She bristled a little, and he added:?It?s not bad soil here. Those were fine spuds at Eriksgarth, and the stock was good.?
Then he looked around; they were traveling down a small river valley now, narrow between low steep densely forested hills, mostly pine and spruce with an occasional stand of taller white pine, and broadleaf trees along the water. Naked rock showed here and there, through snow and the thin soil beneath. ?Or at least that bit about Eriksgarth wasn?t bad. This here would break a farmer?s heart, it would! And any plow he tried to use on it. Fine timber trees, I grant, but ours stand taller.? ?They say the folk of the old world cut so many here in Norrheim. .. they called it Maine then… that few grow as tall as they might,? Asgerd said.?Or as tall as they will grow by my grandchildren?s time. That?s hard to imagine, but…?
The three westerners nodded at her shrug; they?d all grown up on tales of a world of marvels vanished before they were born. You never knew exactly which were true, and which mere fable, either. Not even the old people agreed on that! ?It would be a good place for a Ranger steading,? Ritva said.?We don?t farm. We keep to the woods and wilderness, mostly, and live by the hunt and what the forest yields. And what we?re given to protect farmers from bandits and beasts,? she added virtuously.?That buys us grain and wine, and cloth and weapons… whatever we can?t make or grow for ourselves.?
Edain snorted.?That, or what merchants pay you for protection of their caravans,? he pointed out. ?They don?t have to hire us,? Mary said. ?No. You just loudly announce that so-and-so isn?t under your protection. The which is to pin a great sodding sign on their backs: Rob This One, eh??
Mary sniffed as her skis hissed rhythmically.?If we didn?t announce it, that would be like cheating the honest ones who pay. Overcharging them, you know? And there?s what we get from the other realms by treaty for bandit hunting and patrolling.?
Edain grinned, enjoying the teasing game:?And what you get by exploring for the good of all, the which so often leads to stores of gold and silver and jewels and other treasure from the old times falling into your hands, somehow, and isn?t that a curious thing, the wonder and the joyous surprise of it!?
Ritva frowned.?It?s traditional,? she said, in a slightly huffy tone.?Dunedain have always done those things. Except for that bit just before the Change when the world got so weird and crowded.?
Edain snickered when her nose went up, and she didn?t go into detail.
Mostly because I don?t think I could go into detail, she thought.
When you were the child and niece of rulers, you grew up knowing how much effort and planning had to go into provisions and equipment, and what a disaster it could be if you didn?t have something essential when and where it was needed. The Histories painted Gondor as normal enough, if a bit seedy and run-down, but they were irritatingly vague on how the original Dunedain had made their livings after the fall of the North Kingdom, much less on how they outfitted their warriors. Supposedly the Rangers of old hadn?t even told people how their labors in the wilderness kept settled folk safe, much less demanded dead-or-alive rewards and head prices for outlaws and a yearly stipend as they did now.
How did they get the price of a meal and a night?s sleep at the Prancing Pony in the Third Age? Barliman Butterbur didn?t strike me as the sort who?d let you run up a big tab.
Where had the Dunedain children and old people lived? Armor was expensive and needed skilled specialists to make and keep up, as well-did they have weapons smiths of their own? For that matter, how had they gotten pipeweed from the Shire? It wasn?t as if the hobbits would give it to you.
They couldn?t all have sponged off Elrond in Imladris, like hairy smelly short-lived poor cousins, she thought. Or hocked ancestral treasures to the dwarves whenever they ran short. Aunt Astrid has enough trouble making the people who owe us money pay up even with a contract! It?s a puzzlement.
Edain?s hiss brought her up; she angled the points of her skis together, snowplowing to a halt and focusing outward. Garbh was standing at point, her body lowered and muzzle locked forward like a compass needle; the cold muffled scent to a human nose, but hers was almost infinitely keener. They all kicked their toes out of the loops and stooped low, motionless, listening. ?Gruck! Gruck!?
That was a raven; a deeper cry than a crow. A black shape flogged itself into the air a little ahead, where a lone spruce leaned over a boulder, then drifted stiff-winged back to its perch, cocking an inquisitive and hopeful eye downward.
Something dead, she thought, as she reached over her shoulder for an arrow. Someone, rather. Garbh wouldn?t act that way for ordinary carrion.
Mary held up two fingers and then tapped them to the left. Edain nodded and ghosted off to the right, with Garbh swinging wide to cover his flank. Asgerd followed man and dog with blade in hand, creditably quiet, the gray steel of the Norrheimer broadsword at one with the brown and white and green of the winter woods. The two Rangers traced a course like drifting mist by drilled habit, from bush to boulder to tree, until they looked through a tangle of reddish wild blueberry canes. Ritva relaxed and let her breathing slow, let her gaze drift a little out of focus for an instant-that was how you could see patterns best, if nothing was moving.
Her eyes met Mary?s single one, and they nodded slightly. The man curled in the shadow of the rock was unmoving, and snow had collected on his thin sparse beard. Edain came in from the other direction, and waved them forward. ?Garbh found his back track,? he said.?Only one, and hours old. Blood spoor, too.? He looked down at the corpse and pointed a toe. ?Arrow,? he said succinctly.
The fletching had broken off, and a stub of it stood from the body?s ribs, two hands down from the left armpit and a third of the way in towards his spine.
Ritva nodded.?Someone got him while he ran. And he kept going longer than I?d have expected, with that in him.?
People did, sometimes, when great need or a very strong will drove them. She and Mary dragged the man into the light. The body was slight, less than their own weight; a very young man, just old enough to raise a brown peach fuzz of beard, and long in the legs. Even beneath the winter gear his gawky coltishness was obvious. The open eyes were hazel. Ritva paused to close them, before she continued her examination.
Poor lad, she thought, with the slightly abstract pity you felt towards an unlucky stranger. You didn?t get many years, did you? But Earth must be fed, soon or late. Dread Lord, be kind; Lady Mother-of-All, comfort him. Return him from the Halls of Mandos to a better fate. ?He?s been here a while, but he only died a little while ago,? she said.?See, he?s not very stiff yet. Blood on his face and under this leather armor-?
Ritva rubbed some between thumb and finger, before she scrubbed with snow and put her glove back on: ?Some has dried, but some of it?s still tacky. The arrow nicked a lung, I?d say.?
Asgerd spoke, alarmed:?That?s a war sark of the kind they make at Kalksthorpe! He?s a Norrheimer, but not a Bjorning. He must be one of Kalk?s folk. But I?ve never seen an arrow like that. It?s some sort of cane, not ash or cedar.? ?The unfortunate fellow was headed out of Kalksthorpe, and kept going as long as he could though he must have known he was dying, the sorrow and black pity of it,? Edain said thoughtfully.