Raven Meadows's Arc

Chapter 19 of 25

The fresh boards sat stacked in the mill yard, clean and dry. Raven counted them twice. Enough for a whole season of building. But the sun dropped low over the river, and she had no way to move them home. The Gemini Brothers' cart had carried the logs up. It could not carry this much lumber back before dark. Leave the boards overnight and the lower market would find them. By morning they would be gone, or rotting in the rain. Torryn wiped sawdust from his hands. "We take what fits. We lose the rest." "No," Raven said. "We haul all of it or we haul none." She hated the math. Two trips meant leaving half the stack unguarded. One trip was impossible with the cart they had. The gnome arrived at the yard while she argued with herself. He was the same gnome who traded food for her herbs each week, small and quick in dark green work clothes. But he did not walk in this time. He came down out of the sky. A great cart floated over the river and settled in the yard. Two oxen pulled it, and each ox had wings. Brass pipes ran along its sides. The bed was wide enough for every board in the stack. "Heard your saw running from the ridge," the gnome called down. "Figured you'd cut more than one cart could hold." He hopped from the seat. "You grow good herbs. I move good freight. Same deal, more weight." Raven stared at the winged oxen. "You had this the whole time." "You never had lumber before." He slapped the cart's rail. "Load her up. She flies over the reeds. No wheels for raiders to chase." They worked fast. Torryn passed boards up two at a time. Raven stacked and lashed them tight. The oxen shifted but held. When the last board was tied, the bed sagged but did not break. The gnome took the reins. The oxen beat their wings, and the loaded cart lifted clear of the mill. Raven and Torryn climbed the Gemini Brothers' cart and followed the river below. By full dark the flying cart set down inside the haven gate. Tauron Ironhoof watched it land, one hand on his axe, then stood aside. The season's boards were home, safe behind the wall, every one of them. Raven paid the gnome in herbs and watched him rise into the night. She should have felt done. Instead she looked back upriver, where the mill still stood open in the dark. The boards were safe. The mill was not. It would keep cutting all season, alone, and the lower market now knew exactly where it ran. Sooner or later they would stop stealing lumber and take the mill itself.