Black Iron's Glory

After school on Saturday, Claude headed home first, changed into a fresh set of clothes and stuffed some extra underwear into his bag after some consideration. He would be spending a day and night on the ship and he wasn’t sure whether they would go swimming or not, so there was no harm to bring some clothes to change into. After that, he slung the gun on his back, checked all his luggage before he headed downstairs.

He was stopped by his younger brother Bloweyk before he left. Even the little snowhound came to mess around with him. After playing with the chubby puffball and their pet, Claude greeted his mother before he left to hail a carriage.

However, Claude was almost stupefied when he reached the jetty. “It can’t be, Eriksson… You have so much stuff on the boat! Can we even fit inside?”

Calmly, Eriksson said with a straight face, “No worries. I brought only two cast nets and one purse seine. Even though they look rather tall stacked up together, the ship will be practically empty once we deploy them. We’ll have more than enough space to move around.”

Claude shook his head with a bitter smile. “You make it sound so simple. Those nets are the ones your father uses on his ship, Shark of Red Sea, right? They’re far too big to be used in a lake like that. We only got the blacktiger fish back then out of luck. You’re not counting on us catching another, right? It’d be impossible.”

“These are not the nets my father uses, don’t worry. I won’t make that kind of amateur mistake,” Eriksson said with a smile, “These are the ones used by my neighbor, the Welindas. They’re all new and they lent it to me for free to test them out.”

Claude realized what was going on. The Welinda household that lived next to the Altronis’ private jetty specialized in making and fixing nets. Eriksson recently got acquainted with Madam Welinda. There was a tradition among the fishing folk in Whitestag. Newly made nets had to be submerged in the lake for three days to test their solidity and durability as well as making them have a similar scent to the lake. Only then would the nets not be picked up by the passing fish, or so it was believed.

Since Eriksson was going to spend a night at the lake, he decided to do Madam Welinda a favor to test out the nets for her. If he managed to catch some fish with the new nets, they will start to smell of fish and the nets would sell for a good price.

“Where are we going then?” asked Claude as he checked out the small fishing boat.

Most of the fishing boat was filled with nothing but net. There was only the slightest empty space at the bow and stern of the ship. The space at the bow could only fit one person and the stern was where the helm was. They won’t even be able to communicate properly.

“Just wait. I had Boa get Uncle Pegg to bring us a tarpaulin from the storehouse later. After we cover the nets with it, you can sit on it without issue,” said Eriksson.

The reason a net shouldn’t be walked over was that one’s feet would easily get caught up between its holes. That would easily tangle the neatly placed nets together and untangling them would prove to be quite a challenge. The nets in this world were also not made of nylon like the ones Claude was familiar with. Stepping on them would easily damage them.

Eriksson, for one, had thought it through quite well. Laying a tarpaulin over the nets would prevent all that trouble.

“Alright, I’ll wait and see then,” Claude said, “So, only Boa’s here? What about Wero?”

“He should be coming soon. His house is the furthest after all.”

After a while, Borkal came over with a large roll of tarpaulin. He jumped with joy at the sight of Claude. “Quick, come help me out. I’m tired to death…”

Claude placed his matchlock gun on the ground and went over to receive it as he complained, “Why didn’t you get Eriksson to help you out?”

Borkal cursed, “That fellow said that he’s too worn out from bringing the nets on board and stayed on the stern of the ship the whole time, saying that it wasn’t convenient for him to get off with all the nets there.”

“Are you an idiot?” Claude said as he hauled the tarpaulin onto his shoulder, “How could he have brought so many nets on board by himself? Obviously, someone helped him with it. You even believed what he said…”

Welikro arrived at that moment. Borkal saw him and called out, “Don’t come here yet. There’s a bucket of red worms to use as bait at Uncle Pegg’s house. Go bring it over.”

After finally laying the tarpaulin down, everyone got on board. Welikro put the wooden bucket filled with worms in between the space of the net and ship before sitting on the tarpaulin. He even said that the net cushion beneath the tarpaulin felt quite good to sit on.

“Let’s depart. It’s getting late,” said Borkal to Eriksson, who was undoing the dock lines at the rear.

Eriksson pointed at the long punt pole placed at the stern on the boat. “Someone, go take that to push the boat away from shore. We won’t need to row today since the winds are strong. Boa, help me with releasing the sails when we leave the jetty. Oh, and remember to hang out the fishskin lantern at the front of the boat. Claude, light it up and hang it up on the pole later.”

After much work, they were finally able to leave the jetty.

“The winds are indeed rather strong tonight,” Borkal said, lying down flat on the tarpaulin, “This boat is swaying so much that it doesn’t feel well built… It’s like it’ll flip over or something…”

“Shut up!” Eriksson snapped angrily, “Fatty, don’t put it that way! The fuck are you saying? Don’t you have anything better to say right after we depart?”

That was Eriksson’s beloved boat and he wouldn’t allow anybody to talk bad about it. Hearing Borkal say that it would turn over was the last straw. He didn’t think that the fatty would bring up such a taboo topic.

“What the heck? I was only saying how I feel! It’s not like I’m cursing the boat to actually flip! Are you that eager for an argument?” snapped Borkal in kind.

“Alright, stop arguing. Boa, please watch your mouth too. Today is the boat’s maiden voyage, so it’s not good for us to say something as foreboding like that.” Claude stopped their argument and asked, “Oh, Eyke, which way are we heading again?”

