few times as he waved the aged air away from his face, and shoved the trap door back, letting it fall on the deck. Looking down into the hold below, he noticed that there were stairs rather than a ladder, and Garen sighed in relief as he stepped down onto the top step. Stairs were so much easier than ladders, particularly when you were carrying things.

Holding his sack of belongings out in front of him with one hand and keeping a hold of his sword hilt with the other, he stepped down into the hold. Dimly lit, it was difficult to see, but he was able to make out the thin hallway and the silhouettes of two doorways a few paces from the base of the staircase. Supply barrels were placed on top of one another at the sides of the hold, pressed against the wall and each other, so close that one wouldn’t be able to fit so much as a finger between any of the barrels without first levering them apart with something.

A porthole here and there let in a bit of sunlight, scarcely enough to allow one to find their path, but enough to allow one to see enough to get by. He walked partway down the hall when he noticed something else, something a little out of place.

Stepping back to the base of the staircase, Garen looked at the stacked barrels on at his left, turning his head a bit, side to side. Some sunlight coming in glinted off something in the pile of barrels. Wood wouldn’t do that, would it? He was pretty sure that it wouldn’t, but then he worked with metal all the time. He didn’t really know what wood reacted like in light. Perhaps there was some kind of wood that did that sort of thing.

It didn’t really matter, anyway, considering that he was just using this ship to get from one place to another. If they were carrying some strange cargo, it didn’t really matter, not to him. So long as they didn’t involve him with it, they could haul weapons or metal ores or whatever it was back there from Gallas to Ethetania and back, for all he cared. It wasn’t his place to tell traders what to trade.

Shaking his head, Garen felt his way along the wooden walls to the room he assumed would be his quarters. Almost immediately after stepping through the doorframe, he could tell that this was going to be a long voyage.

The room was barely the width of five paces in length, and less than that in width. A hammock hung from one corner of the room and stretched to the other, taking advantage of the diagonal angle for a longer reach. A porthole decorated the wall, and a chest was pressed against the wall to provide storage space. Other than that, the little cabin was completely bare.

“I can’t believe that they expect passengers to use these things,” Garen muttered to himself, tossing his bag over to one side of his quarters. He walked over to the hammock, and pressed down on it, testing its limits a bit. It sagged heavily, but the ropes that held it up remained where they were without loosening or giving any other signs of breaking apart. “At least that much is good,” he said.

“Cabins on a ship like this definitely are designed for efficiency rather than comfort, aren’t they?”

Garen turned at the sound of Sellas’s voice, and shook his head at the red haired passenger. “Certainly seems like it. You’re going to be stuck down here too, I take it?” he asked, gesturing to the cabin across from his. It was the only other one down here, strangely enough.

“Nil we, will we, always may we follow the orders of a ship captain,” Sellas said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Passengers on a trading ship are second to the cargo. I’m surprised they’re letting either of us onboard at all, considering all the other cabins are full up with crewmen. Usually, the only reason they take passengers is to get a little extra work onboard.”

“Maybe they were just willing to have money this time instead,” Garen said. He turned, brushing his hand along his hammock and sweeping dust off of it, sending it flying into the air and sparkling a bit in the light from the porthole on the wall. He breathed in a bit of it, and coughed as it got sucked down his throat.

Patting him on the back, Sellas guided him over to the chest against the wall, and pushed him down so he was sitting down. “I guess they don’t use these rooms much, huh? Mine had a bit of dust in it too, though not nearly this much. This whole crew needs a reprimand, for letting this room get so out of hand,” he muttered to himself.

“Well, guess you’d have to talk to the captain about that. Still, you’d think for ten silver royals, he would have cleaned up the room a bit first,” Garen said, shaking his head. “Common courtesy, you know? Well, maybe not, since you’re so lacking in it,” he said with a small smile.

