The Lost War by Karl Gallagher (novel24 .txt) 📗

An hour later Pinecone offered the hatchet to Sweetbread only be told, “Give me a minute.”

Pinecone dropped it in the pile of woodchips. He flopped down in the grass next to the other men.

Chopping sounded from the neighboring households. Shouts and curses came from the shovel team working their away along the line marked by Master Chisel. The Applesmile women were quietly bickering inside the tent. “No, boiled water in the jug with the blue tape. Red tape is river water.”

Goldenrod came out of the tent and surveyed the men without comment. She picked up the hatchet and started swinging.

After a few minutes her swings slowed. When two blows against the trunk produced no chips Newman stood. “My turn, darling.”

As he knocked a chip out they heard cries of “timber!” and a crash from their north side.

“Who was that?” asked Pinecone.

Pernach said, “Wolfheads. A dozen heavy fighters should’ve taken down a tree faster than that.”

“Depends what they’re using,” said a new voice.

Sweetbread pulled himself up. “Your Grace!”

Pinecone and Pernach ducked their heads. Newman stopped chopping and gave their visitor a nod.

The stocky grey haired man carried an axe nearly as tall as he was, bearing a curved blade as long as his arm. “Master Sweetbread, goodmen, morning to you. Give me room, lad, I’m finally getting good use out of this thing.”

He swung into the notch they’d cut with so much effort. Splinters and chips sprayed out.

“It’s getting dull. I’ll be making my third visit to Master Forge soon. Took him half an hour to put a decent edge on it this morning.”

Two more swings shook the tree. Leaves drifted down.

“Here, come have a turn with it, boy. See what it’s like with a real axe.”

Sweetbread hurried to make introductions. “Duke Stonefist, this is my guest, Newman Greenhorn.”

“Oh, you poor bastard. The rest of us were just Newman until a new Newman came along. You’re going to be stuck with it until someone has a baby!” The duke’s laugh was infectious enough even Newman joined in. “Take it, lad. Give it a try.”

The first blow taught Newman to blink when he connected. Splinters stuck to the sweat on his face. He hadn’t realized how cramped he’d been confined to the hatchet’s short arc. This axe let his arms reach out to their full extension. He could put the whole weight of his body behind it.

“Don’t steal all the fun, lad, let the others try.”

Pernach made chips fly.

Newman watched the duke. Aside from a circlet on his head decorated with gold leaves and a white belt with a fancy buckle he was in peasant clothes. They were filthy with wood splinters, dirt, and soot. Sweat soaked the chest and armpits.

Stonefist made Pernach hand the axe to Pinecone before the tree came down. “Be light on your feet lad. Don’t want the thing landing on your head.”

The tree crashed to the ground without injury.

The duke pulled a coiled cord from his belt pouch. “Master Chisel wants the poles two feet into the ground and eight above. Scrape here to mark it, lad.”

Pinecone made quick work of the top of the tree.

“I’ll have that back now. You can handle the rest of this. I’ll go help someone else.”

They sent Stonefist off with a chorus of thanks.

When he was out of earshot Pernach muttered, “Nice to see one of the hats getting his hands dirty.”

“I haven’t seen any of the current court breaking a sweat,” replied Pinecone.

“Hush, you two,” said Sweetbread. “We’ve work to do.”

Newman opened the saw blade on his multitool. It was too short for what they’d been working on but it cut right through the branches on their log.

Sweetbread dropped a handful of tent stakes on the grass with a clatter.

“Doesn’t the tent need those?” asked Newman.

“Nah. With no wind blowing four poles are plenty to keep it up. The rest are to keep it steady during a storm.” Sweetbread looked at the lighter pavilions of the neighboring households. “Come a storm, I’m going to have a lot of new friends.”

“I wonder how bad winter gets here,” said Pinecone.

“Not today’s problem.”

The sledge drove the inch-thick metal stakes into the wood. When one was driven in as far as it would go the next was set at the end of the crack.

“I’m not sure we have enough stakes,” said Pernach.

“Oh, it would suck if we can’t split this log,” replied Pinecone. “There’s no way we can pull these stakes back out.”

Master Sweetbread growled, “It’ll split. Go back along the line and give them all some extra taps.”

Newman picked up one of the thicker branches. He sawed off a chunk from the end and began whittling it into a wedge. “We can get the stakes out with this, and maybe force the split some more.”

The wooden wedges went into the crack at the base of the trunk. That forced the split through the tree. More blows with the sledge drove the split along the length until the log fell into two pieces.

Goldenrod and Redinkle interrupted their gloating. “Drink, you. You’re all getting dehydrated. Should know better.”

“Don’t want to waste water,” muttered Pernach.

“The river has plenty.”

“Hauling it and boiling it isn’t easy.”

“Drink it anyway.”

The man obeyed.

Turning the two half-logs into quarter-logs was easier. Sweetbread declared those were the size Master Chisel was looking for. The top half of the trunk made a fifth piece for the fence once they stripped off the branches and peak.

“The tops are supposed to be held together by rope,” said Sweetbread. “That’s going to use up a lot of our cord.”

“We can make rope out of duct tape,” said Pinecone.

Pernach objected, “We can’t waste tape for that! We’ll be