Axel Timberson's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Axel Timberson stacked his last cut log on the pile and looked up at a sky gone the color of a bruise. He had felled these trees to build one thing: a warm log cabin inn where cold travelers could sleep out of the Blightfall storms. But the timber lay bare in the open, and a storm was coming to steal it. Wind tore at his coat and whipped his two-tone hair across his face. The first Blightfall storms rotted wood fast. Lose this timber, and his inn stayed a dream. He scanned the land. No cave. No overhang. Just his logs and the wind screaming louder. Then he saw it past a stand of dead pines: a squat brick shed with double wooden doors. Its walls looked thick enough to stop a hammer. He ran toward it. The doors were shut but not locked. Axel hauled them open. Inside stood a man wrapped in a torn brown cloak, gray beard matted with rain. The stranger flinched, then squared his shoulders like a cornered dog. His hollow eyes said he had walked a long, hungry road. "Shed's taken," the man said. His voice cracked. "Storm's mine tonight." Axel raised both hands. "I don't want your spot. I want to save my wood." He nodded back at the pile. "Storm hits, that timber's gone. It's for an inn. A place with a fire and a bed for men like you." The stranger studied him. The wind slammed a door against the brick. "Aldric," he said finally. "Aldric Wilder. And I've slept in twenty of these sheds. Never once found a warm bed at the end." But he stepped aside. They worked fast. Axel carried logs two at a time, arms burning, while Aldric dragged the smaller ones across the mud. Rain came sideways now, stinging their faces. Axel's boots slipped. He caught the doorframe and heaved the last armload inside as hail began to rattle the roof. He threw the doors shut and dropped the bar. The storm howled against the brick, but the walls held. His timber sat safe in a dry stack, every log accounted for. Axel sank against the wall, chest heaving, and let out a laugh. Aldric slid down beside him, closer than a stranger should. He picked up one of the logs and turned it over in his hands. "Good grain," he muttered. "Straight." Then he looked at Axel, and something guarded left his face. "An inn, you said." "An inn," Axel said. Aldric was quiet a moment. "I know every empty shed for fifty miles. Every dead well. Every place a man freezes waiting for spring." He set the log down. "You'll need more than luck to build it. You'll need to know this land." Outside, the storm raged on. Inside, the wood was dry. And for the first time, Axel wasn't building alone.