Chapter 87 Farm and Trade

  The fire outside Caelen’s cave barely clung on, casting just enough light to flicker over weary, determined faces. The Hollow wouldn’t quiet, either—the mist kept drifting in, winding around the dark ridges as if it had its own will. The freed folk and villagers had little, only what they’d been able to gather or dry, and now they sat close in a ring. Their breath drifted up pale and thin in the darkness, everyone waiting, no one truly at ease.

  Caelen, silent until then, leaned forward from his place near the fire, his eyes dark pools that reflected the emberlight. In his broken cadence, he spoke with the certainty of command.

  “Not enough. Meat, yes. But no green, no root. Hollow sick if only meat. We trade.”

  Mirelle’s braid shifted as she tipped her head, sharp eyes on him. “Trade? With what coin, Caelen? We’ve barely enough for patchwork roofs, let alone for a market.”

  He reached into the shadows of the cave. One by one, he drew samples forth what they had salvaged from the wreck: a coil of cordage, copper pans hammered flat, a roll of canvas, bundles of pitch, tools of iron and bronze. He set them on the earth between them like game pieces on a board. Murmurs rose around the circle—astonishment, then calculation.

  “Worth much,” Caelen said simply. “More than coin. Tools, canvas, copper. Ship’s heart. City want these. We give, get food.”

  Petyr’s hands twitched toward the tools, mischief and wonder in his eyes. “Aye, that’s value.“Farmers would give up their entire harvest for just half of this.”

  Tamsen cut in, her voice as sharp as ever. “Or we walk right into a trap, with every bandit and pirate smelling us out. Canvas, pitch, copper—these aren’t baubles. They’re riches. People notice.”

  The freed dwarves whispered among themselves in their own tongue. No one needed a translation to see their anxiety.

  Brother Renn sat further back, his wound still slowing him, his gaze fixed on the boy. Something in Caelen’s composure unsettled him—too sure, too relentless. What manner of leader grows in this Hollow?

  Tib’s voice steadied the murmurs. “If we go, it must be light. Four only, no more. The rest stay hidden. That way, if trouble comes, the Hollow remains guarded.”

  Caelen nodded. “Pit stay. Guard Hollow. Tib with me. Two more. Strong, quiet.”

  Bran grunted, leaning forward with massive hands braced on his knees. “Four will do. Carry enough, not draw too many eyes. But you’ll need quick feet if the wrong sort notices.”

  Kali, who had been silent until then, gave her quiet assent. “It is a risk, yes. But sickness will come without more food. Better to risk the road than waste away here.”

  The circle stilled. The decision had been made. Caelen spoke again, slow and final.

  “Night we plan. Dawn we go. Pit—watch. Hollow must not break.”

  The fire crackled, sending sparks into the mist. Around the circle, faces shifted—doubt, resolve, weariness. Brother Renn lowered his gaze, whispering a prayer to the Veils. He had come to this valley expecting only hardship, but here he saw the stirring of something he could not yet name.

  And so the night passed weightily with the resolve. When the dawn came, the Hollow would send its first emissaries into the world beyond its broken ridges, and Caelen’s gameboard would expand.

  …

  The morning air was sharp and clear. Caelen led the way, his stride quick and unyielding, Tib close at his shoulder. Behind them walked Kali, quiet as always, her gaze drifting over every stone and root, while Petyr fiddled with a contraption of bent wire and wood he’d pulled from his pouch, his muttering and sudden chuckles breaking the hush of the Hollow’s departure.

  The south road was rough, more broken track than proper path, gullied by years of neglect. Stones jutted like crooked teeth, and in places the soil had washed away entirely, leaving only roots to cling to. They kept close to the river, its steady rush a companion to their silence.

  Soon Tib’s eyes narrowed. He pointed at the western bank, where the runoff from Gloamhollow spilled into the waters. Trees there bore a sickly hue, leaves yellow-edged and brittle, even though it was autumn, this was not the cause. Low shrubs sagged as if their roots drank poison.

  “See that?” Tib muttered. “Hollow’s mark spreads further than we thought.”

  Kali touched the end of a dying branch as they passed, her brow creased. “Metal corrodes,” she whispered, voice like wind in reeds. “So does earth, if too much salt, too much ash.”

