THE THORIAN SAGAS: 1. THE TRADER. (Completed).

The Trader.

The trader; Stoker, came a day earlier than usual to Fenn, this week. It did not often happen that way, except near the end of each month, in the third week.

This time, it was because of the weather.

If he had not come then, he might not have been able to come at all that week with the weather turning as unexpectedly severe as it had.

As Warrior Guards; Monique MacBeath and her comrades in arms, met and controlled those outsiders who came into their city, few as they were; saw that they conducted their business, and then left.

They had been doing this for three years now.

Their first day of being trusted to look after the gate alone, without supervision, as the older warriors stepped aside, was also the first day that Stoker came to their city.

After that, and for the three years since then, Stoker was the only one who came regularly from week to week, bringing those goods that they needed or requested.

It was always the same trader; a man, yet not a full man, but so different from their own subservient males. He was bigger, much heavier, stronger; more direct in speech and action, as they'd learned over the years.

He was a Yunk, a half-man. All traders, like Stoker, were Yunks.

For the last three years it had been Stoker who'd arrived at their gate each week and was admitted to the city, once Monique—in charge of the guard—was satisfied who he was, and that he was alone, though they knew who he was even from a mile away with those gigantic horses of his, and his carts.  And his small dog, usually standing on the back of his horses as he approached the gate.

On a few occasions, he had stayed the night with his horses until the weather improved, saying little or nothing, and then he had gone again, taking the only road back to Golden, before going on to his home in Saltash to prepare for his next trading run with them in another week.

Today was different.

He was early, and they could see and feel why.

They heard the wind outside and felt the cold.

Some had talked of the possibility of snow. They had never seen snow other than on the distant mountain peaks when they were not shrouded in clouds or were not too hazy.

When they opened the gates to him, they'd seen the piles of scrub brush, built up along the city wall where the wind had taken it, only to see it swept up again by another gust, to be moved even farther, with a few of them blowing into the courtyard around them.

They were soon collected up, with others deliberately brought in, in the five minutes it took to get the heavy gates opened; the carts brought in, and the gates closed again behind them.

That 'brush', burned well, with a lot of heat and not much smoke, once it was fragmented between rollers.

Stoker drove his horses into the city with a sudden clatter of their hooves on the cobbled surface, seeing and hearing the massive gates close behind him with a solid... 'thunk'..., cutting off the bitterly cold wind. He sat there for a farther few minutes, catching his breath, glad to be out of that wind as he allowed his stiff muscles to respond, uncovering his face and mouth from the blowing sand, and breathing again, as he unstrapped his protective coverings on his legs and body.

They watched as he shook the sand out of his clothes and wiped off more of it that had become encrusted upon his face where it had stuck in the perspiration.

Stoker was larger than any man, or Yunk, they had ever seen before, and his eyes were sharp and clear; missing nothing. His hair was cropped very short, revealing many scars upon his head.