Aldric Wanderfoot's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Aldric walked the rest of the day on Silas Thornberry's berries and pork. The food held him upright, but only just. By dusk his knees were locking with each step. Two more days east lay the black ferns, and past them the grove he had come all this way to find. He would not reach the ferns if he slept another night on cold ground. He smelled woodsmoke before he saw the light. A crooked building leaned between two pines, lanterns burning on its porch. A painted sign swung above the door. A tavern, this deep in the Undergrowth. He almost laughed. Inside, the warmth hit him like a hand on the chest. A bartender wiped a mug behind the counter. A potted fern sat by the window, its fronds streaked with dark veins. Three travelers ate at a table and did not look up. Aldric counted his coins on the bar. Eleven. A bed was fifteen. A meal was six. "Short," the bartender said, not unkindly. "I know it." "Floor by the hearth is free if you buy the stew." Aldric almost took it. Then he remembered the story a trapper had told him a year back, over a fire he no longer remembered the shape of. A chest, the trapper said. Buried under a split boulder half a day's walk into the Undergrowth. Nobody had found it because nobody believed it. He had passed a split boulder that morning. "Hold the bed," Aldric said. "I'll be back before midnight." The bartender shrugged and poured him a cup of water for the road. Aldric went back out into the dark. His legs argued every step. He found the boulder by moonlight, a gray hump cracked down the middle, moss along the seam. He knelt and dug with his knife where the dirt was loose. His hands were shaking again. He almost stopped twice. The blade struck wood. He scraped until he saw iron banding and a rusted lock. He pried the lock with the knife until it snapped. Inside, coins. Not a fortune. Enough. He filled both coat pockets and left the rest, because he could not carry more and still walk. He made it back to the tavern near midnight and set three coins on the bar. The bartender raised an eyebrow and said nothing. Aldric climbed the stairs on hands and knees at the top step. He fell into the bed with his boots still on. He slept twelve hours. When he woke, the shaking was gone from his hands. His knees were sore but solid. He paid for a second night and a sack of bread and salt pork for the road. Two days east. He could walk it now.