• Solo • Where Boats Are Born

[Bronik]

52 Ashan 716

Heart racing. Bronik shortened the reins of the horse he was on and steered the animal through the city gates. Brujo had invited the man to his farmstead in order for Bronik to accompany him out to the local forest and sawmill to see where boatbuilding truly began. Not fond of horses, Bronik followed Brujo's mount, holding the reins tightly, afraid to do the wrong thing and send his horse into a mad dash along the road and across the countryside. Twice he had to fight with the animal to stop it from eating the grass in the roadside and Brujo gave them the hurry up, calling back over his shoulder with a short, loud whistle.
When they arrived at the mill, Bronik was happy to be off the horse and felt his legs shake beneath him as he found his feet on the ground again. Brujo tied the animals and led the way once more, walking off into the surrounding forest to point out a few trees, but there was one in particular he wanted his apprentice to see. "Redwood," the old man pointed.
Bronik looked up at the tree which must have been older than a thousand arcs, though Brujo soon assured him it was no older than five hundred, this didn’t make it any less impressive. "You want to use that?" The young man inquired.
"Not for the building of the boat," Brujo admitted. "The heartwood of Redwood is hard, resilient to rot, water damage, fire, and insects."
"Too hard to use for boat building?" Bronik asked.
"Right," the old man agreed, "but perfect for building the deck of a large ship which only needs to be straight."
"And resistant to rot and water damage," Bronik smiled.
Brujo grinned, "Now you are seeing the big picture, being difficult to set alight to helps a tremendous amount on a boat too.
"Do they have any cut that we can order for our next big project?"
"No," Brujo smirked, "that's your job."
"What!" Bronik stepped back and looked at the tree, "I've never cut a tree down before!"
"First time for everything," Brujo told him, "besides I'm here to walk you through it."
For the first time since he had known Brujo, he found it difficult to trust the man, but ever the optimist, Bronik agreed. "All right."

Bronik was dressed with a special belt and leather harness that the mill workers used to climb trees. The belt held a sharp woodcutting axe in place for the duration of the climb and his harness was attached to a long, double folded strap of leather that went around the tree. The trick was to throw the leather strap a few feet higher than he was on the edge of the tree and lean back, using his body weight as a counter to make sure it held while he scaled the side of the tree. The first few attempts saw him slip and one of the mill workers offered Bronik a special pair of spikes to attach to the tread of his boots, spikes that would dig into the bark and help hold him in place.

[Bronik]

It took Bronik the better part of a break to get a few metres off the ground, and by the time he was high enough to begin cutting into the thinner part of the tree, though still too thick for him to wrap his arms around, his limbs felt like jelly and he was concerned that if he took up the axe, the weight of it would throw him off balance or cause him to slip and slam into the side of the tree. Tentatively he pulled the length of the axe handle from his belt and took hold properly, just as the miller had demonstrated on the ground, and held it against his right shoulder to look over his left down at the two small dots Brujo and the sawmill worker had become.
Dread settled in his belly, causing adrenaline to flood his form and make him freeze up. "I should not have done that," he muttered to himself, vision blurred with fear for a too-long moment as he tried to focus on the detail of the bark, like shredded autumn leaves. A few deep breaths soon helped settle his nerves and Bronik tightened his grip on the axe handle, ready to give it a swing. It seemed strange to him that he should feel so uncomfortable up the side of a tree when he had sat at the top of hundreds of masts out on the ocean without issue. The man would put it down to the lack of wind or thought of falling to the hard ground instead of into water.
"Everything all right up there?" Brujo called from down below.
"Ready," Bronik replied.
"You want to cut out a wedge," the miller instructed, "but be careful not to cut your line, we don't want you falling. Try and keep the leather at the level of your hips and swing above that."
"Got it!" Bronik agreed.

He took two more steps up the side of the tree and knocked the toe of his boots hard against the bark to make sure he had a good grip with the spikes before taking his first swing. The jolt that went through the tree on impact and vibrated up through his lower legs caused him to steal another shaky breath before he swung again, cutting back chunks of bark which fell away between his legs and sailed to the ground. The wood, though strong, seemed relatively dry and the sharp axe went through it without too much trouble. Within a quarter break Bronik had managed to cut out a nice wedge and seemed to be making progress when Brujo called him down. He slipped the axe into the belt and slowly moved down the tree the same way he had gone up.
"Time for an expert to show me how it's done?" Bronik smiled.
"You did good," Brujo admitted, "but we don't have all day to play in the treetops.

[Bronik]

The wood mill worker put Bronik to shame, making the climb look easy. When he got to the point Bronik had stopped at, he adjusted his stance and swung at the trunk of the tree, smashing out large chunks of wood. Brujo retreated down to the pond with Bronik close behind and from a distance they watched the expert at work as he managed to safely cut a triangle shaped hole in the side of the tree and slowly work his way around until the top tipped over and broke away, rolling to a shaky stop a hundred feet from the water's edge.
With hooks and chains they managed to drag the large log into the water using cattle, and from there, the wood was a lot easier to move about. The bark was stripped and would be used to make fire resistant insulation while the four sides of the trunk were cut down to size, leaving a nice, square length of the heartwood for them to work with. Bronik decided to pull his weight and see how the inner workings of the mill took place, pushing the trunk into a saw to create even planks they would be able to sand back at the workshop when the delivery arrived first thing tomorrow.
While they worked on their log the mill workers went about cutting down the rest of the tree, which one of them explained would produce enough wood to build five or six houses, and that some of the older redwood trees gave them enough wood to build up to twenty houses.
"We won't be running out any time soon back at the workshop," Brujo grinned.
"Are we taking all of it?" Bronik looked surprised, there was a lot more wood than they needed here.
"Of course, I bought the tree and paid for it to be milled and delivered, whatever we don't use in the next two or three arcs can be sold or we can use it to extend the workshop."
Bronik was quiet, he hadn't really considered what he was going to do with the next few arcs if his life, but the idea of building boats in Ne'haer with all of the competition they had didn't make it sound like they were going to get rich anytime soon. "Sounds like an adventure," Bronik smiled and brushed some sawdust from his hair with his fingers.

As the wood was loaded onto the wagon ready to be delivered tomorrow, Bronik got up onto one of the horses, feeling like he had done a good day's work. He nudged the horse in the side to follow Brujo towards the road that would take them back into Ne'haer, and urged the horse to speed up a little so that he could keep pace with the old man.
"We are going to build a boat with a deck?" Bronik inquired, Brujo had told him he never built anything larger than a longboat as the shop wasn't big enough.
"Let's just say a little bird talked me into the idea," the man winked.
Bronik beamed, maybe the old dog had a few tricks in him yet.

[Rosamond]

SKILLS

Carpentry 3
Climbing 2
Logistics 1
Riding 2
Strength 2

BASIC KNOWLEDGES

The importance of seeing the big picture
Burjo: Wood mill worker in Ne’haer

SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGES

Carpentry: The heartwood of Redwood is hard, resilient to rot, water damage, fire, and insects
Carpentry: Redwood is hard for boat building, but perfect for building a deck on a large ship
Carpentry: The process of felling a tree
Carpentry: To cut out a wedge
Climbing: How to climb a tree

COMMENTS

Nice litte thread! Feel free to PM me if there's something I misunderstood or left out. And please tag your post in the review thread as "Reviewed".