  Petyr tossed a small stone into the river and snorted. “Grand. So the Hollow doesn’t just stink, it kills the greenery too. We’re walking out of a cursed pot and straight into an empty pantry.”

  Caelen stopped, turned. His eyes dark, but calm.

  “No curse. Broken. Can fix.”

  The others exchanged glances, but none pressed further.

  They pressed further south, the road narrowing where the river cut tight against its eastern bank. Then Caelen halted, his head turning sharply toward a cluster of weathered stone walls across the shallows and what looked like the remains of an old dock at the river's edge.

  He spoke at last, his cadence flat and commanding.

  “Wait here. I go.”

  Tib frowned. “Caelan—”

  But the boy was already stripping off boots, stepping into the water with that sure, relentless stride.

  The current bit cold, biting his shins, then his thighs, his waist, before he hauled himself up the far side. The river crossing was sharp with chill, the water swollen from rains upriver. Stones shifted beneath Caelan’s feet, but he pressed forward. The others waited on the eastern bank, Tib muttering curses under his breath while Kali watched in silence, her pale hands folded around her bindings. Petyr, for once, did not joke—he simply squatted on the ground, restless eyes following Caelan’s every move.

  Caelan hauled himself up the far side and stood dripping, bare toes digging into the loam. The air smelled different here: old wood, pitch, resin, mingled with the salt bite of the sea carried on a southern breeze. He walked up the incline, pushing past nettles and briars, and there—half-lost to vines and time—rose a building.

  It stood taller than he expected, a long structure of timber and stone, its roof sagging but still mostly intact. Brambles had claimed its threshold, and ivy crawled across the walls like green scars, but beneath the ruin lay bones of strength. This was no peasant’s shed but a craftsman’s hall, built with purpose to serve the city’s thirst.

  He pushed aside weeds and ducked inside.

  The smell hit him first—dust and damp, a ghost of old smoke, and underneath it the rich, lingering tang of oak long cut and seasoned. His eyes adjusted slowly, catching shafts of light that pierced through the broken roof, and what he saw made his breath still.

  Racks. Rows upon rows of them.

  On those racks, thousands of staves remained, drying in ordered lines like the ribs of some forgotten leviathan. Some were warped from the years of neglect, edges frayed, but others—thousands more—were straight, strong, untouched save for weather. The sheer scale of them staggered him. Here was abandoned wealth not in silver, not in coin, but in the bones of barrels: the vessels that carried water, wine, oil, grain—the very pulse of life itself.

  He walked among them like a priest in a holy place, his hand brushing each stave as though to awaken it. Each was a possibility, each a promise.

  Even the equipment still cluttered the benches: drawknives worn and rusty, adzes clumsy in his hands, hoops bent but still strong, wedges and mallets grimed. On one bench, he found a cooper's compass, a giant wooden circle once used to help set staves into the curved hold. He lifted it, felt its weight, and saw it once more in the steady hands of a craftsman.

  The vats, too, remained: iron-bound troughs where wood had once been steamed and bent. They were dry now, their sides cracked, but they could be mended and resealed with pitch. He saw the pitch pots as well, with hardened lumps inside, but they were still usable. He saw iron hoops in heaps, green with corrosion yet salvageable. What's more, he could use the hot water in the Hollow to steam them.

  Everything was here.

  Everything he needed.

  He stepped deeper into the hallway, his dripping footsteps marking the dust. Light caught in the millions of cobwebs. Small creatures scurried into cover, their movement echoing in the stillness of the hall. In the rear corner, a chilly hearth remained, yet the remnants of infinite fires still stained the stone. He went down on one knee, running his hand against the ash as if the memory of heat could still linger.

  It had been years, perhaps decades, since the coopers withdrew. Likely, they had left when the river water soured, poisoned by Gloomhollow’s fetid seep. Once, this place must have been the pride of the coast—its barrels rolling by cart and barge into the city, carrying the pure water the city so desperately needed. But when that purity was lost, when the brine and foulness crept southward, it was abandoned.

  The coopery had been forsaken and forgotten.

  But Caelan’s eyes did not see ruin. He saw resurrection.

