A Coin of Iron

A Coin of Iron

Book One

Chapter One


He stopped running and tried to slow his breathing, calm his heart and silence the incessant pounding in his ears. From not too far off he could hear the thumping gallop of many paws on hard ground, gaining fast.

'Not too long now Callard.' He thought to himself. 'Not much longer at all.'

Callard Reyes tried to straighten up to his full seven feet of height, but the fresh claw wound in his back stung too much and he hunched over again with a grimace and a plume of white air through clenched teeth. To distract himself he tried to count off how much of late he seemed to have lost. It felt as though every day brought with it something fresh he could cross off from the list of what he had, or ever hoped to have again. Five days since he'd last seen another person. Four days since he lost his horse. Three days since he'd eaten. Two days since he'd drank. And the last twenty four hours had seen him running for his life so that even sleep and rest felt as though they'd been stripped from him. What else was there? His life? He smiled at that. If that's all he had left to lose then it certainly couldn't be said he'd kept the best 'til last. There was a time, too long ago now he bitterly admitted; a time when he'd first joined the campaigns as a Mage in search of glory, wealth, and a never ending parade of women who would part their legs at the sound of his name; a time when he'd thought his story would have a final chapter different to this brief foot note. There was even a time when he'd believed his prowess in battle would see men revere him like a God. Instead, his was a life that would be little more than dog shit by this time tomorrow.

He turned in a slow, methodical, stumbling circle, checking out his perimeter with every shuffle of his feet. Visibility was good for ten pike's length in all directions. The clearing he found himself in afforded a solid two pikes of fighting space with sufficient trees and brambles that his attackers would be reduced to a haltering onslaught of one or two at a time. Now if only he actually had a bloody pike to fight with.

Laughing coldly to himself he began to drop his kit and shed the extra layers of clothing he'd stubbornly clung to these past few months of constant movement. When he was down to just his chain mail and grey cloak he paused to stretch out his muscles, more as a way to take stock of his many injuries than to actually prepare himself for battle. There was a sprain to his right ankle that may well be broken judging by how black and swollen it had looked when he'd last removed his boot. There were two arrow wounds to his left thigh. Although technically one of those was from a crossbow bolt so not truly an arrow wound. That one had made him jump, but only after the battle was over and he had pause to examine the wound and note the bolt had pinned his cock to his leg by way of the foreskin. If only his parents had been of the Jaden faith he might have saved himself the embarrassment of needing a medic to separate his member from an enemy's shot. He'd thought at the time how lucky he'd been to save his manhood, if not intact then at least still functioning; and how he planned to put it to good use on their next furlough. An empty promise to himself as it turned out.

"Who's going to fuck poor old Callard now?" He roared out to the wind and the snow, and the ever closing foot falls of his imminent death.

Before he had a chance to list and reminisce on the spear wound to his side, the cleaved chunk of flesh from his left bicep or the weeping sore beneath his fiery red beard, the bramble bush to his right exploded in a powdery burst of snow and fur.

In a split second his left hand was up and out before him, fingers splayed, palm empty. He had only the briefest of moments to recount the fifth sigil and see green flame lick from his fingertips, shredding the wolf to so much blood and fat that the beast appeared to pass straight into and through Callard on its way to the great beyond.

He knew he wouldn't get so lucky a second time around. He needed cold, hard steel as well as words on his side. With a sweeping arc of his whole body, Callard spun low only to rise up again facing in the opposite direction with his sword in his outstretched right hand. His timing was perfect and he caught the second wolf that had been trying to rip out his spine with a piercing cut to its throat that briefly impaled its head upon the point of his sword, before he kicked it back onto the frozen earth.

Two came at once then, left and right in a choreographed tandem of teeth and claws, leaping high, going for his head or neck. Callard again went low and disembowelled both by spinning on his bad foot until he heard the bone definitely grind and snap this time. With a howl as loud as either wolf he crumpled to his knees in the bloodied snow. He fought hard to keep the pain at bay while he struggled to remember his teachings and the words of the thirteen sigils. He had to act quickly, and decisively, heal and protect himself or issue forth such a wave of destruction that nothing in the forest would be left alive.

