This work of fiction is part of a series; if you did not already read the preceding chapters, please do that before starting this one.
~~~
The next morning, after a quick breakfast, we went out and started going through the trading goods in the new wagon - to see what was there and to decide what we were going to do with it.
A few of the items could be used at Emmit's place. Those things were unloaded and carried off to where he wanted them stored. The rest of the items stayed where they were - for now.
We walked over to the shed that held Emmit's wagon. Together, we mapped out what we had to do in order to expand the structure so that it could hold both carryalls. We also planned out some shelves that could be used to hold some of the simpler trading goods - in case we had to unload part of my wagon to make room for things that Emmit was going to send with it. That brought up the next discussion item.
We moved to the kitchen and sat around the table.
"Lolla is pregnant," Emmit sighed.
"Don't act so excited," Mirra said, laughing.
The old man sighed again - more dramatically this time. Lolla giggled and rubbed her chest against him. She pulled his lips to hers and kissed him tenderly.
"Tempest," he growled. "You'll be the death of me."
"Not until I give you one or two more children," she promised.
He glared at her. She wrapped herself around his arm and actually quieted down. I couldn't help but grin. He saw the expression on my face and finally grinned as well. He did shake his head though.
"We still need to complete the second supply-run," he said, matter-of-factly. "I will copy my map - with its annotations. I will give you the indexed list of locations, items to be retrieved, bought, or traded for - as well as instructions on how I normally go about it."
I nodded.
"You will study rune-making until I trust you to manage things on your own. You will get your two wives armed and outfitted for the journey. You, Mirra, and Janna will take your newly-refitted wagon and go get the supplies that we need. You will protect the wagon and they will deal with aggressors."
I nodded again.
"While you are gone, Lolla and I will keep producing trading-goods and managing things here. By the time you return, we should have a full load of items for you to trade. We'll work on the next batch while you're unloading those things and gathering supplies along the first route that we took."
He looked at Lolla and then back to me. He sighed once more.
"Depending on how quickly she gets pregnant again ... she and I may follow a third route and do some trading as well."
He shot a mock glare at her.
"As you know, I enjoy my solitude ... but it appears that that time may be ended - at least for a while. If it's too chaotic for me to work on my craft here, I might as well be out trading."
"I'll keep the children out of your hair," Lolla promised.
Emmit sighed again.
Mirra and Janna snickered.
"Do you think I could make my wagon a couple feet wider?" I asked.
He looked between my two wives and me and grinned.
"I don't see why not," he said. "I may have enough wood to do that and still modify the shed. There's a fiefdom city on the east edge of the lake to the north. You could take the wagon and buy lumber there. The other option is for us to build a sawmill."
"A sawmill?" I asked.
"If Lolla is planning to fill my house with children," he said, "you and your wives will need to build your own place."
"Shit!" I gasped.
He nodded - and grinned.
"Where would we ...?" I asked.
"There's room, just north of the clay fields, if you wanted," he said. "If you'd rather not be so close, you could go on the other side of the trade-road."
I looked at Mirra and Janna. They took each other's hand and shrugged at me.
It was good to see her already so comfortable as part of our little team. I liked her a lot - and loved the fact that she and Mirra got along so well.
"If we're going to be gone often," I told him, "I think it makes more sense to be behind your wall."
"That was my thought," he said, "but I didn't want to pressure you."
"How long would the wood have to dry before we could build?" I asked.
"We could expand the kiln," he offered, "but I think - if we cut the lumber now and stack it - it will have time to dry while you're making your maiden voyage. Lolla shouldn't have enough time to fill the whole house with screaming brats before you're back."
~~~
Emmit spent the next week building the sawmill - as well as a sledge for the mules to pull to bring the trees to the mill. While he worked on that, I designed a glyph for Janna, widened and refitted the wagon, and expanded the storage shed to hold the thing.
I used the spit-marker on Janna and the sword that she had picked out. She sparred against me after dinner to see what was working and what wasn't. We refined the design a couple times. I put runes on the handle of her sword - as well as both hands - because she was just as good with either one.
The glyph I chose (of course) looked like a sword. The blade portion of the thing was runed with "counter, cut, and cleave". The guard was scribed with "swift, sure, and slippery". The handle held runes for "perceive, plan, and parry".
