Chapter 3: Brvost

It actually took me several days, three to be exact before I found signs of civilization. It manifested itself as a small path that wound from the direction of the foothills to the west and down towards the river where it met up and then followed it along the path towards, well somewhere. It was without a doubt a person path not some game trail, you could tell by how wide it was and how there were occasional ruts that looked like thin wheels had carved them. I stood there for several moments trying to decide whether I kept following the river or went the other direction into the foothills. I was leaning towards the river, due to the whole proximity to water and whatnot when I noticed a shape in the distance coming up the road from that direction.

I could see it, but not clearly due to the distance and it took some time for it to resolve itself into a wagon of sorts. It was not like any wagon I had personally seen, but then again, it wasn't also that dissimilar. It still had four wheels, and it had a bed made of wood paneling. In fact, the thing that actually set it apart was the creatures pulling it.

Massive elk-like creatures.

Two of them to be exact, and my description of them as Elk was a little lacking, sure they had the general body shape and size of an Elk, but it appeared as though their legs were longer, more muscled, and tufts of Clydesdale like fur-covered their hooves. They also had a sort of mane around their head and odder than anything they had tall horns that came out the same place an elks antlers did, but instead of branching they went straight up a few inches above their head, turned 90 degrees to point to the side then turned 90 degrees again to sweep straight up again into a rather massive and deadly looking point. There were no branching elk-like or deer-like antlers, just two rather sharp-looking horns.

This was really the first thing that I had seen that told me I was in a different plane of existence, up to this point it would have been pretty easy to just assume that I was simply out in the wild somewhere, but this. This was clearly not a creature that had ever walked the earth, and I was pretty damn sure that I had never seen any of the closest earth equivalent animals used as a beast of labor. I had a good amount of time to study them and the men that drove the wagon as they came up to me. It would appear that there were two of them, one was an older man in his mid-forties or so, and the other was around my age if I were to guess. Judging by appearances they were closely related, likely father and son, and they were dressed much like I was, though the clothing looked more worn than what I had on and instead of boots they both wore turn shoes and the section of their pants where it tightened around the calves was wrapped in a colored material that looked like strips of dyed linen. They also lacked the gugel hood and their belts were thinner and worn.

The wagon pulled to a stop about twenty feet from me and the older man looked me up and down even while his son looked around, scanning the area. That struck me as odd until I realized that they might think I was a bandit and that I was the distraction while all of my friends positioned themselves for an ambush. This told me two things, the first being that there were bandits and I would need to be rather more careful than I had been for the past few days. The second being that these bandits were active enough for everyday folk like these two to have developed a routine like this, which simply further enforced point one about me needing to be careful.

“Hi,” I called to the man, raising my right hand in greeting and praying that they would be able to understand me.

“Hail,” the older man called back, but he didn't take his hands off of the reins. There was a pause as neither he nor I spoke anymore, and deciding the man would rather sit there and stare at me I decided to take the first step.

“I am a traveler,” I said, “and these lands are unfamiliar to me, tell me, the road you came from, is there a settlement or town close down it, or would I be better going the other way?” I asked as I pointed towards the bend in the road that led up into the foothills.

“There is naught back there but a few farmhouses,” he said indicating the way in which they had come with a nod of his head, even as he made sure not to look away from me. “It is two days ride to the nearest, four maybe five days on foot.” He spoke with an interesting accent, slightly Slavic or something, but still, it was understandable, thank God. “Past that is the city of Hathfeild, another days ride hence.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“And this way?” I asked pointing in the direction of the hills.

“Ah, the keep Vessimir is there, along with the town, about a days ride, two on foot.” I nodded, it looked like I was going up into the hills. I would have to be careful of my water usage, though my food should hold out until I made it to this Vessimir. As I thought about a full two more days of walking in these boots I struggled to hold in a wince of sympathetic pain. New boots are never fun to break in, and these, unlike the boots I was used to wearing had less padding and no way to tighten them, meaning they moved around on my feet some and had led to some rather unpleasant blisters. Blisters that had popped and even now were stinging something fierce. An idea popped into my head as I looked at the wagon, they were hauling what looked like hay, a rather impressive amount of it in fact, though that might just be because it was loose in the wagon and not in bales. Which means that these were likely farmers, off to sell a harvest.

“Are you on your way to Vessimir?” I asked.

“Yes,” the old man said his eyes narrowing at me.

“May I ride with you?” He was about to open his mouth and refuse, I could see it on his face so I continued talking before he could answer. “I have my own food, so you wouldn't need to feed me, and I would be willing to help you unload this when we get there.” That is the thing about farmers, they were, for the lack of a better descriptor, the most hard-working of lazy people. Or perhaps it was more that they were the laziest of hard workers, either way, there was a reason farmers always invented new ways to do the work with more and more ease, they were quite inventive when it came to making it so that they could do less work, probably because the work itself was so tedious and monotonous, I honestly couldn't really blame them, this all meant that when an opportunity came along that would make their workday easier and would literally cost them nothing they were all for it.

“Hop on,” the old man said with a smile and moved over slightly to allow me to climb aboard the running boards. “We could always use an extra set of hands,” smiling I obliged and hopped on the wagon, leaning back against the hay and thankful to be off of my feet for the first time in days. This was better than paying them in coins, seeing as I had no idea what each coin was worth and had no way of finding out without showing them the coins I had stashed away in my pack, besides, a little work wasn't much of a fee in my opinion when compared to keeping myself from having to walk for two more days.

The wagon lurched back into motion and I felt the wheels go over small bumps and realized that this cart had no springs or shocks of any variety. It was not going to be the most comfortable of rides, but still, it beat walking by a long shot.

“Foreigner ey?” the farmer asked, and I nodded, “whereabouts from?” I froze, honestly I hadn't thought about how exactly to answer anyone when they asked this question. If I told them America or Montana or something and they looked on a world map and didn't see it they would think I was lying to them, after all, there was no such land on this plane of existence.

“America,” I said, deciding that the likelihood that a farmer had a world map was relatively slim. “My land is called America, and the region in which I live in America is called Montana.” I smiled and went on talking. “Montana literally means mountains, it looks a lot like here in fact,” I said by way of explanation.

“Montana,” he said slowly, looking ahead as the cart started bouncing over the road. “Can’t says I have ever heard it,” he said. “What is your name son?” he asked looking at me.

“Erik Gunderson,” I said, reaching out and grasping the man’s offered forearm.

“It is a pleasure Erik son of Gunder, my name is Tovold, and this is my son Haldor,” I nodded to his son who nodded back at me.

“What are those called?” I asked pointing at the two elk-like creatures pulling the cart, both Haldor and Tovold looked at me with raised eyebrows. They were looking at me like an idiot so I scrambled for an explanation. “This isn't my native language, in my language, those are called Elk, I was just wondering what your word for them is.”

“Really?” Haldor asked. “Aside from the accent, you speak quite well,”

“Well thanks,” I said, glad that the people that had put me here had indeed made it so that I could speak the language, how exactly they had done that I don't know, but then again we were talking about people who could travel to different planes of existence at will so I don't suppose it was too out of the ordinary.

“Elk huh? We call them Brvost,” Tovold said, before pointing to one of them. “This one is named Sjer and the other is named Thosiin,“ he said with a smile.

“Brvost huh?” I said to myself, mentally writing the name down. After all, if farmers were using them for transport and work then they were likely in wide use here, where ever here was…