The Legacy Builder (The Chronicles Of Lincoln Hart Book 1)

by Ember Lane

  “Sounds good,” Lincoln looked up at Aezal. “And what did you do?”

  “Same as Crags,” he replied. “Looked uncomfortable, felt uncomfortable and acted like it too. I can’t stand sick people.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” said Crags, bounding up. “That Gillian woman wants to have a word with you.”

  “Where is she?” Lincoln asked.

  “Over by the bridge.”

  Lincoln ambled over, greeting those who caught his eye, though most turned away, appearing ashamed. They were a ragtag bunch, and clearly together. He assumed they’d deserted their community in the hope of a better life. Then again, he’d assumed folks would just come, but where from, he hadn’t bothered considering. This lot barely had rags for clothes. He hoped they still had some spirit burning away inside them, just waiting for dry kindling to turn it back into a fire of desire.

  He hoped he wouldn’t have to make a rousing speech to get it aflame.

  Gillian was sitting on the bridge, her legs dangling over. Lincoln sat next to her. At first there was a comfortable silence between them, one which Lincoln sensed she wanted him to break.

  “I hear you’re looking for me.”

  “No,” she replied, meekly, squeaking like a mouse. “Not looking, just asked Crags for a word.” Her gaze didn’t stray from the water flowing under them, as if she were picking her next words from its ripples. He heard her take a deep breath, and then she looked up, over the lake. “Robert’s grandfather will die soon. He has the gray, the dusty skin that tells his death is near, and the boatman rows his way. Crags told him about the elven…” She wrung her hands together. “No, I shouldn’t ask—it’s too much trouble.”

  “Ask away,” Lincoln whispered.

  She was already looking better. Whatever Glenwyth was doing, it had brought color back to Gillian’s cheeks, but not her fight—not yet.

  “Crags says you are returning to the elven village tomorrow. Take him with you. He wants to see its beauty before he dies.”

  “I’m sure he won’t—”

  Gillian grabbed Lincoln’s hand. “Yes, yes he will, but it was his dream to see it. It’s why we left our village in the first place. You should have seen his face when he saw Glenwyth.”

  “But what about the boy, won’t he want to say goodbye to his grandfather?”

  “Better he say goodbye to him while he breathes. There are no advantages to kissing a corpse.”

  “Then he can come.”

  “In return—” Gillian made to say, but Lincoln stopped her.

  “Nothing,” he whispered.

  “No. I must do it. Robert’s father is up and around. The two of them can look after the farm.” Then she looked up and stared into Lincoln’s eyes. It was that instant her fight came back. “The rest of our village—nearly eighty folks—I want to go to them, bring them here, if they’ll come.”

  “On your own?”

  “Yes, on my own. It will be quicker,” she said, and pushed herself up. “Thank you, Lincoln. You’re a good man.” She wandered back, over the bridge and toward her farm. Lincoln’s gaze lingered. She reminded him of a younger Joan.

  “Ale!” Grimble's bark rang out behind him. “You said we could start brewing up some ale. It’s best to get to it. I can see the morale of this place plummeting without ale—plummeting.”

  Lincoln jumped up. “Now, it wouldn’t be that you want it to sate your own thirst, would it?”

  Grimble pulled him along to the hop farm. “How’s my day supposed to get better if it doesn’t start off terrible?” Lincoln couldn’t argue with that.

  As instructed, Bethe had built a fire pit in Lincoln’s farm’s backyard. A large iron pot sat over it. Ozmic placed a smaller pot inside the larger empty one and filled it with water while Grimble lit a fire in the pit. Lincoln opened the farm’s storage shed and scooped up enough hops and malt. He sat and waited for the water to boil and then added the malt grains, stirring and quickly taking the pot away from the heat after a while

  “What next?” Ozmic asked.

  “Next, we smoke some leaf,” Lincoln replied, and sauntered back to his store. Bethe was more than just a city guide; she’d even had the leaf hung. He plucked one down and rejoined his little group.

  “When did you plant the leaf?” Grimble asked, grabbing a pinch.

