A lone apple tree stood in the middle of a field, an old shepherd laid on the ground with his back against the bark, a straw hat shading his eyes from the sun, nodding off under the breeze. A flock of sheep grazed on green grass around him while a faithful dog diligently gathered stray sheep from getting too far away or crossing the gravel road by the field. Across the road were women and children of a nearby village, making their way through the crops weeding out weeds from precious wheat. They moved to the next field after finishing their round and repeated it all again. Scarecrows was scattered across the field, strings joined them together, as they danced together when the wind blew into a small windmill.
Below the hillside fields was the village of Linder, one of many along the river of melted snow that flowed from Whiteveil, part of the towering cliff faces that stretched as far north as to the south, so tall it was more common to see the peaks covered in clouds than to see the snow cover. Linder was the last village downstream of Whiteveil. There was an outpost on the desert beyond the end of the stream who came every other week to purchase grains and milk, but the nearest domain after was a hold south of Whiteveil with greener grasslands and a trade closer to Aldmrya than the other Eloran cities.
The villagers of Linder made do with what they got. Windmills as old as centuries pumped as much water from the river up man-made channels to irrigate the fields on the hill. There was not much use for any to let flowing north but wasted on the barren desert. Hopeful scavengers made a stop in the village before disappearing into the desert, rarely seen again, in a quest to find valuables from ancient ruins claimed by the sand. Nomadic herders brought along their livestock to graze on green grass and moved before the season change, trading a couple of their sheep for the villagers' hospitality. Merchants avoiding the desert on their way to Whiteveil would have to cross Linder anyway. Some, like the old shepherd dozing off under the trees extended their stay and ended up being one of the villagers.
"RAMFOORD!" kids crossed the road and ran toward the shepherd, shouting.
"Mommy said join us for lunch," said the bunch of them, relaying what the working ladies told them.
Ramford grumbled and stretched his old back, tipping his hat to better cover his eyes from the sun, and said,
"I brought my lunch, kids. Thank your mothers for me. Perhaps next time."
The kids looked at each other and then scuttled back to their mothers. One kid returned with a slice of buttered bread, but Ramford did not complain and finished it.
He was about to nap again when horses descended from Whiteveil and kicked dusts off the road. The peaceful village of Linder was being visited by the knights. They sauntered through the village straight to the chief's home, who rushed out to greet the honorable knights, who proceeded to read a decree, and then left the village to deal with it. The chief then gave the villagers some order and then went to the barn to do his part.
Murmurs grew from the village ladies who watched from the hills. It was rare for the knights of Whiteveil to ride as far as Linder. Their village was out of the way of anywhere worthy, and there was not much to tax from them anyway. The village already sent regular payments to the lord's domain after every harvest, but when Whiteveil did send someone, something must be happening under the mountain.
The old sheperd dozed back into his nap until another person shouted his name out out of a sudden, making his faithful dog jumped to its four feet and barked.
"Ramford!" called a woman working the field.
He grumbled and sighed, lifting his hat.
"Yes, Deborah. What's the matter?" he asked.
"We're returning early. The chief is asking everyone to help with the grains. The windmill is broken so we have to pound it by hand. We won't be here to wake you up. I don't want you oversleeping. The nights have been too cold lately," she said.
"I'll be fine, thank you very much. I always wake up before you call," he politely replied.
"You do, don't you..." she said, smiling. Deborah left Ramford and his dog and his sheep and joined the rest of the women back to the village.
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She was very kind of the elderly, Deborah. Her parents died when bandits attacked her old village north of the desert. She was captured and enslaved, sold to a traveling merchant who took care of her well. He was old enough to be her grandfather, but she ended up bearing two of his kids. When he died they moved to Linder because he once brought her with him and she liked the village. The kids became merchants themselves when they were old enough but Deborah stayed and re-married a farmer. She had another five years old girl, whose hand she was holding as they walked down the hill.
He closed his eyes again and tried for another nap but can't. The old shepherd stretched his back and lifted himself up with the stick.
