The Outcasts (A Brotherband Fanfic)

Chapter 5

     Bearclaw Creek began as a mere trickle, forcing its way out between a jumble of rocks in the high country above the coast. It joined with a dozen similar rivulets as it wound down the mountains and eventually widened into a respectable body of water as it came closer to the sea.

     In the final stretch of its journey, the creek crossed a small meadow a few hundred meters outside the town limits of Hallasholm. At this point, there was evidence of a considerable amount of recent activity. Offcuts of wood and cordage littered the ground. There were work trestles and benches and a tarpaulin shelter had been rigged to provide protection during wet weather. The smell of sawdust and sawn timber permeated the air. A small, ramshackle jetty stood on the bank of the creek close by the work site.

     The Heron was moored alongside this jetty, her mooring lines creaking gently as they stretched then slackened with the movement of the water.

     She was a sleek craft, some fifteen meters long—or about half the length of a standard wolfship. She was pierced on each side for four oars, whereas the newer wolfships could carry ten oars a side. Even moored alongside the small jetty that led out from the bank, she gave the impression of speed.

     She was Hal's and Kari's boat, and the result of an enormous stroke of luck the previous summer.

     When they had turned thirteen, they applied for a job at Anders' boatyard.

     Anders was an irascible, middle-aged man who was generally intolerant of teenage boys. He considered them to be flighty and unreliable. But he saw that Hal was different from the general run of boys in Hallasholm so, with some misgivings, he agreed to give the boy a trial. However it was a little harder for Hal to convince the man to employ Kari. It didn't take him long to see that Hal was a skilled and meticulous worker. Kari's attention to detail and the precision of her work was impressive in one so young, and a girl for that matter, and Anders hired her immediately. Hal and Kari took to spending most of their spare time in the boatyard.

     Two years after the twins came to work for him, Anders took on a commission from Gunter Moonstalker, a retired sea wolf. Gunter, too old and arthritic now to serve on a wolfship, still yearned for the old days and wanted a boat for cruising. He stipulated a boat that would be similar in lines to a wolfship, but small enough that he and a few friends could handle it. Anders drew up a plan, aided by Kari, who was fascinated by the project. Over the winter months, they worked indoors in the boatyard workshop, Hal carving the prow and stern pieces, splitting logs to form the planks, shaping the frames for the hull and selecting a section of timber for the keel. As the materials were made ready, they were stacked along one side of the boat shed in a steadily growing pile of finished components. Then, unexpectedly, Gunter Moonstalker died.

     Anders was faced with a problem. The boat had been specifically designed to Gunter's requirements. It was too narrow in the beam for a fishing boat and too small to be a trader. It was not a boat that Anders would be able to sell easily, and in the meantime, the frames and planks and spars were taking up valuable room in his workshop.

     Hal solved the problem for him. "I'll buy it," he said. It had long been the twins ambition to have a boat of their own and they had saved virtually every kroner Anders had paid them against the prospect of buying one. This seemed like too good a chance to miss. They negotiated a fair price—Anders had already received half the agreed fee from Gunter, after all—and the boat was theirs. Anders added one stipulation.

     "You'll have to move it out," he said. "I can't have it taking up room here."

     Hal agreed readily, and Kari had enlisted Stig and Thorn to help them move the boat to the ramshackle jetty at Bearclaw Creek.