  “Why do you think I wanted my own farm?” Lincoln had a little glint in his eye. “Not only do I have the ale, I have the leaf. Why not get your own?”

  Ozmic puffed out a cloud of smoke. “Because I’ve got yours.”

  After an hour, Lincoln asked the dwarves to fill the large pot with water, and while they were doing it, he strained the prepared wort into it, adding the hops and then reaching into his sack for the ingredients that Pete had brought for him all that time ago in Brokenford. He added all, bar the yeast, and let the mixture come to a boil.

  “What now?” Ozmic asked.

  “We wait,” Lincoln told him. “We wait and relax.” But relaxation wasn’t ready for him, yet. He pulled up his city stats, now dusk had come and gone, and the day was truly done. One more task left.

  “Bethe,” he called, but she was beside him before the word was out. Tell Echo to complete his builds as discussed and then hold the settlement building. We have enough food to keep the workers going, some ore, lumber, and stone. Tomorrow we start moving the tree.”

  “Done.”

  “Here, though, we should build the following: tavern, town hall and academy. Set aside all the food, lumber and iron for the ridgework, and divert any spare bots there. Then, I think we have enough to build two level 1 quarries and three level 1 mines. Tell me—”

  “Yes, Lincoln.”

  “How do marketplaces work here?”

  “You buy, you sell… I don’t follow.”

  “How does the trade appear?”

  “In the marketplace, by cart,” she said. “Are you ill, Lincoln? These are rather stupid questions.”

  “I’m fine,” Lincoln said stiffly; his train of thought nearly broken. “Can you load the carts anywhere in the zone of the settlement’s influence?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if the zones overlap?”

  “I don’t follow,” Bethe said.

  “Could you theoretically dump a trade from one city in that zone, and then pick it up from another and have it appear back in the relevant marketplace?”

  “That would theoretically happen, but who’d build cities with overlapping zones?” And then Bethe started nodding. “They overlap? That would explain how I could speak to Echo. Is this a cheat, rather like the doors?”

  “It would save building another railway.”

  “About that,” said Bethe.

  “What about it?” Lincoln asked.

  “It didn’t work. You need to research logistics and have a level 6 barracks.”

  Lincoln rolled his eyes. The last place he’d expected to have to go in this new land was back to school.

  “Fine,” he said.

  18

  Edward

  Last time we did this trip, it didn’t go well—for me,” Crags pointed out.

  “For any of us,” Aezal said.

  “And it could go south again,” Lincoln pointed out. “I’ve got no damn idea how to move that tree.”

  “Ya movin’ a tree?” Edward shouted from the barrow. “Why ya movin’ a damn tree?”

  Lincoln told him for the eighth time.

  Aezal had drawn the short straw, though in truth, only he could probably push the barrow as far as he had. It had been a tearful goodbye. Robert, Gillian, and Edward’s son Jack had waved them off. Thanks to Glenwyth, Jack was far better now, though not well enough to accompany his dad on what would be his final journey. Edward was set on dying once he’d seen the elven village. Robert had only been held back for so long and had run after them, but after a tearful hug, and Crag’s promise that he would tell him all about gnomes and gnome-related tales as soon as they returned, only then
had he turned back with a heavy heart. Then Robert’s day had gotten even worse when Gillian had said her goodbyes and walked toward the bridge. Lincoln hadn’t looked back. Hard choices were being made.

  Glenwyth had stayed with Lincoln again, just resting in his arms. He’d listened to her tossing and turning, muttering dark thoughts. Lincoln was getting more and more worried about her, yet during the day she seemed fine. It was like she was afraid of the dark and getting more so as each night loomed, but Lincoln knew it wasn’t that at all. She was afraid of how much she now liked the dark, how she yearned for it every day. He was determined to speak to Forgarth about it, to seek the elder elf’s counsel.

  “Eh?” said Edward.

  Lincoln patiently explained to Edward why they were moving the tree, again.

  “Still don’t get it,” Edward said, as they entered the tunnel to the valley.

  “What don’t you get?”

  “Why you have to move the tree, eh, eh?”

  “Because a poisoned lake is—”

  “I get that!” Edward shouted. “What I don’t get is why you have to move the whole damn tree.”

