Spin Offs, Alfi B
The Solstice Festival had gone well. Tankard Dwill and his entire extended family had shown up with a few others from Aramy, primarily to have Del officiate three marriages and four name-day ceremonies. They had brought wood, extra food consisting mostly of dried fish, some drink and some tobacco. Others, from some of the outlying homesteads had come as well. The population of Lekas had briefly grown to similar numbers as had come to help fight Sharlok.
Del had been officially recognized as a priestess and would, in fact, become the local Cira-di when the temple was completed. The tension between her and some of the other priestesses seemed to have passed. She had officiated all the ceremonies during the festival.
Tankard and his kin had decided to stay on for a couple extra eight-days, they helped harvest grass for grains, for food and fodder. They did plenty of labour on the new earthworks, under the direction of the dwarves. Alfi was back from her first trip to the northern homesteads before they had left. She and the two youth who had gone with her had been surprised by all that had been accomplished while they were away.
Alfi stayed in Lekas an eight-day, then headed out to the southern homesteads, taking Prodd and Atti with her. As they travelled they spread the word about what was happening in Lekas and she taught the children how to live off the land. The westernmost homesteads were near the territory of the wild-elves, only a few days east of Bowder. Here, her mother’s people lived. Followers of the oldways, they had not been interested in fighting Sharlok and now she came with sad news.
After introducing the orphans to some of the family, she walked further south to talk to her grandmother, who lived near the edge of the migratory path. She found the old woman out in her kitchen, cutting the flesh from a couple of goblins she had recently caught. When she spotted Alfi, she smiled and waved her over, “Nice to see you, girl. I could use a hand.”
“Thern died, fighting Sharlok’s army.”
“I know, he told me.”
Alfi stripped out of her leathers and put aside her weapons and gear. She washed up, then asked, “What do you need me to do?”
Her grandmother silently worked away until she had finished stripping most of the flesh from the second corpse, she slapped a thin strip of meat onto the pile with the rest of it and said, “Cut this up.”
Alfi set about that task. Goblin meat was very tough and not very palatable on its own. It took a long time to get it cut up into smaller strips and pieces. While she was doing that, her grandmother put the bones from the two goblins into a cauldron of boiling water. She stirred the pot of bubbling bitter-berries and herbs then did a general clean up around the kitchen. Eventually she asked, “Are you staying?”
“No, Lekas needs me.”
“Needs you?”
“Yes, we’re building a keep. I’m part of the council now. I’ve a gaggle of orphans to train.”
“Orphans? What about their families?”
“Most of them are from smaller families, or better off not going to their surviving kin.”
“Well, at least those foolish priestesses won’t get their talons into them. Not like after the Winter War, bad business, that.”
Alfi was acutely aware of the pendant of Mercy hanging between her breasts. She focused her attention on the meat, “What’s next?”
“Stick it in that brine there, put it on the back of the stove.”
Alfi did so, then told her grandmother, “I’ve dreamed of Thern, every night since he died. Or, near enough anyway.”
“That’s not surprising. You should come stay with me for a few seasons, learn to better control your dreams. There’s other things I could teach you.”
“Like what?”
“How to trap goblins for one thing.”
“Ha, I don’t like goblin jam that much.”
“That’s fair, I don’t either.” They laughed.
“Seriously girl, a few seasons. Learn what I can show you. Change is coming, the Dragon Star is in the sky again.”
“I saw it.”
“I should hope so.”
“How about after the keep is built?”
She scratched her ear and regarded Alfi with a frown, “I’m not sure I’ve another decade in me, girl. If you won’t, it’ll have to be one of your cousins.”
“That might be best.” Alfi said, “I’ve important responsibilities now, Grandma, I can’t turn my back on the folks of Lekas.”
The old woman sighed, “Well, I’ll not hound you about it. Come sit with me on the porch for a bit. We might see an elf. There’s been plenty of them heading east recently.”
After putting some more fuel on the fire the two of them went around to the front of the house, which faced southeast. They sat on the porch, smoked a bowl from her grandmother’s pipe and watched the countryside as the shadows grew long. It was a beautiful place, truly a vast garden of the ancients, tended for millennia. They saw no elves. Alfi had not really expected to, they were elusive and rarely showed themselves to humans.
