There Will Be Dragons

CHAPTER NINETEEN

By the middle of the afternoon Herzer was swaying from fatigue and hunger. He was still clearing branches and doing it at a pretty good pace, but he didn’t know how much longer he could go on. His arms felt like lead and he was light-headed. Every now and again he started to sway and his axe blows no longer hit where he wanted them to.

He didn’t even notice Jody when he came up behind him and started when the man cleared his throat, the axe glancing off the branch and flying out of his hands.

“I thought so,” Jody said. “Mike told me you didn’t get the full three days rest.”

“Courtney or Mike?” Herzer asked, blinking his eyes as it seemed the edges of his vision were going gray.

“Mike, but I suspect Courtney put him up to it,” Jody said. “Do you realize you’ve cleared about twice as many branches as anyone else?”

“No, I wasn’t paying attention,” Herzer said with the honesty of the punch drunk.

“You need to take a break and get some water. The ones that are working hard are just about worn out and the ones that are slacking are getting better and better at acting that way, so I’m moving dinner up and we’ll break before sunset. But we’re starting tomorrow at dawn.”

“Okay,” Herzer said, stepping back and sitting down on a cleared log. “Works for me.”

“Take a break, Herzer, that’s an order,” Jody said, waving at one of the water carriers.

“Here,” Nergui said, shoving a cup at him and slopping half of it on the ground.

“Thank you,” Herzer said tiredly and drained it. “Now could I have some more.”

“Only one,” the girl said angrily. “It’s a long walk to the spring. You need to slow down, you’re making the rest of them look bad.”

“Not all of them,” Herzer said, draining the second half filled cup. “Just some.”

“Hmmph,” the girl snorted, snatching the cup back and walking away with a flounce.

“Well, are you happy you son-of-a-bitch?” Mike said, sitting down next to him.

“Not you too!” Herzer said.

“I’m joking,” Mike replied, stone faced. “Really. But I wouldn’t have worked as hard as I did if it hadn’t been trying to keep up with you. You made out of damned iron or something?”

“Not right now,” Herzer said. “I feel like rubber. What’s with Nergui, anyway?”

“She and Earnon hit it off right away,” Mike said. “You didn’t notice?”

“Nope.”

“Two peas in a pod. Anyway, she’s mad cause Earnon didn’t get any lunch and she nearly got caught passing him some food. And then you’re working like a damned machine and that made him look twice as bad. You know Jody’s had to change partners on him twice and that tree still isn’t half sawed through?”

“Hmmm…” Herzer replied, really taking a look around for the first time since early morning. Several trees had been downed and mostly cleared and topped, their logs now lying on the muddy ground in preparation for hauling off. The branches, leaves and other detritus had been collected in large piles and he suddenly realized, identifying trees, how much of those piles had been his work.

But the giant spreading tree that had been the source of contention was still standing, the trunk not even half sawed through as Mike had said.

“Well, I guess that proves who was working and who wasn’t,” Herzer chuckled then guffawed. “And Jody’s had him on that tree all day?”

“Yeah, I complained, lightly in the middle of the afternoon. I’ve been on the other saw all damned day and we’ve downed three trees. They’ve not even gone through one.”

Herzer looked at the other trees and had to admit that, while the others were smaller, that was much more work than that single tree.

“I think Jody’s just trying to make a point,” Herzer said. “I’m not sure what the point is, but I’m pretty sure there is one.”

“Oh, I know what the point is,” Mike growled. “Earnon is a useless slacker.”

“Have you had other partners?” Herzer asked.

“Yeah, he’s run just about everybody by my saw. Some of ’em are okay. Guy and Cruz and Emory pull their own weight, I guess so do Tempie and Glayds but they don’t really work at it, they just do what they have to do. Frederic, Cleo and Earnon are fisking useless.”

Herzer chuckled and gestured with his chin at Karlyn who was lifting a branch the size of a small tree onto her shoulder to drag it off.

“Yeah, Karlyn, too. Mostly. She doesn’t have the mass sometimes, I guess. And neither does Deann but she just makes up for it with anger.”

The latter was topping one of the trees that had been mostly cleared of branches. Once the trunk narrowed to a certain point it wasn’t worth clearing the rest and the top was cut off, “topping”, and dragged into the brush pile. Deann had one of the battle-axe type axes and was attacking the tree as if it were the neck of a hostile dragon, an expression of absolute fury on her face.

