As the weather warmed, the chores on the farm multiplied exponentially. From just before sunrise and sometimes until well after sunset, all of us worked our asses off. And I do mean everyone. Xeng had taken it upon himself to tend to our herds, moving them up into the hills to find the choicest shoots of new tender vegetation. I probably only saw him every third day or so. Mero often went into the hills with him serving as an apprentice of sorts, but since neither of them knew exactly what they were doing, it was sort of like the blind leading the blind.

I tasked Werner with designing some gloves with articulated armatures in them. The idea was to hide the missing digits of my companions who would be traveling with me. He turned out prototype after prototype until finally he made something workable.

I pitched in whenever I could, substituting effort for knowledge. Much of what I did was pure manual labor because I lacked the experience and technical skills to direct anyone else. My days were especially long as Aleyda and I kept up our combat training even after an extended day in the fields.

Mariam was the person that had most experience in sowing and growing crops and taking care of livestock. She became our de facto manager, but she wasn’t afraid to pitch in to the extent she could to show us how we were all doing it wrong. Surprisingly, she took Helvia on as an assistant. Helvia had experienced a truly astonishing change in attitude over the preceding months. She was eager to learn and had begun to embrace our life together. Once she actually decided to try, I found that she had an astute mind and her experience running an estate had granted her quite a bit of business acumen. She laughed more, smiled more, but every once in a while I would still catch her pensively brooding, staring off into space.

Jahhaf did as he always did. He was an immense source of comfort for everyone, who not only cherished his wonderful cooking but also valued his skills as a listener, someone to unburden themselves to. In his quiet way, he was perfect in that role. He listened without judgment. He never gossiped. When he did speak and give advice it was usually short, to the point, and spot on. People unburdened themselves to him in ways they never could with me. I worried about him sometimes, though. I knew he had to be suffering as well, and who did he have to vent to?

If I had to describe Patrick in one word, it would be solid. An amazingly patient man, he took on any necessary task with conviction. From the perspective of day to day leadership, he provided more of it than I did. He was better suited for it. When I became frustrated, it was readily apparent. When he became frustrated, he would step back, try to educate himself the best he could, and give it another go. I knew that he would be in charge while I was gone. Some days, I wasn’t certain that he wasn’t in charge while I was here. I was grateful he was with us, and I am not ashamed to say that I studied how he comported himself and tried to be more like him.

Bowen and Aleyda readily pitched in whenever the could however they could, but both knew they would be leaving with me. Both worked hard with Ugor to try to learn as much of the local language as they were able. They trained incessantly and worked to develop a list of provisions and equipment that we would need to take with us. As might be expected, given his former life, Bowen was quite accomplished at misdirection and subterfuge. He was quite cunning, but my earlier misgivings about him had largely given way to grudging respect. Had I met him in my prior life, I am not certain we would have hit it off and become friends. In this world, though, we were partners and his Machiavellian tendencies would come in quite handy when we made it to the island. I had no doubt about his loyalties. He seemed fully invested.

Aleyda continued to bother me until finally I gave in and took her to town to see Sathebeena. There, I ended up dropping a considerable sum to get her geared up in the way she desired. By the time everything had been designed, ordered, paid for and delivered, Aleyda was finally equipped the way she wanted to be. Wearing a nicely made set of chainmail armor, and festooned with a variety of weapons manufactured to her preferences, she was a sight to behold. I hoped the investment would be worth it because neither Bowen nor I felt very comfortable in armor and we just selected our weapons from what we had acquired along the way. I trained with rapier, dagger and sword. Bowen used a sword and crossbow. I thought about taking the staff that I had looted from the redoubt but Goulug had never given it back to me. He kept talking about how it was the finest weapon he had ever owned and I didn’t have the heart to ask for its return. If someone came calling, threatening my people or my property, I knew he would put it to good use.

Although the pain had become more muted with the passage of time, I often wondered what Lapina would have been doing, what she would have contributed. That’s the thing about death. It’s so damn final. Eventually, I resigned myself to the fact that I would never know the answer. It’s not like she would be the only person we would ever lose. Mariam was fairly old and Jahhaf wasn’t exactly a spring chicken either. If I didn’t get myself killed on the island, there would be more loss in the future. These dark thoughts were definitely not something I enjoyed contemplating, but from time to time I did anyway. I couldn’t help myself.