Before the light was gone, Alfi helped her with the goblin jam, pouring everything into the large stewing pot, then she went back to her great uncle’s place.
The kids were all in the barn, the adults sitting for a late meal, drinking some mead and talking about the news of the land. Alfi told them of the Battle of Lekas and what was happening there now. More than once that night they raised their mugs to Thern. The family had news from Shalok’s lands; now divided, the central and eastern parts of what had been Sharloks Hold were contested, while the west remained stable. Alfi went to bed late that night, her head swimming from all the mead. If she dreamt of Thern she could not recall having done so the next morning.
They stayed another day. Alfi took the children along the edge of the migratory path, gathering food and a bit of wood for arrows. She also took the time to make sure the children would respect the place of the wild-elves. To do otherwise was to put your life a risk, the elves had no tolerance for those that defiled or plundered their land.
When they left the next day, her cousin Berthon and three of the children who were approaching adulthood went with them. Berthon was looking for a change of pace and thought he might be of use to the various building projects going on in Lekas, having a gift for numbers and visualizing shapes. His rule of thumb was better than most folks careful measurements. The youths were coming thanks to the stories they had heard from the orphans regarding events in Lekas and what they, the orphans, were doing with Alfi.
The return journey was pleasant, the days were warm, often hot and there was only a bit of rainfall. On arriving at Lekas, Alfi had to stop and take a long moment to absorb the changes. The temple had gone up, the wooden one, not the stone temple that would be built later. The earthworks were ongoing, but well advanced as compared to when she had left. The main canal ditch had running water in it now, courtesy of the dwarves. As of yet, neither the moat, nor the agricultural aqueducts were completed and she knew there would be a windmill constructed to bring the water up from the aquifer the dwarves had located. Last, but not least, there was a row of small stone dwellings being erected along the southern edge of the village.
Aside from the physical changes, there were the people; folks from all over the region had shown up, including about three score more dwarves, with many domesticated plains-striders and the first of the stone imported from their northern quarry. There were a few people from what had once been Sharlok’s Hold, and folks from points even further west.
Berthon looked to her, “You were not joking when you said we’d hardly recognize Lekas.”
“Ha. It’s hardly recognizable from three eight-day previous.”
“Well, I’m glad I came. Happy to be part of this.”
“I’ll take you over to NewHall and get you all situated. Then I should go talk to Del.”
After showing them where they could sleep and store their belongings, Alfi left her kin in the care of the orphans. She went to Andisal’s Keep where she found Del, busy making notes in Andisal’s book. “Things seem to be progressing well.”
Del looked up, smiled warmly and came to Alfi to give her a quick hug, “How was your trip?”
“Pretty good. I brought back some more help. Anything that needs my immediate attention?”
“No, you should take a few days, we won’t need to send you to Willik’s Hold. A few of the other sisters went out that way to visit the temple there.”
“Oh, well that’s nice. If nothing else comes up, I’ll take some time to prepare the first hunting expedition. Have we obtained any more salt?”
“The dwarves brought a fair amount and we were able to get some through Aramy.”
“Good. Has work on the road started?”
“Soon. A couple folks from Sharlok’s went back to gather some of their crew from the earlier road work out that way. They also expect to come back with various families from the same group of people. There’s been unrest since the battle.”
“I heard that the western areas around Domkee and Calameer are fairly stable. That’s Lord Keilam, who withdrew from the attack, after Sharlok’s death.”
“I expect we’ll get a lot more news when they show up.”
“Anything else?”
“No, you should go see Lef. We’ll be meeting tomorrow around midday.”
“Until then.”
Alfi went home. She found Lef trying to clean up and sort out the household. She gave him a big hug, he was happy to see her. The housekeeping work was delayed for a while, but they did get back to it before the days end. The place was cleaned and mostly tidied, but the second room had become a clutter of various piles of stuff they were not sure they wanted to keep, as well a large assortment of Lef’s tools, instruments and miscellaneous materials he had collected over the years. She decided to have a word with Berthon about helping them build a proper workshop for Lef.
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