As we practiced together, obviously, I couldn't strike her - but I got close enough to force her to block. Her attacks were sure and swift enough that I was sweating as I worked to keep her from hitting me. Her blade carved gouges in my staff. I switched to a normal stave but she cut the thing into pieces. She giggled as she attacked me - giddy with how easily she could fight with the runes enhancing her.
She threw her sword to the ground and leapt into my arms. I dropped my staff and caught her. Her lips tore at mine. Her arms and legs held me tightly.
"I've never felt so powerful!" she purred. "When Mirra shot the sword out of Gerald's hand, I was amazed - but it's like my attacks are magical."
Mirra wrapped her arms around the two of us and pressed her lips into the melee. We both kissed her back.
"It makes your pussy wet, doesn't it?" Mirra whispered to her.
"It does ...," Janna replied with a smile. "Are you offering?"
"You two ...," I moaned.
The pair snickered, kissed me again, and then they released me.
When we got back to the house, I took out my rune-making kit, filled the quill from the vial of drake blood, and made the glyphs permanent.
~~~
Emmit finished building the sawmill the next day - just as I got done loading all of the trade-goods back into my newly-expanded wagon. I still had plenty of room for the stuff that Emmit would send with us - and now the bed was big enough for the three of us to sleep side-by-side (although I still enjoyed having either one of them lying on top of me as we slept). The bed in my room had been adjusted so that we could fit more easily as well.
Fireball had adopted my new wife the day after she moved in with us. She always got tickled when he did his egg-fart thing - so she became his most dependable supplier when he begged for one. That alone would have garnered his love and trust - but he seemed to sense that Mirra and I had accepted the golden-haired beauty. Then again, maybe he smelled us on her and that contributed. I had wondered if we might leave him at the farm but - as we got closer to the date of our departure - it became more and more obvious that he wouldn't allow that.
The little shit was growing again. I'd used the bolt of cloth to make him a new outfit - but he was already getting too large for it. He snuck off to go fishing whenever he could, and I swear that every fish he ate made him grow another inch. I wasn't sure how big imps normally got - but I was beginning to worry that he would one day catch up to me.
I had marked his height on the wall of the shed religiously for the last few weeks. He was almost a hand-span taller than when we had gone to visit my family. He came almost to my waist now! I knew better than to kid Lolla about her height, but she had to be getting worried that he would pass her soon ...
He was also becoming quite the fisherman. More than once a week, he would return from his little expedition with a string of fish for us to clean and cook. He still preferred his raw - but he would sit (like a little gentleman) and eat with the rest of us.
He could now say everybody's names well enough for us to recognize them - and his regular vocabulary was still growing as well. His adopted mothers and me got hugs and kisses each night before he crawled into his little nest. (Janna had been forced to give up an article of clothing to contribute to his bed as well - that was why I was so confident that he fully accepted her.) We would probably need to take his nest-box with us when we traveled or we wouldn't be able to keep him out of our bed.
With the wagon finished, the girls and I started saw down trees, dragging them to the mill, and sawing them into boards. These were stacked to dry. Rather than build another shed, we pulled the new wagon out and stacked the boards in the space that would be sitting empty while we were off on our next supply run.
In the end, Emmit had us pull his wagon out as well. We secured a canvas tarpaulin to the side of the shed and then tied it to the bottom of his wagon - so that any rain would be kept away. The wagon shed was soon filled with drying lumber. We covered the mill and sledge with a tarp and retired (at least for now) from being lumberjacks.
As my wives and I showered together, I remarked on how toned their bodies were - with all of the manual labor that we'd been performing. They snickered about my toned muscle as well - and then set their naughty fingers after said muscle. I moaned as they milked a load of seed from me - and then groaned as they dragged me off to our bed and demanded that I reciprocate. I fingered one as I ate the other and then switched when the first one came.
~~~
After more than a month of studying my runes, sawing lumber, refitting the wagon, and expanding the shed, it was time for us to depart.
That morning, Lolla and Emmit walked us out to the "trading schooner" as Emmit had started calling it. He walked to the side of the wagon and pointed to a box that I didn't remember being there before. He unlatched the front and folded it down. Inside, there were pans, skillets, and utensils.
"This end has two hot-plates," he said, "a smaller and a larger one. The other end has been hardened so that you can carve meat or vegetables on it. The surface should clean itself."
He closed that up, walked to the other side of the wagon and showed off two more new boxes - a larger one that opened at the top and a smaller one that opened from where it attached to the wagon.