Callard raised up his sword and muttered an incantation beneath his breath, the metal body of the shaft glowing a brighter and brighter green as the words tripped out of him.

He felt the heat of his own blood before the pain even registered. A great shower erupted from his throat as a giant of an alpha male sank its teeth into his neck and ripped it casually away from head and body. The words fell silent, although Callard could swear he was still saying them, could still hear them in his head. Strong and clear. The words had never let him down.

As his severed head lolled forward he came eye to eye with the wolf that had killed him. There seemed to be such knowledge in those eyes. Such scope for compassion, and for hate. Callard wanted to say one final thing to the beast, but his head continued to drop forward, parting from his body and rolling to rest between the wolf's feet.



Chapter Two

Atherston drove his staff into the ground feeling the rich earth open up and swallow the stave a good arm's length. He bent down and ran his fingers through the black soil, again admiring the quality of the land, again amazed that no one else had staked the claim before him.

He looked out across the sparse smattering of huts and tents, watching people go about their final business of the day before last light and first dark. More than a few faces paused to stare in his direction. Atherston held their gaze, one by one, wondering which amongst them would choose to challenge his right to settle here. The pudgy man with floured hands, the short, bald bespectacled fellow, the tall man with a shock of red hair, or the gaunt, ominous figure draped in the skins of dead wolves.

According to custom any man could claim ownership to land and to acceptance by a community through the law of held light. One of the old canons that stated if a man can hold his ground and keep a fire burning throughout the night then the land and his place on it was secure from then on.
With his eyes firmly fixed on the other settlers Atherston reached up with his flint and steel and sparked the lantern into life.

A few more stopped to look in his direction. Women and children now amongst them, the sort who like more than anything to collect some new story from the day to share over supper. For their benefit he cleared his throat to lend some gravitas to the formality of the wording.

"With this light, so shall ye see me. By this flame, so shall ye know me."

Archaic foolishness, like the showing of your bare hands to strangers. But even Atherston felt a quickening in his chest once the words were out, and he jumped slightly when Agie held his hand for the briefest of moments.

He looked down at her pale face, which had become more drawn and haggard over these last few weeks on the road, an exhaustion beyond what the rigours of childbirth must have wrought on her, and tried to produce a comforting smile. Although even he could tell his countenance was broken by little more than a thin lined grimace.

"It'll be alright husband."

That brought about a warmer, more natural smile from him.

"It's supposed to be me who comforts you woman."

"Well it would be an even colder, longer night if I was waiting for that to happen."

They both laughed, despite themselves and the situation, which made the infant swaddled close to her breast mewl and twist at the teat.

"Shh. Be still now."

Agie smoothed the child's scalp with her hand and he settled back down to his feed.

"It's going to get mercilessly cold later on. Will you not reconsider and let me fetch some wood for a fire?"

Atherston stared out into the gloom, as the last of the curious gave up and headed home to their own warm hearths and well-earned beds.

"Can't risk it love. I don't want to draw any more attention to us being here than is necessary. Best to look small so folk's think that's exactly what you are. Besides, there's a couple of our future neighbours have that look in their eyes. A fire might keep you warm but it also leaves your arse hanging out for all the world to see."

"Speaking for myself, that's not such a bad thing. I've had many a man tell me it's a pretty fine arse to hang out on display."

Atherston laughed. "Aye, that's true enough." Then he looked down at her with a face more chiselled from lines than spaces. "What do you mean you've had many a man tell you?"

She curled herself into a ball around their child and positioned her head by his feet.

"I'm just saying."

"Saying what?"

"That you best stay on your toes and make it through this night is all."

"Aye. Looks as though I'll have to."