  He saw barrels to store grain, barrels to keep salt, barrels to cure lime, barrels to carry fresh water if they could find it clean again. He saw trade, survival, and leverage. He saw an answer to half a dozen needs in the Hollow.

  “Barrels,” he murmured, voice low but fierce. “Many barrels.”

  He paced the floor, quick now, his mind racing. He counted benches, tools, and staves. He measured with his eyes how many men it would take to haul them, how many carts heavy with timber, how long before the Hollow could grow as a place of strength.

  And then the practical questions struck him.

  How to get this back to the Hollow? How to man it, work it, bring it alive again?

  They had people, yes—villagers, freed folk, dwarves—but not many, and none trained as coopers. Could he instruct them? Could they learn fast enough? He thought of Mirelle, with her gift for structure, her quick grasp of patterns—yes, she could help. He thought of Kael, the woodworker, whose hands already knew the grain—yes, him too. The dwarves, with their stubborn craft. Together, they could relocate and revive this place.

  But the staves. So many. Thousands. He could not move them all at once. The Hollow had no teams of oxen, no great carts. He would need to plan, stripping them in sections and ferrying them back piece by piece. Weeks, months, even. Unless he made this place theirs—here, on the river’s edge.

  That thought caught him like a spark. Could they claim it? A second foothold, a place outside the Hollow? Too dangerous, perhaps. Too exposed. Yet the vision burned bright all the same.

  He clenched his fists and stood amid the silent hall, and in his mind, he was not in ruin but in rebirth: fires roaring in the hearth, men shaping staves with steady hands, barrels rolling once more out the doors.

  The noise of the river pulled him back. He stepped outside into the sunlight again, the coopery looming behind him like a slumbering giant. Across the water, Tib still watched, shading his eyes.

  “Caelan!” he called. “What is it?”

  Caelan raised one hand, a stave clutched in it like a banner. His voice carried across the current, rough and certain.

  “Answer.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Tib frowned, not understanding, but Caelan’s eyes gleamed. He turned back once more to the coopery, to the thousands of waiting staves, and he whispered to himself, half-prayer, half-command:

  “Renew Hollow, people, Avalon— honor unbroken..”

  And with that, he began to plan—how to strip, how to haul, how to teach, how to forge, how to take what the world had abandoned and make it live again.

  For others saw waste. But Caelan of Avalon saw salvation.

  …

  Southward, the land shifted. The further they walked, the more signs of once-lived-in fields appeared—fences leaning in decay, cottages hollow-eyed, their roofs fallen—the bones of fields, channels overgrown in weeds. Orchards still clung to life, gnarled trees bearing small, sour fruit no one had bothered to harvest.

  “Strange,” Tib muttered. “This is not far from Litus, land should be worked. But it’s not.” His jaw tightened, then he glanced at Caelen. “We should find Arlen. The farmer from before—he should be here with his kin. They should know things, might save us walking into the city blind.”

  Caelen nodded once. “Yes. Find Arlen. Safer. Trade quick.”

  By midday, the road bent and the land widened. They emerged from the last narrowing of the pass, and suddenly the world opened before them. The coastline unfurled to the west, the river threading silver toward the sea. Small collections of homes and scattered farmsteads clung to the edges of the fields like survivors, their thatched roofs smoking faintly in the distance. To the east, lesser farms dotted the rise, but it was the city that drew their eyes.

  Litus Solis rose upon its rocky outcropping, walls of stone tiered upward in rings. The western edge braced against the harbor, a curve of piers jutting into the restless sea. Ships rocked against their moorings, sails furled, gulls wheeling overhead. Beyond the harbor, walls climbed the slope, stair-stepped with towers, until the upper quarter gleamed faintly in the sun, crowned by the governor’s manor—a hulking keep of pale stone that looked as though it had grown from the rock itself.

  “Impressive,” Tib said, shading his eyes.

  But Caelen’s gaze was sharper. He pointed, hand cutting through the air.

  Caelen raised his hand. “Walls weak. Port broken. Stone sick.”

  Petyr smirked. “A rotten apple in a bright skin. Fitting.”

  Tib said nothing, only watched the city with a soldier’s wariness.