“Trees! She hates trees!” Herzer whispered with a chuckle.

“Well, if you think that’s bad, you should have seen you when you started out,” Courtney said, coming over and sitting down by Mike. “I was afraid you were going to take that axe to Jody’s neck!”

“Not Jody,” Herzer said. “But if Earnon had come over to continue the discussion, I’m not making any bets.”

“I was thinking about what you said earlier,” Courtney said. “And you’re right. But there’s more.”

“Oh?”

“It’s what you just said. There’s no PPFs. If you took it in your head to go kill Earnon with that axe, there wouldn’t have been much anyone could do about it.”

“So Jody comes down with both feet on fighting,” Mike added. “I started to tell off Frederic when he was on the saw and then I just walked over and talked to Jody. Frederic tried to interrupt but Jody just shut him up and put him to topping. I didn’t cuss him out or anything, just told Jody he was riding the saw and I wanted him off.”

“I guess that’s what I should have done,” Herzer said with a shake of his head.

“Well, if I hadn’t seen the example, I would have done what you did,” Mike admitted. “And I probably would have cracked that useless fisker’s head on top of it. So I’m not exactly glad you screwed up first but…” he grinned and picked up a twig to chew on, using it to pick at his teeth.

“FOOD’S ON!”

Herzer joined the others in line for food and took his bowl of beans and cornbread. That was it again and after getting it he sat down on one of the logs and contemplated the food for just a moment.

“You going to eat it or just look at it?” Mike asked, spooning up his beans between bites of bread.

“I get such pleasure from the anticipation,” Herzer said lightly. “But soon it will be all gone!” He picked up his spoon then set it back down and lifted the bowl to his lips, sucking down the mixture. There was a small, very small, piece of pork in the bowl and he worried that for a few moments then wiped out the bowl with his cornbread. When that was gone he was done.

He contemplated licking the bowl out but finally convinced himself not to. Instead he carried it over to the stack of dirty dishes and got a large dipper of water from a barrel.

“Herzer, here,” Jody said, coming up behind him with a large bowl of cornmeal mush. Herzer could see some bits of mystery meat embedded in it.

“Hey!” Earnon shouted. “I didn’t get any lunch, neither! Why the hell does he get extra?!”

“Because he didn’t sit on his ass all afternoon,” Jody answered to a chorus of chuckles. “If you don’t have something to eat, you’ll be useless in the morning. And you deserve it.”

“Thank you,” Herzer said, taking the bowl carefully. After a moment he shrugged and sucked it down just as fast as the beans.

Jody chuckled and set the bowl on the pile with the rest. “Don’t worry about it; the cooks will clean up.”

“Okay, folks, here’s the deal,” Jody said, striding over to where most of the cutting crew was finishing eating. “You can walk back to Raven’s Mill or you can stay over on this side of the river. If you stay here, I’ll show you some ways to make a shelter. Either way, breakfast is before dawn tomorrow. So if you stay over there you’d better get somebody to wake you up and walk back or you’ll miss it.”

“What’s for breakfast?” Earnon asked. “And why can’t we just eat over there?”

“Because you don’t get chits for meals, yet,” Jody said. “We’re feeding you for your work. And this is where we’re feeding you. Any other questions?”

“How do I get out of this chicken-shit outfit?” Cleo Ronson asked with a bitter laugh.

“Any time you want you can walk away,” Jody said. “And if I hear enough complaints you will be out of this outfit. Any more questions?”

“Same thing on the agenda tomorrow?” Mike asked.

“Pretty much,” Jody said. “We need to clear a large area by a couple of weeks from now. We’re going to work on cutting for three more days, then clear the logs and burn the trash. After that we’ll work on making some rough buildings. Then you’ll be done with this portion and I’ll get another crew.” He looked around and nodded. “Okay, grab the tools and stack them and we’ll start making some shelters from all this trash.”