He reached up and ran a finger over the small glass plates of the makeshift lantern, checking the chinks in its design to ensure a sudden gust of wind wouldn't be his undoing. Then he bent down and stroked her long black hair, moving the strands away from her face, before picking up the shorter stave he'd fashioned from a Bull tree branch, the gnarled joint at its tip polished over and over to make a bulbous fist. Then with a sigh Atherston rose up to stand guard over his family and the light that would secure their future.

'Let the night begin.' He muttered to himself.

--

The first dull thud was almost a continuation from his dream. The one where the steady hacking of his sword becomes the repetitive digging of his spade. Blood and soil becoming intermingled and confused so that the men he kills spurt forth mud and the ground itself yields up entrails and viscera.

The second thud woke him, which let him know he must have dozed off.

The third struck him, a glancing blow to his temple. Not enough to cause injury, but sufficient to bring him all the way back from sleep. When a fourth and fifth, small stones now he had his wits about him, ricocheted off the glass lantern, Atherston was fully alert and moving low and quickly to throw off whoever was trying to take aim.

A volley of random shots rained down, enough to let him know there were about five attackers in all. But the attack was followed by muffled laughter so he could tell it was nothing but children. Even so he rushed out into the dark, swinging wildly and screaming out in a deep reverberating war cry that had once brought an entire unit flocking to his defence. Now all it managed to do was wake his wife and send a handful of kids scarpering back to their homes.

"What was it?" Agie asked groggily from the dark.

"Nothing. Kids looking for trouble. Go back to sleep."

He shook off the residual cramping from the sudden adrenaline rush, and stretched out his weary limbs. Before he could even begin to curse out the kids for their stupidity he was thanking them for their timely intervention, as his senses, now keenly alert, picked up the heavier foot fall long before he might otherwise have even noticed it.

Atherston dropped to his haunches and rolled back instead of forwards as instinct dictates, which meant this new assailant over swung, going for the back of Atherston's head and leaving his body drawn out and exposed.

Atherston used his elbow first to drive sharply into the man's soft belly, then he rose up with his elbow still flexed so that it caught the attacker sharply on the nose. By this time Atherston was already rounding on the man, swinging out with his arm and make shift club at the same time as he side stepped to the man's right. The flurry of movement resulted in the man's head being perfectly aligned for the arc of the Bull branch. There was a resounding crack, and then life and dream melded together as the man dropped to the earth covered in blood and soil in equal measure.

There was just enough time to note that the man was hooded and dressed in dark garments before a second and third came out of the night like the closing maw of a bear trap.

There was an attempt to grab his arms, as well as trip his legs and gouge at his eyes, but the attackers were attempting too much at once and weren't organised in their assault, so Atherston was able to twist and turn with his body, shaking off each hand as it reached for a different target. In retaliation he worked methodically, first left then right, as he jabbed at an ankle to his left, then a knee to the right, then stomach, rib, arm and finally the head of one of them. This time there was the sound of crushing glass mixed with the knell of the club, and someone backed away screaming and clutching at his face.

Atherston had a moment to recollect the short, bald man in glasses who had watched him set up his post, and knew for certain that's who he'd clubbed. Just as he knew the man would need a lot more than spectacles after this night if he ever hoped to see again. But the seconds he wasted in merely thinking this was sufficient for the third attacker to round on Atherston and deliver him a bone shattering blow to the back of the head with something like a mallet or simple rock hammer.

Atherston saw a literal cavalcade of stars dance before his eyes in brilliant blue and burning yellow, but with a cry of absolute rage he was still able to lash out behind and catch the man just below his ribs. There was a satisfying crack of bone and the man back peddled into the night squealing like a pig. The other one, that he was sure was good and blinded, had already managed to claw his way back into the shadows, leaving just the dead man to hold his ground.

"Come on!" Atherston bellowed. "Come on. There must be another of you. One more coward I can bury here to fertilise my land."

The settlement was silent.

