Wild Gourmet: Chapter 26

The room was quiet again.

“It left, but it looked like a big, tough target.” He paused. “One I might be able to take down, if I’m smart about it.”

“Why does that matter?” Moira asked. “If it’s gone.”

“Because I think it’s what the system wants me to do. Track big game, take it down, and cook it. That’s the basics. I haven’t been in danger the past few days, and I didn’t take down the drake. I didn’t grow much from any of it. So I need a bigger hunt.”

“Is that safe?” Moira said.

“No.” Brand said. “But neither is facing a drake underleveled. There has to be a balance.”

Remm cleared his throat.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “we have more meat right now than we can eat. Weeks of it. We’ve barely been able to keep up building temporary smokehouses for what you’ve already brought in. The town isn’t going to starve if you leave for a bit.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too.” Brand said. “With Neil to guard the town and everyone fed, I can afford to be gone for days. A week, even, if the trail takes me that far.” He looked at Moira. “And I need to be.”

After the meeting, Brand sat. All the chairs but one were gone now, and the remaining seat now sat next to a bed platform, courtesy of Shemi’s continued thankfulness for Brand’s protection.

Brand spread his bedroll over the new platform and laid down. It wasn’t soft, but it was flat and devoid of pokey little pieces of straw. He laid back and stared at the ceiling for a while, enjoying the new aspect of his increasingly civilized life.

After his announcement that he’d be leaving to track the snake, the meeting had wound down quickly. People had work to do and plans to make, and most of them had filtered out within minutes. Moira had stayed behind for a moment, and Brand had expected an argument that hadn’t come right up until she left with the others.

At first, he had chalked the hesitation up to her usual leader’s tendencies. Moira liked things orderly and under control, and Brand’s hunt had all the hallmarks of being anything but. But that wasn’t quite it. He had watched her face before she left, and there had been something else there. It had taken him a while to identify it, but eventually he settled on something like worry.

She was worried about Brand. It was a novel feeling.

He sat up and began checking his gear. The armor had taken real hits lately. Three long tears from the wolf’s claws ran across the chest piece, though they hadn’t gone all the way through. The leather was scuffed and dented in a few other places from the last morning patrol. It would all need attention before he left. He’d stop by Shou’s place before dawn and get everything looked over.

The daggers were fine. He pulled each one from the bandolier, checked the edge, and slid it back. His shitoku was clean and sharp from the morning’s maintenance. The moccasins were holding up well. He set everything in a neat row beside the bed and leaned back, satisfied enough with his kit to be distracted again.

Someone worried about him. That was a strange thing to consider.

When was the last time that had happened? Not in the army. Nobody worried about anyone but themselves in the army. They didn’t have time. If someone died, most people around them were sorry for about as long as it took to redistribute the dead person’s gear. After that, there was work to do.

He must have been a child, then. A young child. He had still been young when the conscription agents came.

He thought about Moira in a new light. It was odd to realize he had never really looked at her outside of assessing what she meant to him in a functional sense. When he first arrived in Bell, she had been a useful person, but not much more than that.

She’s pretty, I guess. I hadn’t really thought about it like that before.

Did that mean he was attracted to her? He thought about it and determined that he didn’t know, really. She was nice enough. She was about his age. She was competent. Those things were easier to know. Attracted was a harder concept. He supposed he probably was, barring some more experienced person explaining that he wasn’t. He could probably ask Remm about it if it came to that. Or Kore, once he knew him better.

You don’t have any experience with this kind of thing. And it probably doesn’t matter. There’s no way of knowing if she feels the same, and you have a snake to find.

He pulled the bedroll over himself and closed his eyes. The bed was definitely proving itself better than the straw by a wide margin. He’d have to thank Shemi in the morning, if he saw her before he left.

The morning moved fast. Brand was up before the light and dressed in minutes, packing his bedroll and what smoked meat he could carry before filling his waterskin from the pump. He climbed the stairs into the predawn cold and made straight for the smithy.

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Shou and Luisa were waiting for him. He didn’t ask how they knew he’d be early, but they did seem to expect him. Luisa took his armor and began working on the tears in the chest piece while Shou looked over the daggers and the shitoku. The process took about twenty minutes, during which Brand sat on a stool and ate smoked meat in silence.

When Luisa handed the armor back, the tears were patched. He couldn’t see a dramatic difference in the quality, but he trusted that the work was making the piece better in the way the two craftsmen had said it would. It was the same with the daggers, and Brand resheathed them confident they’d hold up for the duration of his trip.

“How’s Neil’s spear?”

“Gone.” Shou said. “The drake took the head with it and ripped the shaft apart. I’ll have to start from scratch.”

“Do you have enough materials?”

“Not a problem. The ashwolf was all claws and fangs. I’ll have him something by tomorrow.” Shou paused, then turned to a shelf behind his workbench. “Actually. I almost forgot.”

He laid a wrapped package on the anvil in front of Brand. The daggers inside were shorter than his current set, but heavier. They looked deadly, as daggers went.