Ivard

Ivard emptied the basket of cabbages into the cart. It was getting late, the cart was full, and he was hungry. He stepped between the poles, hefted them up, and started pulling. With a grunt, half a ton of cabbages shifted and followed him, bumping and rolling along.

Ivard's hard bare feet dug deep into the damp clay of the beaten track along the edge of the cabbage field. Since that fateful day, three years ago next moondark, he'd learned he was better shoeless. His rock-like feet tended to tear up boots from the inside out. He supposed double socks might save him the cobblers' fees, but it had been some time since he had had to dress up, to wear a uniform.

He missed his old fur boots. The ladies liked them. Some of them, anyway.

Tomorrow would be market day, and the farmer had promised him a ride into the market town on top of a night's rest and three big meals of cabbages, turnips, and milk. He snorted. Time enough for steaks and ribs later. Today he was just a drifting farmhand with a big journey-sack, as would he be tomorrow.

Even if he was that rare farmhand with a great-axe in his journey sack.

And gods willing, tomorrow night would bring him to Tharros. He didn't hold much truck with magic, but since magic had wrapped its veils around him, needs must he come calling. He knew not whether the High Regent's Crozier would be the instrument to make him flesh again, not walking stone.

But he was tired of being walking stone.

"Bar my face, more's the sorrow," he said. "Still can't win at cards." He looked down his body and chuckled. "And, gods be thanked, good Jack here is the flesh of a man, at least when he springs up for a Jenny needing a mount and cover."

Ivard pulled the cart into the barn and went out back to the side of the house to chop wood for kindling. The farmer's dull hatchet kept sticking in the firewood. Ivard yanked it out one more time with a growl of frustration, then flung it aside. He stiffened his hands and struck the wood, breaking it with his rock-like fingers. Again and again his hands thudded into the wood, cracking off kindling pieces until he had an armful. He blew the dust off his hands and carried them toward the bin by the back door.

As Ivard approached the door with his load of wood, he heard raised voices from the kitchen. He frowned.