Unaware

Bjorn was standing in ice water up to his chest, shivering so badly his teeth chattered with numbness spread through him.   This mountain lake was no Gulem Sea with it’s warm trade winds blowing over, but he would survive the ordeal a bit longer to get at his prize. There were hundreds of fresh water clams here, just for the picking up. A basket full of them floated on the water beside him, anchored with a rock while he dived under again and again, scooping up more and depositing them. The basket was so full it was beginning to sink. Three more like it stood on the banks where he had deposited them and he anxiously planned the rest of the day out, shucking these beauties and placing them on racks in the smoke house.1

The smoke house was he and Korok’s proudest achievement since they had gone off on this romp into the forests of the Spinea foothills. They’d found the great old oak tree, hollowed by generations of termites, before a bear had torn off part of the bark and feasted on the inhabitants. Now, it stood as a perfect chimney. They chopped down young pine and fir trees and built a log smoke house with the oak as the chimney, caulking it with mud and gravel and chinking the logs with the same. Then, they’d added on a pine pole extension and built a roof over the structure with dead tree limbs, fir and pine boughs and a heavy heap of dried oak and maple leaves. Bjorn had broken up maple and oak logs and built a smoky fire within the structure while Korok, eager to be off on the hunt, had gone into the woods and set up traps for plover and hares. Bjorn hadn’t minded chopping wood for the fire and covered the smoldering wood with damp leaves to create enough smoke to fill the smoke house with a sweet, pungent smoke. When he had completed the smoke house, Bjorn raked plenty of dry leaves under the log pole lean two they had built next to the smoke house and spread woven blankets and furs out on it so that he and Korok would have warm beds in the chilly fall nights. He’d built a fire and hung a giant cauldron over the fire on an iron frame he’d constructed for hunting trips and a tea pot was nestled into the growing coal bed. By noon of the first day, Korok had returned to camp with a medium sized mountain loper hanging around his neck, dragging a stag by it’s horns and a bag filled with quail and hare in his other hand. The hunt was doing wonders for both Bjorn and Korok, but most especially the Eek hunter who set about dressing out and skinning the animals as fast as he could and moving them into the smoke house.
“What a fine thing it is we are doing, Bjorn,” laughed Korok as he scraped the meat from the stag hide. “When Rugera sees all the meat we’ve collected for him, he’ll be one very happy man. These games will have the best game ever served in the food stands. And, we will eat well too. Wait till you try my mountain stew!” He went back to singing, tossing hearts, kidneys, and livers into the pot with wild onion, carrots, tubers and savory herbs he’d collected. Each time he butchered a hare, a quail or one of the other animals he brought in, the giblets went into the pot which was soon nearly brimming with sautéing meat, bubbling in gravy of meat drippings. For three days now the two men had feasted on this.
Bjorn was delighted at the idea Ana had presented him with. She and Lashir had come up with a plan to bring the Chili games to the mountains for the first time since they had been made the national sport of the twin empires. And, this year there would be teams from all over the empires competing, some of them for the first time. One team was even put up by the Kellon Elves. They would be especially hard to defeat, even for the Eek team, since Kellon were not only enormously strong, but extremely agile and could run at alarming speed. No team, Bjorn was sure, could defeat them, unless the experience of some gave them an edge. Each province hosted a team and the Nartac and Sudren Armies had entered teams this year as well. All in all there would be nearly twenty teams competing. And, there would be tournaments for amateur players too. There were so many field workers, fisherman and hunters who fancied themselves great Chili players that they would have a tournament of their own, before the professional players took the field which would last days. All this had been worked out by the Sovereign and his council of barons, after having been presented to him by Ana and Lashir. When she told Bjorn he wasn’t surprised that the idea was such a success.
“Well, I’m sure the idea, coming from the Lady Lashir, wife of the Lord of Rogan had some effect on the decision.” He said laughing.
“And, don’t forget the wife of Lord Maltac, Lord of the Southern provinces of the Sudra Empire, love.” She laughed kissing him quickly and dancing him about, the way Ana always did with her gentle giant.
“What made you think of this, Ana?” he’d questioned, stumbling about with her in his arms.
“Rugera was always good to me and Melki, as children, and he needs help, that was all I needed to know,” she replied. “Melki and Lashir both thought it was a grand idea and her uncle was agreeable from the start. A few of the old barons were hesitant, moving the games from Quanx and all, breaking with tradition, but we finally convinced them, when we mentioned that there would be such fine accommodations.”
“What fine accommodations?” Bjorn asked puzzled.
“The ones we’re going to build.” She laughed. “I have already seen to it that the funds are available to pay Rugera’s slaves for building three new lodges, three stories each with enough rooms to accommodate hundreds. And, that is only the beginning. There will be a fine tent city for anyone who arrives and hasn’t a room or lodging. The tents are being delivered this very day and the slaves will have plenty of time to clean and set them up. They’re from the camps, from the war, but they are all in fine shape, and will do quite nicely for the main population. The aristocracy, of course, will have to have better accommodations. That’s the purpose of the new lodges.” She nodded her head enthusiastically as she spoke, bouncing from foot to foot. “And, the best part of all is Bradley will supply the baked goods and oversee the entire feast, just as he did at our wedding. Wait till you see the things he’s planning, Bjorn, you will be absolutely amazed. He’s such a little genius with his cooking and baking. Wait till you see!”2

