Maybe there will be someone here to talk to, he thought.
There was a wagon, hardly more than a cart, and an ox grazing in the meadow nearby. A man in rough brown breeches and a coarse linen shirt was busy building up a small campfire. He was burly with a greying beard and a seamed, weatherbeaten face. He looked up and smiled a gap-toothed smile as Wiz approached.
“Well met, My Lord.”
“Uh, hi. Just passing through, are you?”
“Aye, My Lord,” the man chuckled. “Passing through on my way to a better life. I am called Einrich.”
“Wiz Zumwalt. Pleased to meet you. But why are you camped out here? I thought the villagers put travellers up where there are no inns.”
The man shrugged. “I know no one here and I have no claim to guest right. Doubtless a place could be made for me, but the weather is fair. The people are willing to let me pasture my ox in their meadow and gather wood for my fire. That is sufficient.
“Besides,” he added, “they have seen many like me recently. Better to save their hospitality for those who are travelling with their wives and children.”
Wiz looked around and realized there were three or four other campfire rings under the trees. No one was using them now, but most of them looked as if they hadn’t been long out of use.
“Where is everyone going?”
Einrich grinned, showing the place where his front teeth had been. “Why for land, young Lord. They go into the Wild Wood for land.”
“You too?”
Einrich nodded. “I tarry here for a day or so to rest and feed up my ox. Then I am also on my way east for new land.”
“All by yourself?”
“My sons and their families stay behind on the old farm to gather in the harvest.” He grinned. “They can spare a dotard such as me and this way we can get an early start on our new farm.”
Looking at Einrich’s powerful frame, Wiz would not have called him a dotard. Old perhaps, by the standards of the peasantry, but he looked like he could still work Wiz into the ground.
“How far are you going?”
“As deep into the Wild Wood as I can. That way when my sons follow we will all be able to claim as much land as my sons and my sons’ sons will ever need.”
“Aren’t you worried about magic?”
“No more!” Einrich said triumphantly. “With the new spell I can defeat any magic in the Wild Wood. Trolls, even elves, I can destroy them all.”
Wiz frowned. ddt, his magic-protection spell, wouldn’t destroy anything. It would only ward off magic and tend to drive magical influences away.
Wiz opened his mouth to say something, but Einrich interrupted him. “Oh, it is a grand time to be alive!” His eyes shone like a child’s at Christmas. “Truly grand and I thank fortune that I lived to see this day. No longer must mortals cower at the threat of magic. Now we can walk free beneath the sun!”
“Wonderful,” Wiz said uncomfortably.
“Will you join me for dinner, Lord? Plain fare, I fear, but plenty of it.”
“No thanks. I think I am expected back at the village for dinner.”
Wiz walked slowly back toward the village square, scowling and scuffing his boot toe in the dust of the road. This was what he had fought for, wasn’t it? That people like Einrich could live their lives without having to fear magic constantly. Most of the Fringe and part of the Wild Wood had been human at one time, before the pressures of magic had driven the people back. Wasn’t it just that they were reclaiming their own?
Then why do I feel so damn uncomfortable with Einrich and what he’s doing?
The mayor met Wiz partway back to the village square. He was a stout, balding man with a face red from exertion. He was wearing a red velvet tunic trimmed with black martin fur obviously thrown hastily over his everyday clothes. He had washed the muck off, but the odor of the reed marsh still clung to him.