  Not far from the road, two farmers trundled a cart of onions and cabbage. Tib hailed them, open-palmed, voice friendly. “Good day, friends. We’re seeking a man named Arlen—older, broad of shoulder, just arrived to live with his kin. Do you know him?”

  The farmers slowed, but their eyes narrowed, measuring. Their hands never left the shafts of their cart. One shifted his weight as though ready to bolt.

  “Arlen?” the older asked. His voice was wary, not welcoming. “Aye, we know him. New here, but he settled a place to the south, on the east bank. Stone house with a nearly gone roof. Still clings to it.”

  “Good,” Tib said, forcing ease into his smile. He clasped the man’s arm in thanks, though the farmer’s grip was slow to return.

  Caelen stepped forward, eyes intent. “Arlen, friend. We find. Trade.”

  The farmer’s gaze flicked over him—boots worn, cloak mended too many times, the weight of a sword at his hip. He nodded, but not without a shadow in his eyes. “Find him if you like. But mind yourselves. Not all here trust quick words. Too many ships in the harbor, too many knives in the dark.”

  With that, they pushed their cart on, glancing back more than once.

  The four stood a moment on the road. Petyr gave a low whistle. “Cheerful folk. Can’t imagine why they’d be jumpy, with pirates drinking their ale and nobles bleeding their purses.”

  Tib’s grin was faint, but it carried a harder edge. “At least they told us where to go. Let’s hope Arlen remembers us kindly. City’s there if he doesn’t—but I’d rather not try our luck.”

  Caelen only said, “Field safer. City—last.” And with that, he turned south, and the rest followed.

  …

  They forded the river at a rocky point, and then they came upon the stone house. It stood alone at the slight bend of the river, its walls rough-hewn from pale limestone that caught the light but bore the scars of weather and neglect. The roof sagged in places, patched with thatch and driftwood. Chickens scattered as they approached, scratching in the dust around the doorway.

  Arlen was there, stooped at an old parched and shallow well with a bucket in hand, while two children tugged at his sleeves, chattering. A woman—broad-hipped, dark hair tied back—stood in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron, her eyes sharp as knives at the sight of strangers.

  “Arlen!” Tiberan called, raising his hand. His voice carried warmth, but also caution. “It’s Tib. Tiberan. We met north, on the road.”

  The farmer turned, surprise etched in the lines of his weathered face. Then a slow smile broke through. “By the Veils… Tib! Didn’t think to see you again so soon.” He waved them closer, though his wife’s eyes never softened.

  While Tib clasped the man’s arm in greeting, Caelen drifted from the path without a word, his boots carrying him to the edge of the nearest field. He crouched, letting the dry earth sift between his fingers. The soil was cracked, starved of water. A narrow ditch cut through it, once meant for irrigation, but it held little more than mud. Caelen followed its line with his eyes, tracing it back to where the river should have been feeding it—yet the bank was too steep, the channel broken.

  “Too dry,” he muttered in his broken cadence, frowning at the dust. “No flow. No grow.”

  Petyr snorted under his breath. “Ever the poet,” he said, though his gaze lingered curiously on the field as well.

  Arlen led Tib toward the house, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his arm. “We only just got ourselves settled proper,” he explained. “Took what my kin could from the coast. Safer here, away from the harbor riffraff. But the land…” He shook his head. “It doesn’t yield like it used to. The river is still at lower levels and has that bitter taste. Needs more hands, more time than we’ve got.”

  Tiberan nodded gravely. “That’s why we’ve come. Not just to see you safe, but to trade. We are in need of food—vegetables, grains, anything you can spare. In return, we’ve goods from the north.” He gestured to Kali and Petyr, who stood quietly with their bundles at their feet.

  The farmer’s wife stepped closer, her arms crossed. Her tone was brisk, almost suspicious. “And what kind of goods would strangers be carrying through these parts?”

  Kali knelt, her voice quiet but steady. She unwrapped their bundles one by one. “Tools,” she said, setting down a small pot, re-forged. “Canvas,” another cloth, folded. “Copper.” She held up nails hammered straight, gleaming in the late sun. “Ship’s stores the city will want these.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed, but her fingers twitched toward the copper. Arlen rubbed the back of his neck, impressed but wary.

  “These are fair things,” he admitted. “But my kin will want their say. This valley won’t take kindly to outsiders trading behind their backs. I’ll send word—they’ll come before nightfall.”

