Cormyr_ a novel - Ed Greenwood [40]
And when her ragged, angry breathing had at last grown long and measured, Ondeth Obarskyr looked into the darkness and wondered if he had been right in dragging Suzara and the boys all this way, to a small hold hedged by dark woods in the wild heart of the Realms.
He needed the boys to help him build, and he couldn't leave Suzara behind alone, as Villiam had done with his Karsha. Yet she might wither and die here. Marsember was no more than a muddy straggle of ramshackle houses clustered around a few piers, but at least there were people for her to talk to there. They might have stayed there-or go back there now. Or perhaps further east, to Sembia. Southerners from Chondath held those towns, but it was said there were some eastern folk as well.
Or north. He'd heard the men up there had made their peace with the elves and agreed to settle the empty lands. A realm full of folk-even a rough, young place with little to buy or share, and no fine clothes or wine or idle company to enjoy-might well soothe Suzara's concerns. Perhaps they had come too far, outstripping the support of town and farm and fellow human beings.
Perhaps when Karsha and Villiam's eldest daughter Medaly arrived, things would be better. Perhaps in the morning, he told the darkness silently, things would be better.
But morning came, and Suzara remained distant and nervous, not sparing any of them more than a dozen words.
And now, as the last of the morning fog pulled away from the trees in tatters, Ondeth as well had gained the feeling of being watched. He thought with bitter mirth about how well wives could convince their mates of all manner of things. Perhaps it was a sort of magic women shared.
He examined the block of wood, turning it with his hardened hands. It was solid, free of fungus and rot, and its slow drying had opened a series of cracks radiating from the center. He chose the longest of them and set one of the thin iron wedges along the break.
The iron tools-wedge, hammer, and axe-were the most important things Ondeth had carried with him from Impiltur. He had his skinning knife, of course, and had bought the boys short, heavy-bladed swords of Chondathan design, but if they were going to survive here, he'd have to do more than just hunt. He'd thought of getting a steel blade for the plow, but until the first crop came in, there was nothing to sell, and therefore nothing to buy with.
He tapped a second wedge along the crack, wielding the sledge in one hand. Then he stepped back a few paces, shaking his shoulders to loosen them.
Wheeling the heavy-headed hammer in a great arc over his shoulders, Ondeth brought it down squarely on the wedge. Half its length disappeared into the wood, which jumped and quivered, and there was a satisfying crack.
Ondeth dealt another mighty blow to the first, inner wedge, and a third swing to the outer wedge again, forcing it deep into the wood. One more ought to do it.
He swung one last hammerblow, and the great chunk of hardwood split with a sound like sharp thunder. Two roughly even pieces rocked on the block, the last splinters fell away as he pulled them apart. Each could be comfortably carried. The exposed inner wood was solid, unaffected by decay. It would burn well.
The stranger was there when Ondeth looked up again. Ondeth would have started, but he wasn't the sort of man to start.
"Morning," he said instead, as if they both stood on a boggy street in Marsember.
"Good day," the other man replied. He was certainly a beanpole of a fellow, slender to the point of emaciation. Yet this was no starveling, he was well groomed and