Time passed and a lot of work got done. We got our spring crops and our garden planted. Sometimes I cursed Nulrik, the older one and not the younger one. His lack of attention to the property for half a decade had made everything much more difficult. The ground, while fertile, was tough to plow because of the dense roots of the wild plants that had grown in the intervening years. Even with the horses and the ox, it was excruciating work. At least it would be much better over the next few years.

I talked to Mariam about rotating crops to preserve the fertility of the soil. It was apparently something they had not practiced much in her world. Instead they enriched the dirt with manure and other adjuncts, or just let a field lie fallow from time to time. My explanation of nitrogen fixation was way too technical, but when I simplified it and told her to make certain we planted peas or beans in rotation with other things, she understood. I knew that alfalfa also would work but I hadn’t seen any in this world yet.

We spent about a week digging out a springhouse down by the pond. The soil down there had a lot of clay in it and the water table there was pretty high, so it was slippery, disgusting work. Food preservation was important, though. That’s also why we built a smokehouse. From time to time, I heard Werner muttering about reproducing the things needed for home canning, but by the time we were ready to leave he had not been successful.

Soon enough, daylight was extending well into the evening and the weather continued to warm. Due to the elevation and the proximity to ocean, I didn’t think the plateau would ever get heat like I experienced in the center of the United States in the summer. In the absence of climate control, that was something I was very grateful for.

I decided that we would leave for Shroud Hallow within the week. Much of that time was spent with final preparations. We would not be taking a pack animal, they were all needed on the farm. Instead, we would walk and carry our own supplies. That led to several late nights of discussion and debate about the difference between wants and needs. Eventually, I just threw up my hands and told Aleyda and Bowen that there was plenty of stuff for sale in Shroud Hallow, but that it would be expensive. We needed to focus on carrying things that would be too pricey to replace there, stuff like armor and weapons. I also let them know that I would be wearing a different face when we traveled. I assumed I was still deemed an evil murderer, wanted by the guard. I didn’t want to get locked up or executed before we even got started.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Finally, we had a discussion about the problem caused by the gift of tongues aboard a ship. It would be impossible for me to communicate privately with either of them if there was anyone close enough to overhear the conversation because the other person would understand every word that I was saying. In confined quarters, what had been an abundant blessing so far would be more like a curse. Therefore, we had to get our story straight long before we made it to the ship and would need to act in character the whole time. It would be a stressful voyage.

The night before we were set to depart, we had a small gathering of friends. Goulug and his family came over and Anxo and Sathebeena made the trip from town. At times there was riotous, raucous laughter but at other times, during lulls in the conversation, the gravity of my decision would sink in and there was tense silence. There were a lot of people who didn’t think they would ever see me again.

Finally, Sathebeena and Anxo cornered me. “Why are you being such a damn fool?” she asked. “You have everything a man could want here. Good companions. A nice little farm. A modest degree of wealth. You even have a few friends. And the way some of the women in the village eye you when you come to town, you could have other sorts of companionship if you wanted it. Why do you have to risk your life on this folly? What do you have to gain? A little more money? A taste of adventure?”

I took some time to gather my thoughts as the two stood there staring at me. I knew I could throw out some bullshit excuse about there never being enough money or about having a taste for adventure but these two were rapidly becoming my friends. I didn’t like lying to my friends, at least when I wasn’t using and high all the time. Could I afford to tell them the truth? How would they react? Could I afford not to tell them the truth?

Finally, I just decided to go for it. If these two couldn’t understand my reasoning, they weren’t the friends I thought they were.

“Will you hold what I tell you in confidence?” I asked. Honestly, I wasn’t worried about Anxo, but Sathebeena liked to run her mouth and sometimes got caught up in the moment when she was talking crap.

“Of course I can,” Sathebeena replied, a little too quickly for my taste. Anxo just nodded at me.