“Keep in mind, there’s courtesy, and courtesy,” Sellas said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Captain’s showing a fair bit of courtesy just letting us come along, I’d say, even if you’re paying him that much. His ship, his rules,” he said, leaning back against the hammock. “That’s how a ship goes. Captain rules, absolutely.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Garen said. Sighing, he pulled himself off of the chest, and patted Sellas on the arm. “Thanks. Shouldn’t you be getting your stuff packed away, though?”

“Already done. Besides, I’d prefer to be able to look at land for as long as I can, before we set out. The sea’s boring enough just in the harbor. Wait until we’re out in the middle of the ocean with nothing but sea to see in any direction,” Sellas said, shuddering. “Ugh, hate it.”

Garen nodded, and walked over to the porthole, looking out of it for himself. He faced out to the east, where the rocks of the harbor provided shelter from the currents rushing along that side of the island. It also made for an amazing sunrise, he remembered. Shaking his head with a smile at the memory, Garen sighed. “I’ll definitely miss this place.”

“Not likely, Garen,” Sellas said, leaning back against the wall. “You’re leaving something you’ve known, you’re going somewhere you don’t. Soon as you get there, you’ll forget about this place. It always happens,” he said with the tone of a traveler that had seen that countless of times.

“I don’t think it will this time, Sellas,” Garen said, pressing his hand against the glass of the porthole. “At least, I hope it won’t.”

He fell silent, and he was grateful that Sellas did the same thing. He didn’t want to be mocked about his attachment to his homeland, his village, even if his fellow passenger found it worthy of mocking. The grass flowing from the harbor sand to the village, and beyond; the rocky crags that lined the shore for most of the shoreline outside of the harbors; the people that made the entire island come to life; he’d miss them all, and he wouldn’t forget them.

He promised himself that.

Rubbing his hand along the glass as though he were stroking the cheek of a friend, Garen slowly pulled himself away from the glass, and fell back on the hammock. He let himself sway on it a bit, leaning on it the way that Sellas leaned on the wall, and watched as his fellow passenger took his place at the porthole.

“Odd,” Sellas muttered after a moment.

“What?”

“Nothing, I guess,” Sellas said, pulling back from the porthole and shaking his head. “I just didn’t expect to see so many Reman ships to the east. But, then again, they are traders of the most ardent sort. If they can’t find a new buyer in the Trade Isles, I guess they’ll go courting to the east as well,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “If you need me, I’ll be just across the hall, trying to find a way to forget I’m on the water.”

He couldn’t help blinking in surprise as Sellas walked out of his quarters. As soon as the red haired passenger was out of his line of sight, he pulled himself out of the hammock, and pressed himself to the porthole again. Were there really more ships coming from the east? He had thought that any ships carrying Reman Traders would be coming from the north, or the west. After all, everyone knew the east was basically empty of people.

Still, he couldn’t deny that he saw a great deal of ships coming from the east. “Galleons, for a change,” Garen muttered to himself as he noticed what kind of ships they were. Those ones only left Reman Isle for two reasons; to carry larger loads of goods than could be carried by smaller ships, or to carry soldiers from one island of the Trade Isle alliance to another.

Garen hadn’t heard of any wars, or even any sort of fighting, from any of the other isles. “Must have been a good haul for them out there, I guess. I wonder if they’ll be bringing any of that back to Reman Isle, after they trade here,” he wondered, musing on what they might have found in the east. It must have been worth a lot, and plentiful, if they dispatched galleons, and so many of them. He counted a minimum of twenty, and that was at the limits of his sight. The Traders from Reman Isle would send more than that, if it was worth enough money.

A shout from the deck called for everyone to stand clear, and a sudden lurch as the ship started moving shook Garen from his view at the porthole, nearly knocked to the floor before he grabbed onto the rope holding his hammock up.

Shaking his head lightly as he pulled himself upright again, the swordsmith muttered, “Well, no turning back now. Ganyon above, but they could have given more warning than that.” He shook his head, and slowly settled himself into his hammock. He might as well start the journey with a good nap.