That had been the first day and Bjorn and Korok set off that very afternoon to hunt, while Ana and Lashir oversaw the building of the lodges. They brought in the lumber and carpenters from all over the mountain estates set to work on the framing. Melki had sent along many workers and the rangers were eager to lend a hand. All that remained was to build an arena for the games. Ana and Lashir had cautioned everyone to keep the work a secret from Rugera, who had no idea what his people were leaving the plantation for. He was away in the north, working on some sort of plan, Ana knew, but she had no idea what it was. When he returned to the Rugis mansion, she and Lashir would spring their surprise and tell him all about the games. The proceeds would be divided up with the majority going to pay the workers and the rest would be donated to buy seed and crop plants and new equipment for the logging operations that would surely take place after Rugera was given back his lost timber land. 3

This last idea had been Bjorn’s. He knew Rugera needed timber land until the crops could be harvested, and he had decided he would solve the problem by returning the timber land to him. The rangers weren’t upset since Bjorn was going to donate the chest of gold coins to supply them with a stake in the fishing villages down in the southern provinces. He had suggested to the men that they could go to work on the fishing fleets and they jumped at the opportunity. Many were fisherman before the war and the chance to fish the warm southern Gulem and live in the semi tropical climate just north of the great grass sea was too strong a lure for the men and their families. With plenty of coin to buy supplies and pay rent in the city, they knew they would flourish. Bjorn had even calculated the cost of building two new vessels and included this in his offer. The men would all shouted and joked that they would be wealthy before the next season’s fishing had ended. 4

Satisfied that all was going perfectly according to plan, Bjorn and Melki set off on their hunt. In a few days, enough of the work of building would be done to allow more of the rangers to leave for the hunting camp and Bjorn and Korok would have more hunters bringing in enough meat to supply the games with a generous bounty. Bjorn had more surprises as well. He had set traps in the shallows of the river which fed into the mountain near the camp and had trapped schools of fish which he’d preserved in barrels of pickling brine. Luckily, he and Korok had enough foresight to load several wagons with barrels for the express purpose of hauling the fish and plenty of salt for brine. The aristocracy loved pickled fish and Bjorn knew these would be served at each dinner. Crayfish traps set in the rivers shallows brought in hundreds of the biggest crayfish he’d ever seen as well. These went into barrels and he’d caught muscles and cracked them up tossing the guts into the barrels for the crayfish to feed on. Fresh and alive, they would make a delicacy no fine pallet could resist. Bjorn had even lined the banks of the lake with poles and pulled many fine specimens of mountain trout and bass from the water. These he cleaned and set up in the smoke house. All and all, Bjorn and Korok reasoned, the games would be the best served of any which had been held in the history of Chili tournaments. 5

Now, Bjorn picked up his baskets and headed back to camp, singing as he went. The air was cold and he was eager to get to the smoke house and a fire. He’d put the clams in a barrel of water and leave them for tomorrow, he decided. He wanted to clean up and get a big dish of Korok’s stew now, with some of his biscuits and tea. Then, he’d get call it an early night and get some sleep. How things could work out better, he thought. Rugera would be a rich man by the time the festival of the games had ended and the province of the north would be strong enough to build an army that would defy any invasion. Nothing could go wrong, he thought to himself. If only Bjorn knew just how wrong he was.