The Webbing Blade

ENTERING THE TRADE

THE FORT was cleared at this time, in the early evening. The sun was just looming on the horizon, about ready to dip down, to drape night all across the landscape. Soon the animals would return. Soon the skullers would be required.

Lou tried to clear his mind of those thoughts. He had one thing and one thing only on his mind, and that was that he simply had to be accepted. If he wasn’t then his family would starve, and it would be all his fault.

He felt the warmth in the earth coming up at him, and could hear, inside the hut which stood alongside the fort, the several gravelly voices from within. He knew that was the dormitory, that was where the out-of-town skullers slept during the day. Before long they would be out on the forts, prowling along, looking for any threat to Endmere.

He could still taste his ma’s broth in his mouth, the thick saltiness of it, and the rich scent of the potatoes continued to hang in his nostrils. That was what he concentrated on as he stepped over a sewage channel, eyeing the hut a little further along, which was known to be where the head skuller, Murch, lived.

Murch had lived in Endmere for decades. Lou’s parents told him that he’d shown up the day they’d built the fort around the village to serve as head skuller. He’d been around since before Lou had been born. Murch was never seen about the village, in the square, or out buying his vegetables or freshly caught rabbits for stew, or trout caught down in the nearby stream for grilling.

And so something of a myth had sprung up about him, and Lou admitted to himself that he secretly feared Murch just like everyone else.

Lou felt his boots weighing his feet down as he walked up to the ragged wooden doors of the hut and rapped his fist against it twice.

Sounds of stirring came from inside. The odd uttered swearword. And then there was a clatter followed by a splash, the sound of a bucket of water being overturned, or so Lou imagined. More swearing and then Lou felt footsteps pound through the ground, sending a shudder up his spine.

The door whipped back. Its hinge groaned in protest. For a couple of moments Lou could only make out the gloominess inside. He couldn’t make out any shapes. And then Murch stepped forward, into the fading light of the day. He snorted long and hard then wiped his nose with his hand. “Wha’tha hell you want?”

Murch was a short man, but he was thick too. His chest was incredibly wide, and rippled with muscles, even though the tunic he wore, the one he’d been sleeping in, was pretty loose fitting.

His width carried on down right to his waist, to his tremendous gut which hung down limp. There was a large scar right from his left eye reaching all the way down to the point of his chin. At certain points it got wider, the skin got rawer, and Lou thought it looked a bit like a valley.

Murch glared at him and rubbed his head with his bulging fingers. He had wiry black hair growing over the backs of his knuckles and his skin was leathery, hard, a little like Lou’s pa’s hands, but more so.

It was clear that Murch had earned that skin in combat, not sanding down wood.

Lou felt his whole body get caught in a shudder. He ground his teeth and sucked air in, trying to clear his head, to get right just what he’d come here to do. There was no turning back now. “I . . . I, uh—”

“Go on, then, out with it already!”

This time Lou got himself more together, managed to at least keep his voice steady. “I was wondering if I could join the skullers.”

Musk wafted out from inside the hut, it was stringent, unbearable, and it mixed up with the sewage stream running not too far away. It got into Lou’s lungs, thoroughly rinsing them clean of any remainder of his dinner, of the smells and tastes of the broth.