Herzer grabbed his axe and carefully stacked it, feeling a massive and unexpected wave of fatigue flow over him. Before he knew it, it was all he could do to stay on his feet. He listened while Jody explained how to make a lean-to. But in the end, between his swollen and puffy hands and his overwhelming fatigue, he couldn’t find the energy for the effort. Taking one of the blankets that had been provided he went over to the giant tree that had missed felling and collapsed onto one of the large roots, resting his head partially on it and partially on the dirt. Before he could even squiggle around to get comfortable he was asleep.

“You need some sleep,” Edmund said as he entered the wooden hut that had been set up as a temporary hospital until there was time to build a real one. Daneh was at a bucket of steaming water, washing her hands as Rachel and another woman scrubbed at blood-covered tools.

“Don’t start,” she said tiredly. “I’ve had to do two amputations today, one major and one minor, while trying to get the heads of all the women in the camp around the fact that they’re about to start bleeding.”

“We need to talk about that,” Edmund said. “You’ve requisitioned just about every scrap of cloth in the town for this and all the unspun cosilk. We have other needs, Daneh.”

“I know, but this one is a right now need, Edmund,” she snapped. “I’m running out of bandages. And the women are either going to have the material or they’re going to run around bleeding all over the place. Which would you prefer?”

“Do you need so much is what I’m asking, as pleasantly as possible,” Talbot replied, taking a deep breath. “We need the cloth in making tools. We need it to repair clothes; most of the people’s clothes are getting to be in tatters.”

“If we don’t need it all, we’ll turn it back in,” she replied. “We won’t be throwing any of it away; the women are being told to wash the material and reuse it. We’ll only use as much as is needed. And this is for the benefit of the whole camp, Edmund.”

“All right, Daneh,” he said with a sigh. “You said that you’ve talked to the women in the town, what about out in the camps?”

“I hadn’t even given it a thought,” she said tiredly, looking out the open window to the darkness. “It’s too late now…”

“And you’re needed here,” Edmund continued. “Rachel. You’re doing it. Tomorrow. Go to each of the camps and all of the groups that are going through familiarization. If anyone gives you any trouble tell them to come see me. Talk to all the women, tell them what’s going to happen and that we’re getting materials ready.”

“Yes, sir!” she said sarcastically.

“You’re still young enough for me to turn over my knee, young lady,” Edmund said with a smile. “Watch that tone.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want Daddy mad at me,” Rachel said, again snippily. “You realize I’m going to start any time, don’t you?”

“Yes, I had thought about that,” Talbot replied with another smile. “Take the appropriate precautions.”

“Appropriate precautions,” Daneh said with another sigh. “You realize that includes avoiding pregnancy?”

“Or terminating it after it starts,” Talbot answered with a nod. “Sheep guts for the first and tansy for the second.”

“You’re serious,” Daneh said with a shake of her head. “What do sheep guts have to do with preventing pregnancy?”

“Well, see, you rub them all over your body…” Edmund started and then laughed at her expression.

“Edmund…”

“Okay, seriously, you use the outer, hard, layer of sheep intestines as a prophylactic condom.”

“A what?” Rachel asked. “What in the hell does that mean?”

“Prophylactic is a term for a preventative…” Daneh replied. “But…”

“You take a section of sheep intestine that is of appropriate length, cut it off and sew one end shut,” Edmund said dryly. “The male slips the sheep intestine, which can be kept dry but has to be softened with water before use, over his penis. This prevents the ejacula from entering the woman’s body.”

“That’s… obscene,” Rachel said with a grimace.

“And of course some men have to use bigger animals than sheep,” Edmund continued with a chuckle, shifting up his belt theatrically.

“That would probably work,” Daneh said with a nod. “But the seam would tend to leak. And I’d have to find you a rabbit…”

“I think they probably waxed it,” Edmund said thoughtfully, ignoring the jibe. “You’d test it by filling it with water and seeing if it held.”

“I can’t believe you’re talking about this,” Rachel said. “Come on.”

“Rachel, you’ve long wanted to be treated like an adult,” Edmund replied without turning around. “Welcome to being treated like an adult. We could treat you like a child and tell you to leave if you wish.”

Rachel opened her mouth to reply hotly then snapped it shut.

“Okay, I had that coming,” she admitted. “But let me point out that you’re my mother and father. Maybe I am too young to handle some conversations because discussions of my father’s penis size is definitely one of them. Okay?”

“Okay,” Edmund said with a laugh. “Sorry.”