Atherston hoped the man draped in wolf's skin was the dead one at his feet. He felt sure from the look of him that he was the ring leader for this forsaken hamlet. But if he hadn't been... If he was the injured one skulking around the perimeter... or worse yet just sitting in the dark, orchestrating the other villagers in this onslaught...

"I'll be here all night you hear me? Come one, come all, I'll lay you down hard and fast in this fucking earth."

And they were the last words Atherston could manage. The stars before his eyes settled into a rhythmic pulse and he was just able to side step out of the light before slumping to the ground.

"Stay down. Don't be a bloody fool and get back up again." Agie was pulling at his clothes as she spoke in hurried hushed tones. "Give me your cloak, come on. And the stave. Now here, hold the baby, just keep him warm and for all our sakes stay down."

Then Agie was wrapping his cloak about her and padding it out as best she could. He watched, helpless as the child in his arms, as his wife took on his mantle and did her best to play the part, swinging the club, kicking up the dirt and spitting on the corpse for good measure.

Atherston fought to hold onto consciousness, smiling at this hard woman he'd tricked himself into thinking he was protecting. He whispered to her over and over again until the darkness claimed him, "That's it Agie, keep the fire burning and keep the wolves at bay. Keep the fire burning and keep the wolves at bay. That's it. Keep the wolf at bay..."


Chapter 3

There were barely six huts to the settlement when the wagon train Desmond and his family were part of came across it. There was a chance they would have done some trading and rolled on, or else Jebediah the 'Wheelman' would have had them raise it to the ground for what little belongings could be gleaned from the settlers, or for nothing more than sport for him and his sons. But as it was, the settlement was in a good spot, and after nearly a year on the road, everyone, even the Wheelman line, had had their fill of travelling.

So after some initial trading, some robust haggling, and an impromptu knife fight between Jebediah Junior and the self imposed leader of the settlement, the wagon train set down roots.

That first week was bad. During their time on the open road Desmond had kept himself to himself, thinking that unassuming, self-imposed isolation was the safest way to survive the strict pecking order of the convoy. But what he saw on that first night, showed him the error of his ways. Once it was decided that the wagon train wouldn't be moving on there was a mad scramble to take up what plots of land were still available. It was a night almost as bright as any day as families built up their fires to claim 'held light.' And it was by far the bloodiest night since their expedition had started out for the West.

Twice over Desmond saw men set up fires by the good land overlooking the river, only to see them picked off by others and their fires reduced to smouldering ash. The Wheelman clan with the help of three or four of the stronger families ignored the farm land altogether and took control of the high ground overlooking the settlement. It was raised up and densely wooded, but Desmond doubted it was Jebediah's intention to see any of his family end up as tenant farmers.

Other's banded together to take control of reasonable swatches of land, protecting each other in turn until their night of challenges was done. But Desmond had left it too long to forge any close bonds. And so he was hounded and chased from every good spot he put spark to until he ended up on the edge of the settlement between a copse of brambles and a dry creek bed.

Desmond stood guard over his pitiful grab of land, a small fire at his back, a bone fish knife his only weapon. His wife, Florence, nursed their two sons and wept almost continuously. This was nearly at the end of that first week, and most families had their fill of land, and most men had reached their limit of death and slaughter. There was no reason for anyone to challenge Desmond for this lowly scratch. But in the early hours of the morning he caught movement coming up the creek bed.

"This creek. It winds through my land. It could make a useful road for horses, or a marble run for my sons." There was laughter, which meant the challenger wasn't alone. "I want it. Move along Desmond."

He couldn't be sure who the voice belonged to but from the easy command in its tone he guessed it to be one of the prolific Wheelmans. The voice inside him told him the smart thing to do was just give it up and move along. The land itself wasn't even worth a fight, and chances are he could have found something better if he followed the ridge line further north. But another, louder part of Desmond had had enough.

"Go fuck yourself, this here land is mine."

More laughter.

"You've grown yourself a pair these past few days, is that the truth of it Desmond? Tell you what. I'll make you a deal. A trade. Let me fuck your wife and I'll let you keep this land. And I'll only charge you a bare minimum in rent for the privilege."

