40 The Harves (1/2)
Swinging his cleaver in an overhead cut, Korston brought it down on the enormous collection of living tissue before him. Not wanting to get covered in blood, I kept my distance until he was done cutting. After a few blows, he held out a large piece of meat toward me. ”There you go. That's basically all there is to it.”
Leaning in to examine it without actually touching it, I saw it was covered in a fine layer of tiny mites. Beyond that they were vaguely insectoid in appearance, they were too small for me to make out much detail. From a short distance they appeared as red dots of a slightly different shade to the flesh they clung to. I gestured for him to put the chunk away and he tossed it down beside the rest.
”Is this what you guys do all day then?” I looked past him to the other workers, still hacking away.
”Mostly. At least when it's harvest time.”
”And how exactly can you tell it's harvest time?” I couldn't imagine it had much to do with changing seasons, not when it was underground.
Korston shrugged. ”It's not hard. We just have someone check down here every day until it starts growing in our direction again.”
”And what if it doesn't?”
”Doesn't what?” The look he gave me was a mixture of incomprehension and annoyance, like he had no idea why I was asking him such inane questions.
”Doesn't grow back this way.”
Scuffing his shoe against the ground, he blew air out from between his lips. ”I suppose we'd be pretty fucked then. Probably have to abandon the village and follow wherever the Carnis has gotten to. Not a lot of other choice.”
”You'd do so without even asking for Lady Sarinknell's permission?”
He looked at me like I was an idiot. ”Unless she wants to try and force us to starve, I don't see why her permission matters the least bit.”
I was starting to get pretty sick of the village head's attitude at this point. Couldn't he see I was just trying to do my job? ”Have I offended you in some way?”
”Offended? I suppose that's a word for it. I can't say I much like having someone like you stumbling around the place, we've got plenty of work to do as it is. If you're worried about offending us, maybe you should just go back to your fancy house and leave the actual work to the people who know their business. How's that sound?”
The villages had all stopped work at this point to watch. I wasn't sure what they were expecting, some sort of altercation? Or was this a show of support for their leader's concerns? He was definitely upset. That, or he was just trying to provoke me. Either way, it was probably best to defuse the situation diplomatically. ”I understand that my presence here may be both annoying and disruptive, but I'm not here at your pleasure; I'm here on the order of Lady Sarinknell.” I swept my gaze across the group. ”So, if you have any complaints, I suggest you take them up with her. If you don't wish to do so then I suggest you cooperate; it'll only make things easier for both of us. That way I'll be out of here and you'll be free to work as soon as possible. How does that sound?”
Korston looked away, grumbling under his breath and the tension dissolved. Good, I was starting to wonder how this was going to turn out. I was all too aware of how unpredictable the demons could be, who knows what path things might have gone down had we continued. Though I would have preferred to address the problem, whatever it was, directly, this was good enough.
I had neither the interest or the investment to want to pry into their lives more than my job dictated. Hopefully that was the sort of professionalism they could respect, or whatever passed for professionalism in this place. Not wanting the conversation to swing backward, I continued before Korston had a chance to formulate a reply. ”Now then, are there other worksites down here? If so, I'd like to see them too if that's all right.”
Still grumbling along the way, he showed me several similar chambers where they were carving pieces off the Carnis. The work seemed to be proceeding briskly at each. ”How long is this harvesting period usually?”
”A few days on, a few days off.”
”All year round?”
”There's long breaks at times, but something like that.”
This really was nothing like farming, I'd expected everything to run on a schedule and be planned out ahead of time. What they were doing sounded closer to following migrating herds or something; they didn't seem to have much control at all in regards to the time. Even just hearing about it was a little annoying, I could see why the villagers might be irritable. Even if only the village head acted that way from those I'd met so far. ”Is this the whole operation then?”
He grunted ”What do you mean?”
”What do you do with the meat after you've harvested it? Do you just send it off like that?”
”We send some of it off to the manor while it's fresh, the rest we either eat or preserve.”
”Preserve? Do you mind showing me how that's done?” My first thought would be salting, but I don't know where they'd get the salt around here. Were they just drying it or something then?
”Why?” He sounded exhausted, though I felt like most of it had to be an act.
”It seems like a fairly important part of the process. Possibly even more so than the actual harvesting. Without proper preservation- ”
He held up his hand to halt the stream of what I was saying. ”Okay, I get it. I'll show you the drying hut.”
We returned to the surface and I took a deep breath. It was nice to be back up here in the fresh air, away from the terrible odour of all that raw meat. Even the glare of the twin suns was welcoming at this point. Maybe I was getting used to this world after all or at least the overland portions of it. The hut he took me to was of similar size and construction to the houses around it but with an open top. A thick stream of smoke rose into the sky above and there was a strong smell of burning wood and cooked meat. Korston gestured toward it. ”Well, here it is. I'm sure you can find your way inside, whoever's working in there right now can show you how it goes.”