[Nogrod]

Bregoware

“It would be a tough job indeed, to pull a rope forwards over a running river?” Sythric smiled widely about the thought and patted Osmod to the shoulder. “That sure would be a deed worth recalling!” Sythric laid his hand over Osmods shoulder and they started walking towards the pulley. “Well we are all quite off-focus now, I am too. So don’t mind me jesting about. It’s just to wear off the melancholy that creeps to get you everytime you just stay quiet and serious.” He took a glance at Osmod, kind of studying Osmod’s feelings.

As they got to the pulley, they gave it a closer look. “I have just been cursing the fact, that I have never really taken an interest to learn how these are used. But if there’s another one at the opposite shore, this could work in a bit similar way as the lifts on building sites. You know: take a rope, double the lengtht of the river, and tie it to a loop going around the pulleys on both sides, and then just tighten it. Somehow attach the rope to the ferry and pull. Sounds easy, now doesn’t it?” Sythric looked at Osmod quizzically and then turned to look at the other shore. "There just might be one on the other side. Do you see that rounded shape just left of the ferry?” Osmod nodded. They both were silent for a moment.

“So we only need a rope, twice the length of the river and thick enough to get a loaded ferry across. Then one master-swimmer to get over, despite the current, with that rope around him – and with practical reason enough to find out, how to attach the rope to both the pulley and to the ferry so that it stays and carries the whole weight. Well, getting it around the pulley is the easy one...” He smiled again, but now not so wholeheartedly anymore. There sure was challenge. And to begin with, there was not even the rope as yet.

“I think we’ll have to think about this. Maybe Raedwald has a better memory, or Eostre, she has been on the ferry too. And I do believe, there is a ferry-rope here somewhere, maybe even more than one. They must have had spare ones, and they should have left some here to help the villages coming after them.” Sythric turned away from the shore, and took a few steps towards the horses. Then he turned around, and said

“We should really turn this place upside down, if we need to. At least I can’t see any other reasonable way across the river right now. But there seems to be enough of us to do quite a thorough search without me, in a relatively short time. I could get us a warm soup to be served after you’re ready. And maybe we should share some bread, all those of us who have some?” As Osmod nodded in agreement, Sythric took himself to it.


How many times have I done this in my life? It must be many hundreds, if not more? He spotted a place for the fire quite near the shore. There had indeed been fire there, quite a many times, before this day. The sand was a bit charred and there were some blackened rocks about, amidst the fading green grass of the late autumn. Like from habit, he had collected a neat bunch of dry branches of varied sizes and ripped some bark from the nearby birches, in just a couple of minutes. After lighting the smaller branches with the bark, he piled some thicker branches in a criss-cross way over the small fire, and got to Tyhdrë. Sythric unloaded all of her packages and went to his foodpack. He took out his small pouch of dried mushrooms, the dried lamb he had offered in the morning and a small box of seasoning. Then he got his pot and made to the river, half-filling it with cold Anduin water. After building a small stand for the pot, and hanging it there, he went to get some more wood, bigger ones now.

All the villages he knew! The thought kept filling his mind. It was so overwhelming an idea: all of the Outland being emptied! All those places he knew, and also those he didn’t. It was the end of the world as he knew it, well, the most of it. But it felt like the end of the whole world! Would we ever come back – I don’t mean, whether I will return, but we, the Bregowarians, or other Outlanders? Is it the end of our culture, our people at Wold and surroundings? Where will the Bregowarians live from now on, if they survive in the first instance? This last thought chilled him totally. If? Well, there surely was that possibility... He felt shivers all over as he returned to the gentle heat of the fire. The fire didn’t warm him at all.

Sythric had found some wild thyme, when he was picking the wood, and dropped them to the almost boiling water. Then he rationed out some dried mushrooms and seasoning to the pot, and started to carve pieces of lamb to be added to the soup just a little later, as the mushrooms would start to soften enough, and would have given some flavour to the broth-to-come. Where were the Bregowarians now? Osmod had counted that, but I probably was too deep in my thoughts to remember it anymore. Osmod had spoken spiritedly though, that I remember. His father should be proud of his son.

But will the Bregowarians be safe tonight? He remembered his nightmares from the last night, and was filled with a sudden urge to ride: to ride back as fast as he could. Just to guard his family and friends as well as he could, to die with them if it had to be. To die before them, even if it was just a fool’s hope to make a difference on anything. He stirred the soup where he had added the lamb, drowned into his melancholic mood. “Hope seems to be a refugee too these days”, he muttered half-aloud, just to himself.