Chapter 14: Act 1: Chapter 10

Twentieth day, Seventh Moon, 233 AC

The wind was blowing over the fields, picking up snow along the way as it skated over the field. The sun shone brightly, but it didn't make up for the bitter cold or the way that the cold sucked out every bit of moisture from the air. It had snowed a lot this winter, more than many prior winters. So much so, that I had given up trying to keep my fields clear. I had one little section cleared, just so I could see if any of my barley started to mature indicating spring, but other than that it lay untouched.

I had finished doing various repairs around the farm last year, and this past year was mostly felling trees for wood and land clearing. I had some other small projects I was working on, some of which were successes, some failures and some just needed more work. My bok choy freezing went poorly. I had hoped if I used uhrplant, bok choy, and a sealed wax bag it might work, but it failed pretty miserably. I had no more to work with, but I was going to try and make sauerkraut next harvest. I half-remembered the process, so hopefully it would just take some time and fiddling.

On the other hand, I was trying my hand at a cowboy hat. It was going better than I thought it would, but my latest result was very low quality and wasn't as solid as I would like. I watched a How It's Made video when I was younger – or rather when I was back on Earth, so more like 30 years ago. Wow, that's depressing.

My other side project, cross country skis, was coming along slowly. I could picture what I wanted generally, but I was having trouble getting it to work. I had never cross country skied before, but I knew the concept. It was an interesting challenge and helped fill the days.

I got up from my break and started to walk back over to the trees I was cutting down. The good thing about cutting down trees was that it didn't require much thought.

My daughter, Violet, was now over three years old! She was running around now, rather than crawling, which meant we had to watch her even closer!

After she was born, Nyra and I had another brief argument over the name. I wanted to name her Violet immediately, but Nyra was insistent we wait. A custom around here was children born in the autumn or winter weren't named for the first two years of their life. I thought it a rather depressing tradition and was determined to see my daughter flourish in the world. We did end up waiting, but I got to name her.

I stopped for a minute and examined the tree, it looked about ready to fall and was making groaning sounds. I made sure I was out of the way before giving it another chop and letting it fall. It landed with a muted thud, puffing up the snow around it.

As I began clearing the limbs off the trunk, I wondered when spring would arrive. It was already past the longest guesses we had, but there was still no sign. Our food stores were in good shape, same with the other farmers in our area, but people were starting to get a bit antsy.

I have always found people rather curious. People liked easy change, especially when things benefited them immediately. With a big emphasis on easy and immediate. But when things changed too much, people decried change as bad. It was the same on Earth as Westeros. For example, my machines showed easy benefits and so they were liked. But winter a little longer than it was supposed to be? I'll admit, I wasn't happy about it being longer, but to start to get all nervous and antsy? Please.

Though it was weird, my three-year-old daughter had yet to see summer once. Never swam in the river or felt warm dirt beneath her feet. Never felt the warm sun on her face or a cool breeze in the shade of a tree on a warm day. I wanted to play with her outside; to pick berries and to be able to step outside without bundling up in so many layers.

Nyra and I had been trying to get her pregnant for the rest of winter, wanting to wait until summer so our child could avoid sickness. Violet had been lucky so far, with only one mild bout of illness, and even that passed after a week. Hygiene and good food was to count for more than luck in my opinion, but she was alive and well.

Zane and his wife were expecting a child soon, while Koryn and his wife were also trying to hold off until summer.

I snorted. All this talk of holding off was amusing. There were no real contraceptives, so it was mostly a mixture of abstinence and pulling out. Which went about as well as you could expect really. I knew from my time in King's Landing that there was moon tea, but it was expensive and not available locally.

Once I had cleared the limbs off the tree, I went and grabbed my horse, and got him to begin pulling it to the sawmill. Once spring arrived, I was planning on sawing a lot of planks. I had talked to the Koryn's wife's father, the merchant, and he was interested in buying the planks off me to resell. The large fishing village on the Stony Shore was always in need of good wood.

With the river frozen over, I was able to go right across instead of having to walk the long way. After depositing the wood, I started to make my way back as the daylight was fading away.

When I neared the barn, a howl echoed in the distance. Damn. The answering calls went up from the pack, but those sounded quite a bit closer. I quickly locked the horse in the barn and sprinted back to my house. I grabbed my bow, spear and a torch and made sure that Nyra and Violet were safe in the house. I went to the back of the barn and climbed up the ladder I had and walked onto the roof to get a good view of the farm.

The sun was sinking rapidly, and my vision of the farm was worsening. I stood on the roof for a while but heard no more howls. I started to lose the tension in my body but kept wary.

Another howl went up, this time much closer.

I started muttering under my breath, "Damn, damn, damn."

I had some close calls with wolves before, but I had always lucked out. Eventually I saw movement in the trees behind the house, near the silo.

I regret watching The Grey. It was even worse since apparently Westerosi wolves are bigger and meaner. Not even counting direwolves.

I started to see more movement as the pack arrived at the edge of the woods. They stayed within the darkness of the forest, content to wait out the sunlight it seemed.

I shouted to Nyra, hoping she would hear me, "Nyra! There is a pack out here, don't come out!"

I heard her muffled reply, "Be safe!"

I had about twenty arrows on me, a spear, a knife and a torch. I was hoping to just scare them off while out of range.

They certainly weren't shy, I could hear some of them playing, and my attempts at shouting to drive them off failed.

Finally, a few started trotting forward. Some headed to the smokehouse, and others to the animal part of the barn. I let loose an arrow at a wolf that came close enough to the barn but missed. It gave a yelp and scrambled away.

I drew another a let loose at a different wolf. This one hit in its hind leg, causing it to withdraw, but otherwise unharmed.

I fired a few more but missed each time. They weren't fleeing unfortunately; they were however unable to get into the barn or smokehouse, though the animals in the barn were going crazy. It was a good thing I locked the dogs in the barn, otherwise the wolves may have killed them.

The wolves definitely looked worse for wear, they were skinny and matted fur.

One finally braved coming near again and I shot another arrow. This one finally took it in the throat as it tried to turn aside.

It collapsed on the ground, before struggling to stand and collapsing again. That got a reaction out of the pack and they fled back to the forest line but did not fully retreat.

They must be truly desperate to stick around humans, especially after losing a member of the pack.

I decided to take a blind shot into the forest and run them off. I shot the arrow as far as I could and heard it crash through the undergrowth. Fortunately, it seemed to have run off the wolves.

I waited a few more hours before I descended from the roof. I cautiously approached the downed wolf and saw that it was truly dead. The body was already freezing, so I decided to drag it to the smokehouse and leave it for tomorrow.

By the time I entered the house I was exhausted, but I made sure to hug my wife and daughter. After a few minutes of that I went straight to bed, as the adrenaline crash had hit, and I could barely keep my eyes open. Sleep came easily that night.