Chapter 22 - the Prodigal Woodcutter
The North Star himself eventually entertained a surprise guest. The guest of course, had been with the wise steward. Naturally. Yet, where had this strange and thoroughly unexpected guest came from. It was quite a tale.
A lone woodcutter had one fine day, taken a good and hard look around him? And he had reckoned something that truly scared him. There were way too many hard trees being cut and chopped up. Way too much of the hottest charcoal being produced. Being delivered to far too many blacksmiths.
Because the North Star had ended involuntary thralldom, which was just another name for slavery? He had the ability to simply quit. He was the only one that realized what was going on. He didn't have a name for a war village, but he figured out what one was with no name to call it.
He had used his woods ability, to follow cartloads of the too-many-smith's output. Eating greens as he went. In the woods, along the roads the line of carts traveled on. Unseen and unheard from up above the roads. Tracking them. Moving quicker in the dense woods up on the hills above the road, than they did down on the road, loaded down with carts and animals pulling them. Moving as only a woodcutter can.
He had taught himself to become, by necessity? A self-styled Raven.
These arms and armor, were not going to 'far away merchants' as was claimed. The man had been shocked. Scared. All knew the North Star was the greatest friend and ally the common pickles had ever had or would likely ever have again. No one wanted things to go back to the days of slavery called thralldom.
Everyone feared the high king, but much more importantly? They loved him, and respected him. They did not want his rule to end prematurely. He had to tell someone. To do nothing? Would be to risk everything good coming to an end. His own father had told him enough about the old days, before the Great Forging… to know what would then settle back down upon the land.
Chaos. Misery. Slavery. Violence. Death.
He got back into his own lands as fast as his woodcutter feet could carry him, which was considerable. He bargained away anything and everything he had, which was not much… for a horse that would be capable of getting him where he needed to be. Provisions for mainly the horse, and what he thought he would need to live through the journey.
Him and the horse slept far off the road and trail each night, lest they fall prey to any bandits. His self appointed job was far too important. He was one of the few south-men, that had a father and mother that had imbued him with any sense of the gods and the old ways. Born him with enough wits to finally realize what was going on slowly.
His lifelong fear of the big scary north-men? Was overcame by his desire to do the only thing that was right. That no one else was seeing nor could do anything about. He got his ever loving ass up the corridor, and went around until he had located anything in armor that bore the mark of the North Star. He took that big-man to the nearest 'tavern', and kept explaining to him what was going on, that he feared. He hoped he was wrong, but he didn't think he was wrong.
That big-man, had taken him to his heyermannen. He went through it all over again, twice. The heyermannen? Had him talk to his heyermannen. A tall and somewhat slender man. Very quiet. Very polite. Seemed to have a great deal of wits about him.
A man that took tea with his meal, instead of the ale and mead and wine everyone else around him seemed to prefer. Tea that smelled of mint.
A man that was very quiet and very polite, yet somehow very unsettling and scary… and even terrifying.
A man with what could best be described as having the eyes of a snake. A man that somehow frightened him in some subtle way that he could not put his finger on, but somehow seemed to command respect and not fear, despite this.
That man, he had to go through it all three times, before he was satisfied. That man?
Took him to meet the high king's own wise steward.