“What’s ‘tansy’?” Daneh asked.

“Oh, an herb,” Edmund replied. “That’s really all that I know about it. And that it’s an abortifacient that’s apparently pretty strong.”

“There’s so much I don’t know,” Daneh said with a sigh and a shake of her head. “Edmund, please, the next time you talk to Sheida, tell her that she will sustain a sister’s curse if she doesn’t figure out some way for me to get access to medical texts.”

“I’ll tell her,” Edmund promised.

“It shouldn’t be all that power intensive,” Daneh argued.

“I’ll tell her.”

“And we really need it.”

“I’ll tell her,” he said.

“Okay. And another thing, people are working themselves to death.”

“Some people are working themselves to death,” Edmund corrected. “What is your point.”

“We need to start briefing people on safety. We’ve got people who have never held an axe before in their lives doing lumberjack work and people working with heavy machinery who have never done that. The major amputation was a person working in the mill who didn’t have the sense to use some sort of lifting device to pick up one end of a huge beam. He’s lost the bottom of his foot permanently; it was too crushed to even think about repairing. I know in the old days nobody really cared about safety except for ‘try not to get yourself killed.’ But I think we can do better than that, can’t we?”

“I’ll look into it,” he said, pulling out a bundle of paper and a pencil. He held up his hand to forestall her outburst. “I’ll look into it. You’re right, in the old days nobody tried because nobody cared except the people getting hurt. And it might be possible to do better. But I can’t guarantee it. Cutting down trees is inherently dangerous unless you have power systems and a cage. And even then accidents happen. So is farming. It never got much better the whole time men were doing it. So I don’t know what exactly we can do. But we’ll try. Okay?”

“Okay,” she answered. “Last thing for you; we need to schedule a rest day.”

“Daneh…”

“Every society in history had a rest day,” she continued, ignoring the interruption. “Mostly they were religious in nature but they don’t have to be. People working this hard have to have some time off. I’d suggest one day in seven since that was the old standard and it seemed to work.”

“Sunday perhaps?” he said, amused.

“I don’t care which day of the week you choose, as long as you choose one,” she answered, firmly.

“All right, I’ll figure out which one is the most prevalent. We do have a couple of Jews and at least one Muslim, I think they take Fridays off.”

“Saturday,” Rachel interjected. “For the Jews anyway. Friday night to Saturday night if I remember correctly.”

“Saturday then,” Edmund said with a shrug. “We’ll want to think about holidays as well. Not many. But you’re right, people need some time off.”

“Kane’s brought his herd in. Tomorrow get a horse from him or from Tom Raeburn,” Daneh said to Rachel. “Take a bag with some bandages and go around to the camps. Brief the women on what’s happening and check on everyone’s overall health. There’s a lot of minor injuries here in town; I imagine there are out at the camps too.”

“Yes, Mother,” Rachel said, tiredly then looked up with a blush. “I’m sorry. You’re right. And it’s a responsibility. Thank you.”

“You’ll do well,” Daneh said. “If there’s anyone seriously hurt who hasn’t been reported in, get them to me.”

“I will.”

“I think that’s it,” Daneh said.

“In that case, get some rest,” Edmund replied. “Get up to the house. I don’t want you getting up in the middle of the night unless it’s a clear emergency.”

“I’ll stay here,” Rachel interjected. “That way if there’s something minor, I can take care of it.”

“Good idea,” Talbot said with a nod. “Now, milady?”

“I’m coming,” Daneh replied. “Good night, Rachel.”

“Good night Mother, Dad.” She waited until they were gone, then finished cleaning up the infirmary and looked around. The only place to lie down was the rough wooden surgical table but it would have to do. Putting a couple of blankets on it, she made herself as comfortable as she could and then rolled over on her side. She knew there was no way she could get to sleep but even as she thought it she found her mind wandering into dream.

In the morning, Herzer felt like a basket case.

He woke up to a hand shaking him awake and groaned. He was curled in a fetal ball on his side and every muscle in his body protested movement.

“Come on,” Jody said, not unkindly. “Breakfast is on and there’s only thirty minutes to eat. You’d best get to it quick.”

Herzer did not feel hungry in the slightest but his enforced starvation of the day before was vivid in his mind so he stumbled to his feet and made his way to the chowline.