  From the field, Caelen straightened, dust on his hands, and pointed at the broken channel. “Can fix,” he said simply. “Water flow. Soil lives.”

  Arlen barked a laugh, though unease flickered in his eyes. “Boy, if you can fix water, you’ll do what no man on the Blue Coast has managed. But we’ll see.”

  The statement had barely settled when Caelen’s eyes locked on the broken channel. His hand cut the air in a sharp motion, and he said, firm as stone:

  “OK. Need log.”

  The words dropped like an order, not a suggestion. Petyr, caught mid–fiddle with a bit of rope, blinked. Caelen jabbed a finger at him.

  “You. Woodworker now.”

  Petyr snorted. “What, me? With hands like these?” He wiggled his thin fingers for effect, but the spark in Caelen’s eyes cut short his protest. “Fine, fine. Woodworker again,” he muttered, already scanning the treeline for something straight.

  Tiberan clapped his hands together. “You heard him. Let’s find a log.” He strode toward the nearest copse of scrubby trees, calling back over his shoulder, “Come on, Petyr—your new trade awaits.”

  Kali stood and brushed dust from her knees, her soft voice folding into the command. “Straight grain. Not rotted. We’ll need binding.”

  It was as if the words “need log” had pulled them all into orbit around Caelen’s certainty.

  Meanwhile, Caelen walked to the river’s edge. He crouched low, studying the flow, and found a deeper spot near the bank. His eyes narrowed, measuring, marking. “Here,” he said. “Cut. Place the log. Flow back.” Then he pulled out his short shovel and started digging at the bank

  Arlen, who had lived on the land, stood frozen a few steps behind. “You can’t just—” he began, but the words caught. These strangers, barely in his yard a quarter-hour, were already working as if the land were theirs to command.

  He glanced at his wife, who watched with lips pressed thin. There was fear in her eyes, yes—but also a spark of something else.

  Shock and unease prickled along Arlen’s neck. What kind of boy spoke in broken words yet carried himself as if he commanded the earth itself?

  Arlen muttered something about kin and stalked off toward the low rise where his family had a stead. His stride was quick, but not careless. Whatever else he thought of these strangers, he understood they moved like people who would not wait.

  Petyr and Tib staggered under the weight of an eight-foot log, sweat streaking their foreheads. They dropped it with a wet thump into the earth near Caelen.

  His wife lingered, hands on her apron. When Tiberan passed near with a rope slung over his shoulder, she caught his sleeve. “Your young master,” she whispered, eyes flicking to Caelen at the water’s edge. “He speaks as if he’s lord here. What is he?”

  Tiberan’s easy smile softened the edge of her question. “A boy,” he said. Then, with a shrug, “And maybe something more.”

  Caelen rose, set his hand on the bark, and nodded once. His finger tapped the length. “Here. Cut. Spiral.”

  They stared at him. Petyr tilted his head. “Spiral?”

  Caelen made the motion with his hand—turning, twisting down the length of the log like a corkscrew. His broken words pressed forward. “Screw. Water turns. Flow climb.”

  A moment passed before Kali's eyes widened. “A water ladder? By the Veils…” She let out a sharp laugh and gave Petyr a smack on the shoulder. “Guess you really are a woodworker, huh?”

  Petyr just groaned, but he crouched down anyway, grinning. “Alright, sure. A giant twisting log—why not? Haven’t tried that before.”

  Caelen reached out for the pickaxe, and soon he was swinging it, chipping marks with quick, confident strikes. He didn’t bother measuring—just angled each notch by instinct. Petyr followed behind, running his fingers over the cuts, muttering about pitch and depth the whole time.

  Kali knelt nearby, spreading out her lengths of binding and scraps of iron. Her voice was low and steady, almost like it was part of the work. “Crank goes here,” she said, copying Caelen’s motions, tapping one end of the log. “Crossbar here. Men push, it turns.” She looked up, her eyes steady and dark. “It’ll work.”

  Time slipped past as they labored. Iron struck wood with a constant thud. Axes carved out curling grooves, sweat sizzling as it hit the ground. Each cut forced the screw’s path a little deeper, the spiral biting down the side of the log. Bark and splinters flew everywhere, piling up like old snakeskin.

