Chapter 20

I woke up to barking and the smell of summer. “What is it Dog? Rabbits feeling bold? Another squirrel on your turf maybe?” Dog looked in through the open door of my hut at me then turned and got back to barking. Well, that’s what I get for buying a guard dog. Only problem was he barked at damn near anything that moved. He’d given me advanced notice of a bear once though, and I’d managed to bait it into one of my pitfalls, killing it almost instantly so I never even had to get close. Could have gone badly if it’d kept coming straight at my hut while I slept. So overall he was well worth the gold piece I dropped to Dav the woodworker for him. Whether he’s worth the constant loss of sleep though…Well THAT I questioned on a near daily basis.

I ducked out through the low door. I’d really put on some height over the past year and was nearly as tall as the average man in town, courtesy of eating so well I suppose. Well, that and puberty anyway. Still half a head below Knick though, and it wasn’t even worth comparing myself to Hammer who was already almost as big as his father these days. I grabbed my spear where it was stuck into the ground next to the door. I spun the steel spearhead upright and planted the butt of the spear next to my feet while I looked around to see what had attracted Dog’s attention. Dog’s chain leash was long enough that he could sleep next to me inside when it was cool, but mostly he sat outside doing his job. Dog was barking towards the path I usually took to the road before heading into town. I almost never headed there directly, too great a chance of being back tracked. If someone wanted to try it from the road they’d have to know where the pitfalls were to avoid death, but on a straight shot from town to my hut were a LOT of the smaller leg catching pits. I tried to dig at least one leg catching pit per day, and it had become part of my daily routine along with my solo knife training. I also spent some time every night sharpening more stakes to use the next day. The larger pit traps took multiple days and hours upon hours of work so I didn’t have very many of those.

I smiled as I saw Hammer and Knick walking out from under the trees into my hut’s decent sized meadow. It didn’t used to be much of a meadow, but I’d felled enough trees over the years for firewood that it definitely qualified as one now. Hammer raised a hand and waved. I waved back.

I nudged Dog with my foot, “I see them, boy. Good dog. You can stop barking already.” Dog sat down and looked up at me, a happy tongue hanging from his jaw, obviously proud of himself. I patted him on the head, taking care to avoid the sharp spikes protruding from his wide leather collar. I’d had Norbert and Anvil make it for me after Dog had tangled with a wolf and took a bad bite to the throat. I’d ended that wolf with a spear through the heart. Nobody hurts my dog.

It was nice to have so much cash these days, being able to commission any old thing that came to mind was incredibly convenient. I’d even paid Knick five gold to make me a second matching snake blade, so I had one on each side of my belt these days and had taken to keeping my apprentice blade strapped to my forearm like Knick did. Knick had me working on my crab style double blade forms, and I was getting pretty good.

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Hammer and Knick weaved their way through my many pit traps with practiced ease as they made their way over. “Mornin’ boys. Nice ta see ya, can I offer y’all some breakfast?” I asked.

“Naw,” said Knick. “We ate at the inn.”

“Understandable,” I replied. “That’s some good fucking grub, and no question about it. I briefly considered marrying the innkeeper's daughter just to eat like that every day.”

Knick snorted, “Not worth it. Try talking to her for five minutes, and she’ll bore you to tears.”

I smiled, “Guess I never spent much time talkin’ with her, good in bed though.” I laughed, getting a wry smile out of Knick.

Hammer shook his head in disgust, “It’s dishonorable to use a woman in such a way, Nameless. You should be more considerate of the feelings of others. A man should marry the woman he beds.”

I chuckled, “I think I may have told you one too many stories about honorable knights, Hammer. Besides, she made her own choice when she took me to bed. I’m not the bad guy for taking what was offered.” I shrugged. “But I doubt you came out here to chide me for my drunken actions months ago, especially since I doubt Knick cares about such things.”

Knick nodded, “True. Don’t care. We wanted to talk about what we’re going to do after we turn fifteen at Harvestfest and become adults,” said Knick matter of factly. Hammer sighed and nodded.

“Hmm,” I pondered, putting my chin in my hand. “Well, I suppose it’s probably about time to leave Tiga and head north to The Mountain isn’t it? I mean the long term plan was always to go kill people together. Mine and Knick’s anyway. As far as I’m concerned, I’d be happy to have you along with us Hammer, whether you want to kill anyone or not. Once we get to The Mountain we can make further plans, but we don’t really have enough information out here in the boonies to act on yet.”

“Sure,” said Knick. “Sounds good. I’ll start getting ready. You coming Hammer?” he asked, turning to look up at him.

Hammer looked taken aback, “I-...leave Tiga? I-I never thought of it. I always assumed I’d take over my father's forge someday when he died.”

I looked up at him earnestly, “Well dream big, Hammer. Ask yourself, if you could have anything in the whole wide world, what would it be? Knick wants to kill people. I want to see what kind of options there are out there, and to seize as much life as I possibly can before I die, preferably in an interesting manner. I happen to think it’ll be fun to kill people with Knick, so that’s a great start for me. Besides, it's good to have a friend to watch your back. But what about you? What do you want, my friend? Sky’s the limit,” I said, holding my arms wide and looking up at the bright blue cloudless sky as I said it.

Knick nodded, saying, “Yeah, we’ll help.” As if it was just that simple.

“Not to mention,” I added, “If you decide to leave, it’s not like you’ll never smith another piece of metal. If you wanna forge something we’ll GET you a forge, bud. Hell, Knick might need one at some point himself, knives don’t last forever after all. But, hey, if you’re not sure, it’s not like you have to decide right now. We’re not going anywhere until after Harvestfest anyway. Personally I plan to save up as much gold as I can while I can. It’ll be harder to earn on the road, and we have no idea how far a gold coin will get us once we hit The Mountain.”

Hammer looked conflicted, “I guess I need to think about it then,” he said finally after a lengthy pause. “Probably not something that should be decided on the spur of the moment.”

I shrugged. “Maybe not, but that’s how I did it when Knick asked me. You do you, Hammer. No wrong answer, as long as it’s right for you.” I smiled and clapped him on the shoulder.