“The northwest side. There’s a swamp near the shore over there with a lot of birds. You can practice shooting there tomorrow. There also aren’t that many fishing boats there, so we can find a place to deploy the nets more easily.”

Eriksson took a look at the full-blown sails. “The winds really are quite strong during the night. It seems that we will be able to reach our destination in around two hours.”

It’ll take another two hours, uh… I wonder if I should meditate once here? Claude thought.

He then said, “Then, I’ll take a short nap first. Boa, move over slightly.”

Borkal unwillingly moved aside and asked, “What’s with you lately, Claude? I always see you sleeping during the morning class session. Are you a baby or something?”

That’s right… Sleeping in class daily like this isn’t a long-term solution. In time, somebody will notice something weird about it… Claude snapped alert immediately. What should I do then? Meditate one time less at night and sleep?

“Well, I slept because I found the classes boring. When do you ever see me sleep during the afternoon session?” Claude yawned. “And if I sleep now, I can be on night duty instead of you guys so you can get all the sleep you want.”

“That’s right. The academic instructors reciting the textbooks sound just like flies buzzing in my ear. I feel sleepy even though I’m not tired,” agreed Welikro. He was also an avid sleeper during the morning session, but now Claude seemed to sleep far more often than he did.

In fact, he was even better at it. Welikro only slept from time to time in class during the morning session, but Claude slept almost every day during that time.

As for Borkal and Eriksson, they didn’t sleep in class. Instead, they would flip through their books lazily or play some kind of board game during class. They could play a game of monster chess for throughout the whole morning session. They were allowed to do so since the instructors weren’t that attentive at the students sitting at the back of the class anyway. They would get a pass to do what they wanted as long as they didn’t disturb the class.

Claude had wanted to meditate right away, but he found that it wasn’t the right time. When he meditated, he would be completely cut off from the outside world. He would be divorced from sensory experience altogether. Otherwise, he would’ve found out when so many people gathered at his house thinking that he was a burglar instead of waking up after he finished his meditation only to find out too late.

Even though Borkal moved aside, the ship was only that large and was packed with nets. If they bumped into each other and his friends noticed that he wasn’t reacting in the slightest, they might try to slap him awake or try to perform CPR on him or something. The mere thought of it sent chills down Claude’s spine.

Should I meditate or not? Claude was stuck in that dilemma before he fell asleep for real.

Nobody touched him nor did they try to give him CPR. Either way, he didn’t get to sleep long. When he woke up, the stars already filled the sky. Borkal on the other hand seemed sound asleep and was even snoring.

Rubbing his face, Claude sat up and realized that Welikro was holding the helm with Eriksson standing beside him.

“How long was I asleep?” asked Claude.

“Around an hour or so,” said Wellikro groggily.

“How much longer until we arrive?”

“Soon. Do you see the grassy area at the bank of the lake? We have to go further in,” said Eriksson with a point of his finger.

The silhouette of the mountains could be seen in the distance. At the bottom of those mountains were the reeds Eriksson was referring to.

Even though it didn’t look too far away, it was quite a huge distance to cover for the small fishing boat. After another half an hour or so of sailing, Eriksson finally lowered his plumb line to test for water depth. After a while, he said with satisfaction, “Alright, this will be the place. Claude, wake Boa up. We’ll deploy the cast nets first before we use the purse seine. I believe we’ll get a good haul this time around.”

Borkal, having just been awoken, seemed rather groggy. Had it not been for Claude holding fast onto him, he might’ve fallen into the lake. However, that shock was enough to startle him completely awake. He helped Claude roll the tarpaulin up and followed Eriksson’s instructions to deploy the two large cast nets. Those nets were rather large, with one being eight meters in length and the other, ten. However, both of them were only some three meters wide. They could be deployed in waters as deep as three meters and above.

After deploying the nets, they sailed the ship to the front some ten more minutes and deployed the purse seine. This one was around 20 meters in length and four in width and it caused quite a lot of ripples to form on the water surface.

Finally, the boat was empty. Eriksson opened the cabin and took out a few towels. “Wash your faces, mates.”

Borkal submerged the towel into the cold lakewater and squeezed it dry. As he wiped his face, he asked, “Can we start barbecuing now? I’m feeling rather hungry.”

“Wait ten more minutes or so. We’ll see what we get when we pull the net up first. If we set up the stuff right now, we won’t have any place to pull the purse seine up to. I want to see whether we can get some fish for dinner,” said Eriksson.

Welikro on the other hand generously took out a paper bag from the cabin. “Let’s have some honeyed and buttered bread to fill our stomachs for the time being.”

The sack of fist-sized bread was quickly emptied by the four of them in a hurry. As it was about time, Eriksson gave the order to pull up the purse seine.

That effort was quite tiring. They couldn’t just pull the seine up from one end only. Two people had to haul it up together so as to let the net come up to the ship in a semicircular shape. After that, they would pull on the string of the purse seine and reel in the whole thing. When the string was tied up securely to the net, the fish within wouldn’t be able to escape.

They only managed to bring the net up after thirty minutes or so. They didn’t get much fish, only seven to eight of them. But three of them were longtail swordfish about the length of a foot, so they wouldn’t lack any fish for the barbecue that night.

After redeploying the net, their barbecue finally began.

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