  “Because it is the village’s tree. Its health is their health. Its life is their life.”

  “Why not just take a cutting. If nothing, I’d take one incase ya kill it.”

  Lincoln shrugged. “Wouldn’t be much of a quest, taking a tree cutting.”

  “Mighty easier one than taking the tree.”

  They emerged from the end of the tunnel, and onto the red ledge. Edward sat up in the barrow, craning his lanky neck to see.

  “Like a river of emerald,” he muttered. “Where ya gotta move the tree from and to?”

  “From around that corner to the middle of that forest there,” Lincoln told him, pointing.

  “Be easier t’take a cuttin’,” the old man muttered, as Aezal bumped him down the steps.

  By the time Lincoln got to the bottom of the steps, he was not only convinced it would be easier to take a cutting, and he was actively considering doing it as well, just in case it did all go wrong. Echo met them on the forest’s floor.

  “The food hasn’t started overflowing into the warehouse yet, but it is available to use to feed the bots as it is within the settlement’s pool.”

  “And we have all one hundred and twenty spare?”

  “All tasks have been completed, yes.”

  “Any thoughts?”

  “On?” Echo asked.

  “How to get the tree here.”

  “None, Lincoln.”

  “I got me an idea,” Edward spoke up.

  “I know, cutting,” said Lincoln, through gritted teeth.

  “No need to be like that, young man. I’m on my last day, eh? Could at least listen to an old man, eh?”

  “What’s the idea?” Lincoln asked, trying to stop himself exhaling hard.

  “Vines,” the old man stated. “That big, old, hidden castle opposite got some of the longest vines in the land just hanging down from it. Vines make fer a good rope. Ropes make fer a good bridge.”

  “Yes?” said Lincoln, getting interested.

  “Ya chop the vines and hang ‘em across the valley, eh? Castle to ridge, eh? Right over the clearing, eh?”

  “And?” Lincoln asked, nearly sighing, his interest wilting.

  “Ya float the tree down ta river. Then yank ta tree up to the cross vines, and pull it over the clearing, n’ dump it in ta hole, eh?”

  Lincoln’s mind raced. Could it work? Could the addled mind of a dying, old man really come up with a workable solution? Certainly, it was a start. Lincoln looked down at Edward, as he sat in the barrow. “We could work on it,” he told the old man.

  “Or ya could just take a cutting, eh?” Edward said, and he fell asleep at exactly the same time. He’d started snoring by the time they made the clearing. Elleren was waiting there, craning her neck, looking for Glenwyth, only for her shoulders to sag in disappointment when she saw she wasn’t there.

  “What do you think?” Lincoln asked Echo.

  “About?”

  “About a vine bridge.” Lincoln imagined it—a horizontal ladder of two thick ropes of platted vine spanned from great iron hooks, crossing the valley.

  “Best estimate, forty bots, twenty-five iron—”

  “I don’t care about the cost: can it be done?” and then he had another thought. “Can it be done so that it can be used as a footbridge at a later date?”

  “You haven’t got the wood—”

  “Using the vines for now,” Lincoln interrupted again.

  “Yes.”

  “Wake the bots and lets get started.”

  “How many do you want to use?”

  “All of them?”

  “It will take the morning at least.”

  “Then get them working.”

  “What are we going to do?” Elleren asked. “The whole village is ready to help.”

  “We’re going to have to dig up the tree, move it to the lake, and then float it toward the bridge. All without any help from my little, coppery friends.”

  “Piece of cake,” said Crags.

  Lincoln grimaced. Had Crags just hexed the plan? But Crag’s upturned face calmed his nerves, and he put his hand on the little gnome’s shoulder and walked with him to the river. Looking up, he saw the deep green of the canopy. “We’re going to have to cut a hole in that too,” he said.

  Elleren took the oars, and they got in the boat—Edward, barrow, and all. She rowed in silence all the way to the waterfall and then turned toward the elven village. “I noticed the huts are still empty,” Lincoln said.

  “They will be until the tree is planted and blessed,” she replied.