Desmond felt Florrie stand up and move to his side, the flames of the fire causing his whole family to stand out in heavy silhouette.

"Stay back Florrie. It'll be alright."

"I've never fucked a red head before. They say their cunts breath out fire when they cum. Is that true Desmond?"

Another voice rose out from the general mirth. "Well fuck. There's a family that's never going to go cold come winter."

Desmond was used to a similar tirade of jokes which had been made ever since he joined the caravan. His own red hair coupled with his wife's had produced two more flaming haired children, and that mixed with superstition and ignorance had worked to keep them even more apart from the others.

"Any man takes one step up the wall of that creek bed and I'll separate his cock from the rest of his body and put an end to his fucking all together." Desmond moved forward to emphasise his point. "I might not get all of you. But the first one up here better be the biggest and bravest of you."

There was silence for a while, then Desmond thought he heard the retreating of steps back down the creek. As he was about to turn back to his fire a single voice came out of the dark, clearer and closer.

"You can have your land. And your woman. I wouldn't fuck her anyway. I've no fear of you having the guts to cut my cock off but fucking that whore might well see it burnt off instead."

Then there was the crank and thunk of a bolt being released and Florrie started screaming.

Desmond turned and rushed to her, almost quick enough to catch her as she fell, but not quite. There was blood, burnished near to black in the dim light of the fire. And so much of it. He reached down for the shaft of the crossbow bolt, meaning to yank it free, when he froze in horror. The shot had gone through one of his sons before it had struck his wife.

Florrie continued to scream, and he couldn't settle her, there was too much blood for him to even tell which son he had just lost. Not until Florence started to yell, "Baden's hurt, my baby's hurt, free my Baden, save my boy."

Desmond looked down at the feathered tuft protruding from Baden's temple, then holding the boy's head tight he pulled both him and the bolt free from his mother's breast.

Most of the blood he could tell now was the child's. But still he held one hand to his wife's chest as he scrabbled about to find his other son. Once he had hold of Caspian, he closed himself over the top of his shattered family and stayed like that until the light of the new day found them.

--

Florrie wanted her dead son buried straight away. And part of Desmond screamed for him to do it too. But he knew he couldn't risk failing to cement his place on the land for another night fall. He had to show everyone this was his now, or else Baden's loss would be for nothing. So he wrapped his son in a swathe of tarp and ignoring Florrie's near constant wailing, went to work building a pitiful looking shack on his worthless land.

Four days he toiled alone. No one came to help. And to be fair, there was no one who could have spared him the time nor the strength. Each family was in a similar predicament. Only the Wheelmans had time and men on their side. Throughout those first days in the settlement all Desmond could see was the shroud of his son, all he could hear was the funereal drone of the flies, and all he could smell was the stench of his decomposition.

By the time he had some form of shelter finished his wife had screamed herself hoarse and lay catatonic in the shade while Caspian struggled to feed from her one good teat.

Desmond marked a decent spot in the creek bed, a place where leafless branches had once dipped over into a free flowing brook. It would have been a nice spot for a child to learn to swim, had there still been any water to swim in. But maybe dead rivers still flowed in the place that dead babies went to. Maybe all things eventually went to the Great Beyond.

He dug deep, because the idea of stepping outside one morning to see wolves scratching at the gravesite turned his blood to ice. But also because part him held onto the hope that maybe if he went deep enough he'd somehow be rewarded with damp soil, and just a glimmer of hope for their future. Desmond dug down to his shoulders and found little more than sand and a smattering of purple crystal to receive his son. When he first unearthed the purple rock he thought for an instant he'd found some rare gem stone. But the stones shattered to so much dust between his fingers. Pretty enough, but more brittle than glass. There wasn't a smithie alive who could work the rock into anything of any use. So Desmond took the largest of the stones he could find and set it carefully to one side, something to keep safe as a means of remembering what this last week had cost him. And with no words in him to sum up that loss, he laid his son to rest and buried him deep.

