The Awakening of the Ancients

VII. Barriers

I swung a hammer idly as I waited for Myer to finish rummaging through the shed. He emerged with arms full of wooden boards and a bag of nails. I stared. "Uh...do you need me to carry anything?"

"Nope." He beamed cheerfully at me.

"...Okay..."

I followed him to the edge of Ms. O's property. There stood a rickety fence separating the farm from the road into the city. It was in shoddy shape, with holes and cracks aplenty indicating years of weather and boring insects of all types. Repairs wouldn't be enough. Ms. O had requested the whole thing be replaced.

I was out here because I had nothing better to do, and Myer had caught me in the kitchen at lunch.

He dropped the boards with a clatter, the nails following suit.

I stood there stupidly. "So...what do you need me to do?"

"Keep me company." He grinned cheekily. Then, soberly, "But truthfully I may need some help."

I was surprised, then, that he had requested my assistance first. "Where are Ornn and Behr?" I assumed they were an inseparable trio. It was odd to see them apart.

"Behr is picking up some of Ms. O's deliveries. Ornn is off gathering news. Cyrus---" he paused, contemplating. "Probably at the Council again."

My mouth twisted musingly. "He sure spends a lot of his time there."

Myer shrugged. "He has to." He paused and looked northeast, toward the city wall. From the farmstead, if the wall were transparent, one could have seen into the Courtyards and, if they were truly keen-eyed, the council building. My eye was drawn to the rust colored roofs and the few balconies of oversized noble houses that peeked over the wall at us, but Myer's never wavered from the beige stone below them. The giant stared at it blankly for a moment, but it was gone in the next instant. He was grinning again. "We'd all be dust right now if not for him."

Startled, I looked at the wall, then back to him. "Oh? Because of the war?" Dumb question.

He nodded without looking at me, preoccupied with assessing the decrepit fence. "I suppose we'll start over here." He pointed to a space left of the front entrance.

"Do we need to fix the gate?" I eyed the squat stone pillars separating the fence from the doors.

He tilted his head at the entrance. "Nah, it's fine." He smiled unconcernedly.

I watched as he unfurled a piece of paper from his fur vest and flattened it on the pile of boards. It was too far and bent for me to see it properly, but by the sunlight filtering through the other side, I glimpsed it was a pictorial instruction manual of some sort. I was surprised for a moment that one of these giants who regularly traversed the wilderness wouldn't know how to build a fence, but then reasoned that people didn't typically build fences outside of civilization. Myer glanced at the pictures briefly, then began to work.

He pulled out the first post in the line and inspected the hole. He grabbed a nearby spade and began to reach in, but his muscular arm was too big to fit past his bicep. He grunted in surprise.

I volunteered quickly. "I can do it." He retracted his arm, covered from the fist in dirt, and offered me the tool. I paused only a moment, wondering if there were bugs or worms at the other end of the blackness. But I steeled myself and took the spade.

Rather than my Sorc garments, I was wearing an old tattered shirt and breeches from Ms. O's closet. I rolled up the thinning sleeve and reached into the hole, wincing at the moist ground seeping through to my knees. "What am I supposed to do?"