  “Let’s hope that isn’t too long.”

  “How is Glenwyth?” Elleren finally asked.

  “She has bad dreams,” Lincoln replied. “I was going to ask Forgarth about them.”

  “Forgarth would be no help. He has lived a life without temptation. He would not understand. You’d need to speak with his brother. He understands the path she fears to tread.”

  “Path?” Lincoln questioned.

  Elleren turned. “That of the dark elf: the night elf. Glenwyth lusted for your blood: she has tasted the elixir of destruction. A path has been opened to her.”

  “But she was just trying to protect you all from what she saw as a monster.”

  “It was the pleasure that blinked through her mind when she saw your blood, not the actions that caused it,” Elleren replied, and drew the boat up to a jetty. “It is that feeling her mind now both yearns for and is revolted by.”

  “Is there nothing I can do to help her?”

  Elleren jumped out of the boat and offered Lincoln her hand. “You are already doing what you can. She can’t unfeel what has already been felt. Time can’t go backward, not even for a chaos gnome.” She pulled Crags out too.

  Lincoln lingered behind them all as they ventured into the blighted, elven village. He followed them toward Forgarth’s hut, and once inside was surprised to see Crags and the elder already deep in conversation. It seemed that rather than enemies, these two were now firm friends. He took a seat on Forgarth’s other side. Elleren sat next to him.

  They all sat in a circle around the room’s fire, apart from Edward who was happy in his barrow. Plates filled with fruits were passed around, and lines of elven waiters served mugs of green elven ale, and Lincoln almost forgot about the task ahead.

  “Elleren says you cannot help me with Glenwyth. She tells me you don’t understand the dark side.”

  For a moment, Forgarth looked into the pit’s glowing embers. His root-like fingers tapped on his jutting chin in silent contemplation. “I understand it, but it is closed to me. I can see the emotions, but cannot understand why people seek them out. For me it is simple: why live in the dark, when the light is all around. So, I suppose, Elleren is right. I just don’t understand the addiction.” He smiled a craggy grin. “For an addiction it is, once tasted
, it is hankered for. Glenwyth seeks out both the dark and despises the path that leads to it, but all things are dull to her now. Nothing compares to its taste.”

  “All that from my blood?” Lincoln asked.

  Forgarth grunted. “It is not the blood. It is the power. When you were lying there, her knife embedded in you, she had complete power over your life. There she dwelled, for mere moments, and there she savored it, tasted it, and felt its pull.”

  “But all elves kill to protect their land, to eat,” Lincoln protested.

  “They do, but they feel nothing from it. It gives them no pleasure nor affords them any power. When a boar dies or a pig squeals for the final time, we do not savor its death. It is done to survive. We feel as little as you would when you pluck a fruit.”

  Lincoln rubbed his chin, and his own eyes were drawn to the fire’s glow. “So, a dark elf is just a little more human than you.”

  Forgarth laughed. “It would have been an easier way to describe it, but you’re my guests, and it would have been plain rude.”

  “Have you thought about taking a cutting? Eh?” Edward suddenly said. “Ooh, elves.” He grabbed a mug of ale.

  “Is he your village elder?” Forgarth asked.

  “No,” Aezal replied. “He is here to die.”

  Lincoln shuddered at Aezal’s cold words, but Edward positively beamed.

  “Death,” he grinned. “It’ll be the death of me, eh?” He sat up in the barrow. “But I came here for a reason. I wanted to know why the elves made the forest so damn horrible: so dank, so dark, so damn nasty.”

  “Is it?” Forgarth shrugged. “Maybe because we're blighted ourselves. Maybe Lincoln has the answer.”

  “The tree, eh?” He furrowed his aged brow. “Bit daft putting all your eggs in one basket. You need two trees, that’s what you need.” He slumped back into the barrow, spilling his mug of beer down him. “Take me to it. I want to lay my eyes on it.”

  Forgarth straightened, seemingly infused by the old man’s urgency. “So,” he said, “what’s the plan?” When Lincoln told him, he paled. “The old man’s right,” he said, as he stood, his old body bent, a young elf rushing to his side. “We best take a cutting.”