“Seriously, what I am about to tell you could put me at risk,” I continued. “Goulug knows, and he is the only one. If three people know, sometimes it’s hard to keep a secret. Let me ask you a question. How do you view how I treat my slaves?”

“You treat them like members of your family,” Anxo replied. “Anyone with working eyes can see that you care deeply about them. I have even heard comments about it in town. Many were favorable but some were not, talking about how the dirty five-fingers live better than some upstanding citizens of the area.”

“If I have learned one thing in my life, it’s that everyone wants to feel like they have it better than someone else,” I replied. “They want to feel like they aren’t the lowest of the low. Did I ever tell you about our journey from Westfield to here?”

“You haven’t,” Sathebeena replied.

So I told them. I told them about the casual cruelty, the monstrous derision directed at us as we traveled. I told them about the attacks. I described Helvia lying unconscious in the road, her back a bloody mess. And then I told them why I chose this place to settle. How the treatment was better here. How people seemed to care more.

“That’s terrible,” Anxo exclaimed. “I don’t think anyone should suffer that.”

“I agree,” I responded. “The people that live with me are fine people. They are intelligent, capable workers. They are good friends. And the only thing ‘wrong’ with them is that they are missing a finger on each hand. They are people just like you and me. They have wants and dreams. They laugh and feel and hurt just like everyone else. Except here, things are set up so that they suffer. They are meant to laugh little and hurt much. And what’s their sin? They were born like everyone else in the world that they each came from. And then, without choice, they found their way here. Everything that they have known before is gone. Their families are unreachable. The friendships and prosperity that many spent a lifetime cultivating were blown away by the wind. It all happened because they went to sleep one night and ended up out on an island in a world that was not their own. Then, men looking for easy profit rounded them up and sold them like animals. The men felt justified in doing it, all because this area was invaded from the sea several hundred years ago by people who looked like their prey. Here, their lives, their honor, their dignity is gone.”

Both Sathebeena and Anxo wore stunned, bearing troubled expressions at the end of my miniature diatribe. Most likely, it was because their world view had just been upended. They were conditioned to look at things one way but I had just given them a reflection of their society as viewed through a funhouse mirror. Having bedrock assumptions that you have been spoon fed your whole life questioned is unsettling.

“So, you are going to do what?” Sathebeena asked, “Are you set on becoming the savior of the five-fingered race?”

“I don’t have that sort of power,” I replied. “I can’t get out of my own way half the time. But there is a danger in viewing things from the perspective of all or nothing. Just because I can’t save everyone doesn’t mean I can’t help some. And some is a whole lot better than none.”

“So, you are willing to risk your life and the lives of your companions for other people you’ve never met?” Anxo asked.

“Before I moved here, I had never met either of you,” I replied. “If you asked me for help in a dangerous situation, you know I would be there. Betraying what I stand for is more abhorrent to me than the thought of death. Change, either positive or negative, usually happens incrementally. One decision motivated by convenience or self preservation after another, year after year, and I would not like the person I had become. Staying true to your values, as long as those values are good, as long as your heart is in the right place, is worth the risk. ‘To thine own self be true,’ as a writer I once read put it.”

Then, there was silence. I had given them a lot to think about in a very short time. I could see the wheels spinning, fundamental assumptions being evaluated for their validity. Once before, I talked about silence. I described how uncomfortable it could be, but this was quite the opposite. There was comfort in watching friends look at me in a new light, evaluating what I had to say at their own pace. Finally, Anxo spoke.

“You are a good man, James. I will help look after your property while you are gone. I expect you to come back. I don’t have enough friends as it is. I can’t afford to lose one. If your people or Goulug have problems in your absence, send them to find me. I will help. I hope you find what you are after.” Then, he turned and walked off to rejoin the party.

I looked down towards Sathebeena and found that she was moving towards me. Reaching up she engulfed my waist in a crushing hug, the power of arms that had endlessly toiled at the anvil driving the air out of my lungs. Her eyes shined with unshed tears.

“If you were a dwarf, I would marry you,” she said.

She relented long enough for me to draw breath and respond. “If I were a dwarf, it would be a great honor.” Then, I returned her hug with a smile.