  By midafternoon, their work had taken form—a rough spiral twisting around the log. Petyr wiped sweat from his brow with a grimy sleeve. He grinned, his hands raw and blistered. “Ugly, but she’ll turn.”

  Caelen bent over the log, pressing his palm to the spiral. There was something shining in his eyes—pride, maybe, or only relief. He looked at Kali. “Crank. Strong.”

  She was already at work, setting iron teeth into a block of oak and fitting bindings that would hold it securely. Each strike of her hammer rang sharp and clear, a counterpoint to the duller thuds of the carving. Sparks flew, faint against the dimming light.

  Arlen returned before dusk, his cousins and brothers trailing behind him like a wary procession. They came striding down the slope, boots crunching in the brittle grass—men summoned by kinship, but unsure of what they would find.

  They halted as one when the sight opened before them. The strangers bent low in the mud, sweat-dark and silent, hacking and carving at a log that was no longer a log. Its bark was stripped, its flesh cut deep, spiraled, twisted into some unholy shape—as if a serpent of oak had been coaxed from within its heart.

  For a long moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the scrape of Petyr’s adze and the soft clang of Kali’s hammer, sparks spitting into the dusk.

  Arlen’s wife stepped out from the shade, her gaze heavy with things unsaid. She did not speak to her husband, only flicked her eyes back to Caelen.

  The boy wiped his hands on his tunic, lifted his chin, and gave them two words, his voice cutting like a blade into the hush:

  “Tomorrow. Finish.”

  A shiver ran through the gathered men. They looked at one another, unease darkening their faces, as though they stood witness to a work that was not entirely of this world.

  None of them dared ask what it was. None of them understood what it might do.

  The shed smelled of old hay and the sharp tang of resin, but it was dry, and that was enough. Arlen’s kin had walked them through the goods by lantern-light, lifting copper sheets, weighing ship’s tools, weighing the folds of canvas. Their voices were low, roughened with the cadence of farmers who measured value in seasons, not coin.

  “Yes,” one finally said, a broad-shouldered cousin with dirt still caked under his nails. “There’s worth here. But food?” He shook his head slowly. “We’ve grain, aye, and a little salted meat. Not enough to match all this.”

  Another brother crossed his arms. “To make it fair, we’d need to fetch more out of the city. Litus Solis has storehouses. Merchants who deal in bulk. We can’t pay you full in bread alone.”

  The words hung in the air, heavy with caution. None of them liked saying “city” where the strangers could hear.

  Tiberan stepped forward, hands open, his voice carrying the steady edge of a soldier trained to make calm where suspicion brewed. “We do not ask more than you can give. Only enough to fill bellies for now. The rest—” he nodded toward the distant lights of the coast, “—we’ll see to ourselves.”

  He paused, then tilted his head, measuring their unease. “But we’ll need a cart. To carry what’s been traded—and to bring back what must come from the city. A pull-cart will do. We’ll return it.”

  A silence followed, thick as the night around them. The brothers glanced between themselves, weighing the request as if the wood and rope of such a cart were treasure itself. Finally, Arlen spoke, his voice grudging but firm. “Take the small one. Use it carefully. And bring it back whole.”

  Relief drifted through the group like a faint breeze. Hands clasped, the bargain sealed.

  In the background, Caelen had not looked up once. By the glow of a pitch-soaked torch, he worked at a thick barked tree trunk, thicker than the spiral-carved log from before. His axe flashed, sure and unhurried, peeling the bark away in a single unbroken strip. The sound of it—long, whispering curls tearing free—echoed strangely in the dark.

  The kin watched him out of the corner of their eyes, reluctant to stare, unwilling to ignore. A boy shaping wood like no carpenter they’d ever known.

  When all was done, Arlen gave them the shed. “Sleep there. The rest—tomorrow.”

  And so they bedded down on straw, the night pressing close around them. Outside, the farmstead dimmed as the family scattered to their own homes, lanterns bobbing back into the dark. But more than one cousin turned for a final glance at the strangers. At the quiet boy stripping bark into a single, seamless shroud.

  Tomorrow would carry them to Litus Solis. Tonight, unease was company enough.