"Let's go, Colt," he ordered.
His dog perked up and with a command from its master began to round up the sheep and bring them back to the village. Ramford pulled himself forward with his stick. His old age came with bad knees and sore back. An old shepherd would stop moving around and settle for fresh grass. Colt was ahead of him, leading the sheep into a pen just outside the village. The villagers gathered around the barn in the middle of the village, the women pounding at grains while the men carried bags of wheat into a pile near them.
Ramford sighed and took a detour. The only windmill on the village that could mill grains was also its largest. There was an open square between it and the barn where workers would shovel finished flour to be bagged, but it was now covered in weed and bags of grains waiting to be pounded by hand. The villagers were too busy to see the shepherd slipping into the windmill through the gap between the walls. The mill had been broken for so long the wooden walls began to rot in some places. The blades were tied to the ground so they did not spin and send shrapnel flying. Even the rope was moldy from rain.
Inside was rusting iron and wooden frame holding the gears together and the pair of stone beds that would grind the grains away. Ramford made his way to the wooden stairs and took his steps, the wood creaking under him, threatening to snap in moments notice. With a light foot he made it to the top and inspected the mechanism. He clicked his tongue in awe with human ingenuity, using nothing but some cast molten metal to make nature do hard work for them. Blades to catch the wind that would turn some gears that would force heavy stone slabs to pulverize hard grains into flours and make bread out of it. Almost magical, but flawed.
He noticed a crooked gear, dislodged out of place due to a sheared shaft. The mill was doomed from long ago. The shaft had been broken for years before a strong wind jolted it enough to shift the shaft away and eventually dropped the gear. There was no blacksmith in the village to make a replacement, and a villager commissioned to order one from Whiteveil disappeared with their money. Nobody knew if he was robbed or simply stole the village fund, but the windmill had been tied down for seasons.
Sure, a villager could simply eat boiled grains and just pound some manually if they fancied making bread, but what happened when the lord demanded flours?
"We don't have two carriages worth of flour, chief! We won't make enough in time!" someone said to the village chief.
"Yes we can. If everyone work together, get on it Tom!" the chief ordered.
"Maybe, but we won't make any flour fine enough. Heads will roll, chief!" Tom objected.
The chief, Darcy, was a well-intention-ed but lacking man. He took up the role when the old chief died and since Linder had seen peaceful days since he led the villagers forgave his mistakes big and small. Ramford had met a lot of his kind over the years, incompetent to the point they ended up die young or exiled from where they came from.
The old shepherd edged closer to the gears and pointed his stick at the broken mechanism. He gave it a poke and pressed his stick on it. White light emanated from his hand down through his walking stick. Some sort of light distortion, as if water floated in the air, engulfed the mechanism. The old shepherd gave his stick a twist and without resistance the broken gears returned to its correct position. Metal and wood creaked and shook as sheared shaft and snapped frame returned to a state where they were never broken.
The noise drew the attention of villagers working outside.
"HEY! What's happening?"
"Oh my god, it's the windmill!"
"Oh no, is it falling apart?"
"GO! LEAVE THE SQUARE!"
They panicked and shouted at each other to save themselves. There were some time before a brave soul went inside the windmill to check, so the old shepherd made haste and sent a blast of white light throughout the inside of the windmill. Loud snaps and bangs came to be as he forced the mechanism to turn, sending rust flying. He stopped when he felt the windmill started swaying from a gentle breeze and the gears beginning to turn on its own.
The wooden door below him rattled as villagers began to force themselves in. The old shepherd pulled his stick out of the mechanism and the light fizzled. He jumped off the ledge as the first villagers entered, but Ramford did not fall. He stepped outside of his pen, Colt barking at him with displeasure, having already rounding up all of the sheep inside.
"Oh, would you shut up, Colt. It's just a little favor," the old shepherd seemed to answer his dog.
He stumbled his way across the pen to close the fence behind the sheep and then leaned on to watch the result of his craft. The village of Linder had their broken windmill magically turning again and Chief Darcy got to keep his head on his neck until next time.