The first look at the lake had been beautiful, but that might have had something to do with Kaben being very tired of traveling. Smiling at a kid running by him, Kaben stoked up the fire slightly with his good arm.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll keep the fire up,” a nice young maiden said as she took her own stick and put it to the fire. She was the oldest daughter of the family Kaben had taken to traveling with. For one thing, they had the many teams of horses to pull the wagons, and for another, Kaben couldn’t get his two wagons to move by himself. It was mostly a business deal; Kaben paying the father for the use of the animals with a nice bonus for the son who was driving the second wagon, but naturally he had gotten to know them and they were now good friends.
“Thank you Terari,” he said as he stretched back and rubbed his right arm causing a sharp pain, he had expected it though, so his wince wasn't that pronounced.
As Terari started to prepare a dinner for their first night in ‘town’ she spoke up from across the fire. “Is your arm still bothering you much?”
Kaben smiled ruefully. “’Course it is, but it’s nothing I can’t handle,” he winked as she looked over, causing her to laugh and shake her head. Thinking back to the accident that had happened while traveling not too long ago brought a slight frown to his face, but he didn’t want to think about that. He had made it to his destination, that was good, and that was all that mattered.
Soon he would be making absolute plans to set up shop, right now he only had tentative ideas: find an assistant (Apthan, the only son of Tauven, Kaben’s temporary traveling partner, was dutifully following in his father’s footsteps and couldn’t help) to help him with lifting, he was weak even without his wound, plus there were a lot of settlers and that would mean a lot of time to help them; set up the wares that would be wanted right now at this stage of the towns development; and to get his own living quarters set up.
His own father had been very kind to him, giving Kaben a generous loan to start up his own work. Even with the money from his father, he was slightly worried about being able to make everything work the way he wanted. First off, he needed a lot of help with setting up his shop, building it and his living quarters. Combining home and work would probably be much better for him, not to mention his pocket. He also wondered how much the new towners would be able to spend at his shop. He had to make good business with the settlers to be able to make good business with the traders to continue the cycle. The first trader would be coming in little under a month, not much time in Kaben’s mind.
Kaben came back to himself as Tauven clamped a hand onto his shoulder to help in the sitting down process. Kaben smiled and made mild fire talk with the now gathered family. It was a pleasant evening and everything seemed to be going well for the settlement. Some of the children got frightened when a wolf pack howled in the distance, but they were soon laughing again when Kaben told them a funny story about how his younger brother had been chased around by a vicious little puppy and how his father had finally caught the pet by ambushing it around the house. Full night set in and the soon to be shop owner slipped into his sleep roll with thoughts of set up keeping him awake till his body simply refused to keep conscious any longer.
~*~
The wild men seemed to be moving in and out of their camps by ones and twos a lot lately and the leader was in a foul mood. They hadn’t done anything that caused him much alarm, so Tane didn’t race to report yet. Something was definitely agitating the group though. He squinted to see the individuals better from his hiding place.
Tane wasn’t worried. If something had happened he was sure that Thorgil had known it before. He, however, did not need to sit and watch the wild men any longer. Looking over his back he could see his replacement coming through the hills. Backing out of his hiding place among some sparse brush, he walked down and over to where he had made his small camp for the past night. He packed up the small belongings he had taken with him and saddled up his horse Skit. He smiled at the memory of when he was given the horse from his father when he first set off with the Rangers. It had cost his father a lot to give him this one last present and Tane had let his little sister name the beast. She had giggled and said, “Well, he is rather skittish isn’t he?”
Brushing away the memories he greeted the replacement with a raised hand.
“Hoi, what news with the wild men?” said Ethiner as he reached the camp.
“They’ve been moving about a little more seemingly rechecking something and the leader is more troubled than usual. Do you know what’s bothering them so?” Tane responded as Ethiner dismounted and came over to the cold fire where Tane was standing.
“Aye, a large group of settlers has come in and decided to make the lake shore their new home. Thorgil is going to put in a few permanent posts at the village, young Alearindu and old Awyrgan are going there now.”
Tane smiled, “Wouldn’t think of Awyrgan in a village, would you?" the two men shared a smile. "Well, we all have our place. Good watching,” and he mounted in one fluid motion and gave a type of salute to the Ranger taking up his post who nodded in reply. Then he turned Skit into the right direction and started off, anxious to see and learn more about this new settlement.
|