KINGDOM OF THE STONE -- a Wattpad featured novel

Chapter Twenty Three

Theris was glad to be out of that stinking hole in the ground they called Har-Tor.  Returning to N'shia-Potoma was almost like going home, without all the painful memories.  After corralling the animals he visited the local smiths and negotiated the price for as many spear points as he could get.  Fortunately, with planting time having passed, the local farmers demand for tools and repair work had lessened and the smiths were looking for work.  Theris visited each one in turn and got them committed to as large an order as he could afford before they had a chance to talk to each other and discover how many spear points he needed.  Their prices would almost certainly go up after that.

Sitting outside Khovan's place on a low stone wall, he ate roasted fish and watched the people walking by and wondered what their lives were like.  Did they still have mothers and fathers?  Sisters?  Wives?  Children waiting for them back home?

The fish was just as good as he remembered it tasting, though he had difficulty swallowing past the constriction in his throat as he remembered those innocent hopeful days sitting there eating the same fish with his father and brother and uncle and cousins.  As he watched the passersby carrying their goods or just generally going about their lives, Theris thought he would happily trade places with any one of them.

"Excuse me, dra.  Could you help me lift this?"

Seeing a beautiful young woman addressing him Theris leaped up, spilling the rest of his meal and bumping against the wall on which he had been sitting so that he nearly fell over backwards.

"I'm so sorry!" she laughed, displaying a brilliant smile of straight white teeth, and then apologized for laughing.

"It's nothing," Theris waved awkwardly at the remains of his meal which were already being devoured by a pair of opportunistic dogs.  "I was finished anyway."

"I can't lift this high enough."  The woman tugged at a large bag of flour lying on the ground next to her mule.

As Theris bent and put his hands around the bag, the lady's long curled hair brushed against his face and the perfume of her scent shivered down his spine.  Fueled by a sudden desire to impress her, he smoothly lifted the large bag and held it on his shoulder with one arm.

"Oh," she smiled, suitably impressed, her large brown eyes shining up at him.  "Put it here."  She pointed at the top most bag of flour already strapped to the mule's back.

He placed it and held the bag while she expertly tied it off.  He noticed a young girl of seven or eight years standing nearby watching and smiled at her.  She smiled shyly and hid giggling behind her older sister's skirts.

"I can't help but feel I owe you something.  I caused you to spill your food and then I put you to work," she smiled.

Theris suddenly didn't want her to leave.  "Well, I was going to go next door and get a cup of beer to wash that fish down," he gestured at the dogs licking the ground.  "You could let me buy you one as well."

"I shall buy the beer for both of us," she said and walked over to the beer seller.  "My name is Asophra, by the way."

"Theris," he said snatching up his double-headed spear and joined her.  "Do you live here in town?" he asked.

"No.  Two please," she told the beer seller.  "I live in Korion-Noton.  It's a couple hours walk south of here."

"Oh."

There followed the sort of awkward silence that only occurs among people who really want to talk but don't know what to say.

"You have an interesting spear," Asophra said.  "Are you a hunter?"