---

Chapter 4

Malachi heard the sound of running and froze in the act of gathering wood. The steps were heavy, but distant, and retreating from his camp, not getting closer. He turned to his wife and the babe in her arms, knowing she hadn't heard a thing, but that she trusted his keen senses above her own. He indicated for her to drop down, and she obediently hunkered down in the snow, silencing the child against her breast.

They'd travelled far and fast in the last few days, but Malachi knew that war moved faster. He carefully laid down his bundle of sticks and gathered his thin cloak about his soldier's garb. Once he'd made up his mind to desert he knew the uniform he was wearing wouldn't help him whichever side he came across first. Only the fear of freezing to death kept the West King's colours on his back. But if there was someone else in the woods, someone else running, there might also be the chance for someone else's clothes he could take.

"Wait here and be silent."

He pressed a finger to his wife's lips and she nodded without questioning him.

Malachi had scouted enough of this miserable, bleak terrain to know how to move quicker and quieter than his quarry. It didn't take him long to get a sight on the man, a near giant of a figure that would have stuck out like a sore thumb on the open field. But then he also caught sight of the wolves that pursued him. There was a chance he could have made it to the figure in time to be of assistance. But the giant was wounded, and slowing, and the wolves were lost to a battle fury and blood lust he'd seen come over many a soldier in his time. More like if he caught up with the solitary figure he'd only be adding one more course to the wolves' dinner tonight.

So Malachi took himself downwind of the hunting pack and waited.

He watched as the warrior, cut off from his troops or as much a deserter as Malachi, finally gave up running, and turned to face his pursuers.

He was a brave individual, and strong despite his obvious wounds, but the pack was smart, and hungry, and those two attributes beat brave and strong any day of the week. The only surprise in the brief onslaught came when the giant tore through one of his attackers with a sigil, marking the man as a mage as well as a soldier. Ordinarily that would have put the odds back in his favour, but there was obviously too many for him to focus on, or else it all came down to luck, and this day luck favoured a hungry wolf and not a warrior mage. And so, in the end, what will be will be thought Malachi.

Malachi waited for the wolves to finish, cursing each time he saw them rip through a boot or wrench off a gauntlet, rendering it useless to him. And once they'd sated themselves and left the remains he waited another hour in case some other pack of scavengers were following behind. Eventually, in the gloom of the evening, it was Malachi's turn to pick through what was left of the warrior mage.

He managed to salvage a breast plate, which would cover his insignia quite well, a book he couldn't read and a glowing sword he could barely lift. To make up for his paltry haul he skinned and gutted what was left of the killed wolves, knowing his wife could at least make something useful from the meat and fur.

By the time he got back to her it was dark, but she hadn't moved from the spot he'd left her at. She didn't ask a question about the things he'd brought back with him, but when he gave her a curt nod she set to work building a fire and melting snow for fresh water to cook with. By the time they left their camp the following day they had full bellies and Malachi had the start of a warm wolf's skin cloak about his shoulders.

---

It was another three weeks before they saw another person.

Malachi took the risk of following the rutted tracks of a wagon train, in the hopes they would leave behind them in their wake enough detritus to sustain his small family until they reached some warmer, greener lands. It was a bigger risk, and one that took some consideration, to approach the camp once he realised the wagon train had settled in for the long haul.

For a long couple of days Malachi kept out of sight and watched the encampment from a distance. He tracked the comings and goings of the farmers, and the loggers. Watched the women overseeing the children and the men overseeing the women. He noted each person's place and role in the camp, and grew more disheartened with each observation.

By the second night Hilda was glowering at him through the pitiful flames of their camp fire.

"What do you want from me? I've already told you it's no good. We have no place in this settlement. Look at me. I'm no farmer. And even if I was, every inch of good crop land has already been claimed. There's only the prime land by the river no one seems to have settled on, and that's because the whole camp would most likely lynch you if you tried for it."

