Lord of Storm

Chapter 2

Town at the Edge of the World

For some reason I can't call Merchant mother. It's kind of stupid. I call Wolves father. They raised me together. But something inside me physically grabs my throat and squeezes Merchant out. "'Worldedge' tree record by Gloomeye"

~~~

According to the glorious tradition of Worldedge, with the onset of winter, most men go on a panic hunt for alms for the sake of warm furs. This winter, everyone decided not to deviate from the tradition and even increase the panic component with a shortage of ready houses and a noticeable increase in the number of clan members.

After Capital was taken over by the Mourneers, most of the citizens fled and joined Worldedge. The village (although it is becoming increasingly difficult to call it a village) was happy with so many new women. With new blood and hope, the clan returned to its former home.

Merchant, with her tattooed hand holding Babyboy in his breast carrier, tried to gather the rest of the clan's children. The owner of Capital's orphanage, Decimus, has now become the Wielder of the Sword of Light. This, as foretold in the prophecy on the tablet by the sword, has robbed him of his former life (where he apparently did nothing but pamper his charges) and he has gone on a journey.

And if Merchant takes care of one orphan, then she can take care of a bunch of orphans at the same time. She hadn't expected such a treacherous betrayal of logic, she thought they were friends.

The village nanny was actually her adopted son, Gloomeye, but he also went off on an adventure (leaving the foster mother with another child to look after). Wolves, Merchant's husband and concurrently Gloomy's father, encouraged this. He had been an adventurer himself in his youth, and out of friendship he gave his son the job of being the village's very long-distance scout.

"Summer Rain, Dayorb, Little Star, gather the rest! Everyone must stay by the fire until warm clothes are ready," the woman called to the oldest children, trying to wrap her arms around the younger ones and distribute them evenly around the nearby fire. There were fewer seats in the form of fallen trees than there were children, but obviously they wouldn't all be sitting at the same time.

Merchant glanced nervously at a nephil's farm. The nephils had completely webbed and cocooned their poles and rungs and were now hanging there, sometimes manipulating the web with their frighteningly long limbs, sometimes moving even more frighteningly slowly around their new home.

The woman understood that the price of good clothing was living with these creatures. They were a source not only of silk, but also of the spiked skins used to make armour. But spiders frightened her even when they were small, not the size of an average alm. It's a good thing the village hasn't given up the good old-fashioned skinning of alms.

Merchant forced herself to turn away from the large spiders, in time to see Getgood and the youngest children finding something in a crack, dangerously close to a pit created by the collapse of Worldedge's dugout before the recent exodus of the clan.

"Getgood! Smiley, get Getgood and the others out of the pit!"

Getgood was a full-grown woman, but when the executioner of the Mourneers wrapped his tentacle around her head to crush it, her soul flew out of her body prematurely in terror, unaware that the body had been saved (or could not return). Getgood's expression became childish, she began to communicate only by mooing, and her best friends became the youngest children. Why not give Merchant a grown-up child? Of course, why not? Give her away! After all, she loves to work hard and take full responsibility for helpless human lives! Shaky hands, grey hair and premature wrinkles, what more can a woman dream of?