The meal was cornmeal mush again with a side of some sort of herbal tea. But this time many of the people did not feel they could eat much. Many of them had only taken a half a bowl and some who had taken whole bowls, like Courtney, did not finish. There was enough left in the huge kettle that Herzer, Mike and a few others could have seconds and after the first bowl settled, Herzer felt drastically hungry. Not only did he get an additional bowl but by waiting by the pail for the used bowls he was able to cadge leftovers from several of the people, most of whom passed them over with every sign of bemusement. The exception was Nergui who when she saw his intention dumped her nearly full bowl out on the ground. This drew a furious reprimand from Dorsett.

“You don’t waste food,” he snarled, striding up behind her. “We don’t have enough as it is. Do something like that again and you can skip the next meal!”

Herzer, at that point, was starting to feel as bloated as a tick so he reluctantly dumped his empty bowl in the bucket and went over to pick up his axe.

He looked at his hands doubtfully. Skin was already starting to spread across the ruined flesh of most of his hand, but much of it was still exposed and dirt had mixed in with a yellow goo that had appeared on the surface. It was an unappetizing sight and his stomach briefly regretted the hearty meal. Wielding an axe was going to be painful; even holding his bowl and using a spoon had been unpleasant — but there didn’t seem to be much of a choice. He was contemplating a bleak day when he heard the clip-clop of horse hooves approaching.

“Hello, Herzer,” Rachel said, dismounting and tying off the horse to a convenient branch. She took a set of saddlebags down and waved at Dorsett. “Jody, I’m here to see about any medical attention anyone needs and then I have to talk to the females you have here.”

“How long is this going to take?” Jody asked. “We have a lot of ground to clear.”

“That depends upon how much I have to do,” she answered, snappily. “Do you have any major injuries?”

“No, but there’s a few of them that have bad hands,” Dorsett admitted, waving at Herzer. “Start with him and I’ll get the others.” Jody started gathering up the ones that he knew had blistered their hands the worst the day before.

“Hey!” Earnon yelled. “I can barely move and my back feels like it’s on fire!”

“I’m not here to deal with sore muscles,” Rachel said, looking at Herzer’s hands. “Good God, Herzer, what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking we had a lot of trees to clear,” Herzer answered, wincing as she probed his abused hands.

“Come down to the stream,” she said, hoisting the saddlebags. “Jody, send the rest down with us.”

“Have you seen Bast?” Herzer asked as they walked to the stream. It was muddy with dirt from the clearing but moving up into the uncleared portion brought them to water that was as clear as gin.

“She’s been around. She’s working with the hunters to bring in game.” She held his hands in the cool water and gently wiped at the accumulated grime. “You need to keep stuff like this clean, Herzer. We’re pretty resistant to disease but surface injuries like this can still get badly infected.”

“I’ll remember that,” he said, grimacing in pain.

“The yellow stuff is suppuration, that’s normal with a skin injury like this, or so Mom tells me. You’re lucky really,” she added.

“How?” he asked as she took the hand out and smeared on an ugly green ointment. There were bits of leaf to be seen in it.

“Unimproved humans would have been days recovering from damage like this,” she replied, smearing on the ointment. “This is supposed to help healing. It’s not much but it’s something and it has stuff in it to keep the bacteria under control.”

“Can I used my hands?” he asked, half hoping that the answer would be “no.”

“I wish you wouldn’t, but there’s too much work to be done to have you idle.” She took strips of cloth and leather out of the saddlebag and started wrapping his hands, first in the cosilk then with the leather. That she ended up tying off to hold the whole collection on.

“The leather will protect the base of your hands. Your fingers aren’t bad, fortunately. Try to keep the damage to a minimum, okay?”

“Okay,” he replied, flexing his hands. The bandages did reduce the pressure on the wounds.

“Your skin will probably regrow by tomorrow then start hardening. Like I said, in this at least we’re lucky.”

“Lucky, yeah,” Herzer said grumpily then paused. “How’s your mother?”

“She’s doing okay,” Rachel replied tartly. “She’s keeping busy and I think that’s good.”

“Rachel, I…” he paused.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped, standing up. “You’re good enough to get to work.”

Herzer looked at her for a moment, then nodded and headed back to the encampment.