Raven Meadows's Arc

Chapter 21 of 25

The mill was guarded now, but the boards were not. Raven had stacked the whole season's lumber behind the gate, out in the open yard. She woke to a warm wind off the marsh and knew the thaw had come early. She pressed a hand to the top plank. It was already damp. Two more days of this and the stack would soften, swell, and rot. All that cutting, all that hauling, gone before spring building even started. She needed a dry roof over the wood, and she needed it fast. She had no beams to spare and no time to fell more. She stood in the yard chewing the problem when Borin Stonehewn crossed to her, stone dust caught in his red beard. The old dwarf had built her hearths and her longhouse, and he never softened a hard fact. "Wood on the ground dies," he said. He toed the base of the stack. "Water climbs. Rots from under." "I know," Raven said. "I don't have another building in me. Not in two days." "You do not need new." Borin pointed past the gate, toward the far edge of the yard. "The old goods barn. Timber frame. Stone walls. Roof still shingled." Raven followed his finger. She had walked past the leaning barn a hundred times. She'd thought it too rotted to trust. "Half the shelves are broken," she said. "The floor's dirt." "Shelves hold. Floor lifts." Borin was already walking. "Stone platform. Wood sits above the wet. I show you." Inside, the barn smelled of old sawdust and mold. Light came through two round windows. Raven saw it then, the way Borin saw it. Sturdy posts. Stacked stone walls thick enough to block the wind. Rows of pallets and empty shelving, waiting. A shell built for exactly this. They worked through the morning. Borin laid a low platform of flat stones down the center aisle. He set each one level, tapping with the flat of his hand, saying nothing. Raven and four residents carried the boards in armload by armload. They stacked them across the stone, off the dirt, spaced so air could move between. By dusk the yard was empty and the barn was full. Raven stood in the doorway and pressed her hand to the nearest plank. Dry. The stone held the wood clear of the ground, and the shingled roof turned the thaw's drip. The season's lumber would keep till the first hammer swung in spring. Borin wiped his hands on his apron and looked at the loaded shelves. "Now you have a store," he said. "Stores get watched." Raven understood him. She had solved the rot. But she had gathered everything of value into one roofed place, behind one gate, in plain view of a market that already sent scouts. The wood was safe from the weather. It was not safe from the men who wanted it.