Bastion

together a rough drag of branches to bring the carcass home with little effort. Alerted by Jermayan, Jakyr, clad in a set of old, faded clothing that was other than Whites, was ready at a spot in the valley where there was a tree big enough to take the deer’s weight. With Dallen’s help, they hauled the buck into the tree, head-down, bled him out, and butchered him. Dallen and Jermayan, meanwhile, went to stand watch at and outside the entrance, to guard against trouble and watch for the caravan’s return.
    It was Mags’ first time at butchering anything bigger than a bird, and he found it far more fascinating than repulsive. He and the other mine-kiddies had eaten what they could get or catch either entirely raw, half-burned and half-raw, or entirely burned; it had depended entirely on whether they could sneak their catches into a fire or not and for how long. Several of them had triedto tan rabbit hides into something they could use for shoes, but the results had been less than successful.
    Watching Jakyr however, and working under his direction, Mags developed great respect for the butcher’s work.
    Jakyr thriftily saved the blood in a couple of the biggest pots they had, then made a smallish cut in the belly of the deer, removing the entrails carefully. “I’d just as soon not use the stomach or intestines,” he explained, as he set them aside, absolutely intact. “We haven’t got a good way to make sure they’re clean enough to eat safely.”
    Mags nodded; perhaps the others might have been revolted by the mere idea, but back at the mine, those rejected organs would have fed six or seven kiddies, and some of them might not even have bothered to try to clean out the contents first. Jakyr told him where to bury them; he followed the directions and returned to the butchering.
    Once the rest of the organs were out, Jakyr carried them and the pots of blood back to the cave. He came back just long enough to show Mags how to start skinning, then returned to the cave. “I’ll be back as soon as I get the stew started,” he called over his shoulder.
    I expect I better not tell ’em where the meat in the stew came from, Mags thought, as he painstakingly started the task of separating the hide from the hind legs with tiny, careful cuts of the extremely sharp knife that Jakyr had left with him.
    He had the hide stripped off both legs and was starting on the torso when Jakyr returned, looking quite pleased—probably with the progress of his stew. Mags was very much looking forward to it. “Not bad,” the Herald said, examining the work. “You’ll get better, but not bad.”
    As the two of them worked together, Jakyr corrected Mags until Mags was working almost as smoothly as he was. “Fortunately, we have oak trees right here,” the Herald said with satisfaction. “And plenty of salt for the first step of curing. I was always taught to waste nothing of an animal you take down.”
    At just that moment, Mags felt something cold on his cheek. He looked up, to see tiny snowflakes coming down out of the sky. Jakyr followed his gaze and grinned.
    “Could not have come at a better time. We won’t have to worry about any of this going bad, nor about smoking or salting it—although I probably will be smoking it piecemeal over time.”
    “When did you learn all this?” Mags asked, curious now. He hadn’t taken Jakyr for much of a hunter. Just showed how much he didn’t know!
    “What, did you think I was brought up in the city?” Jakyr mocked. “Our inn was in a little village just like the one we left. Father would never pay for anything he could do himself, so he butchered his own animals, and we used everything. Nothing went to waste. He’d have had a right fit over me burying the guts, let me tell you. The intestines would have gone for sausages and the stomach for tripe and onions. I just don’t have a good place to properly clean and wash them.” He sighed. “Too bad, because I make a very, very good tripe and onions.”
    They worked together in silence except for Jakyr directing Mags’ knife. With two of them working together, they got the hide off and salted, the meat stripped from the carcass and packed away where it would get and stay good and cold and out of reach of vermin, and some of the smaller bones stewing, crammed into a stockpot to make broth by the time they were hungry. Jakyr added the tongue and handfuls of the diced scraps to the stewpot; they both cleaned up and changed.