Hilda jabbed at the fire with a stick, showering the sodden ground with sparks.

"So you're just going to sulk with me? This encampment wants for nothing so what can I offer it? And if I can't offer it something it hasn't already got why would they take in another family of mouths to feed?"

"You'll think of something."

And with that she lay down and turned her back to him.

---

She was as stubborn as an ox, his wife. In fact most men would have took the comparison further and said she was like an ox in every way except she didn't have horns. She was big and sturdy, with arms and legs that appeared soft until you felt the muscles rippling away beneath them. She had cow eyes that appeared submissive, until you learnt that she'd never done a thing in her life that she didn't want to do. And that included up and leaving her family homestead when Malachi passed through saying he'd look after her and the child she'd conceived to the last wanderer to pass through. And she told Malachi straight enough to his face that she'd willingly consented to that too, even though her father chose to see it different and castrate the man all the same.

They were an odd match, but they matched all the same, Malachi could not deny that. And so on the third day he began to observe the encampment a fresh. This time looking for any opening that would allow a bastard child, a cow like woman and a weasel of a man to take up a place in the settlement unhindered and unthreatened.

He watched the men fight over the women, over the land, over the water. Watched the women gossip amongst each other and steal what they could from each other or the men that wanted them. And he watched the children who aimlessly wandered the dirt track streets until they were of an age to work and then appeared to follow in line with the adults around them, fighting, stealing, fucking and gossiping.

Like every other gathering of people it was lost, he thought. And like every other gathering, it lacked someone to tell them they were lost; it lacked a soul.

"Okay. I have a plan. But I don't know if you'll like it."

Hilda dropped a bundle of sticks by the fire and hunkered down.

"So tell me what it is. If I don't like it, I won't do it."

---

She didn't like it, but like the great enigma that she was, she went and did it anyway.

Any other woman would have refused. And Malachi wouldn't have blamed them. For one thing he could have been lying to her when he said he'd come for her. Plenty of men would have seized the opportunity to send an obstinate woman with a baby that wasn't his own into a camp full of strangers in the hopes of making a better bed to lie in someplace else. Malachi didn't believe that Hilda went into the camp because she had faith in him. She probably just decided that whether he did or didn't turn up her lot would be better with the strangers in a relatively well protected camp than on the road with him.

Other women would have also worried over what would come of them for the two weeks Malachi planned to leave her amongst these strangers. A woman on her own was an easy mark for any man looking for a little sport. And it broke his heart to see her harried by a couple of keen farm hands the first few days after she wandered into camp. But Hilda was unlike most women, and after she broke the nose of one man and took most of the skin off the other's forearm and shin, Malachi settled down a little and guessed things might work out alright after all.

Two weeks seemed like just enough time for Hilda to establish herself in the camp and for his arrival to be seen as an unconnected event. It also gave him two weeks preparation for his new role, which Malachi figured he would need.

So while Hilda broke noses and burned flesh, Malachi practised speaking and giving the 'appearance' of being able to read. While Hilda ingratiated herself into the good graces of the other women with her preternatural ability to churn out milk like the cow her father referred to her as, Malachi worked hard on growing in his beard and ruffling up his hair. While Hilda turned nurse maid for the Wheelman's daughters in exchange for the chance to sleep with the other cattle in the barn, Malachi lay on his back and dreamed up an entirely new life and history for himself.

After two weeks hard labour on both their parts, Malachi decided the time was right for his own entrance into the camp.

---

The wind drove the snow flurry into visible swirls so that Roger could picture how the air moved around each solid object in its path. It was magical. His seeing things like that made him special. His mother told him so, so it must be true, because if ever there was a mother to tell her son the truth it was his.

He followed and traced with his finger how the snow banked up against one side of a tree and not the other. He thought about how he could use this knowledge to improve his father's small holding by concentrating the shelter offered by the farm's tree line on the western edge and how this would allow them to thin out the forest to the East and use the land for an extra crop yield next year.