For the next several days, the stag did not appear again.
Its hoofprints ended abruptly, as though such a deer had never visited the riverbank at all.
Perhaps it had migrated elsewhere.
In early spring, deer followed the first shoots of fresh grass wherever they appeared.
It might also have been cornered by a pack of wolves.
Adrian had seen the aftermath of such hunts before: chaotic hoofprints and paw marks scattered across the snow, ending in a wide patch of trampled ground with gnawed bones buried beneath it.
A two-hundred-pound stag would be difficult for wolves to catch while it was running, but every animal eventually had to stop to rest or drink.
None of that mattered to him anymore, however.
One of his traps had caught something new.
It was a wild boar.
The animal was not particularly large.
The bristles along its shoulders and back were still grayish yellow rather than the coarse blackish-brown of a fully grown boar.
It had fallen into the pit with all four short legs wedged between the sharpened stakes.
Its belly rested heavily against their tips, but none had managed to pierce its hide.
The skin was simply too thick.
Around the shoulder blades and the back of the neck, it was almost as tough as a wooden board.
The boar lay at the bottom of the pit with its mouth open.
Two short tusks protruded from the corners of its jaws, not yet fully developed but already sharp enough to be dangerous.
Heavy, wheezing breaths rasped from its throat.
Its legs kicked without pause, and its hooves gouged deep furrows into the earthen walls, but they were too short to gain any purchase.
Adrian crouched at the edge of the trap and looked down.
The boar rolled its eyes upward until more white showed than black.
When it saw his shadow above, it began struggling even more violently.
Mud churned beneath its body, and two of the stakes were knocked crooked.
Adrian made no attempt to climb down.
A wild boar was the last creature in the forest a sensible man would willingly enter a confined pit with.
This one was young, trapped, and unable to stand properly.
It might have looked clumsy, but the sight of a living creature within reach would be enough to send it into a frenzy.
Even its half-grown tusks could tear open the inside of a man’s thigh.
Adrian had seen men gored by boars before.
The tusk left a great hole in the inner thigh, and blood poured from the wound faster than anyone could stop it.
Their faces turned white as paper, and they often bled to death before their companions could carry them back to the fortress.
More hunters died to wild boars than to bears.
It was absurd, but true.
Remaining at the edge of the pit, Adrian drew the arming sword from his waist.
He turned the hilt, gripped it firmly with both hands, and angled the point downward.
Then he drove the blade into the boar behind the ear.
Blood burst from the wound and streamed over the coarse bristles before pooling in the mud.
The animal’s body convulsed, its legs kicking wildly at first and then with steadily diminishing strength.
Adrian waited until it had stopped moving completely before climbing into the pit.
He rolled the carcass onto its back and examined the belly.
The stakes had left several pale indentations in the hide, but none had broken through.
Excellent.
The boar skin was nearly intact and could eventually be made into armor.
That was more valuable to him than the meat itself.
When he tried to lift the carcass, his left knee nearly buckled beneath the weight.
The boar was much heavier than the roe deer.
Although it was still immature, it must have weighed at least a hundred and twenty pounds.
Its bones were heavier than those of a deer, and its body was packed with dense muscle and fat.
Adrian seized both front legs and hauled upward.
Once the boar’s shoulders rose from the bottom of the pit and its head cleared the edge, he gathered his remaining strength and shoved the carcass over the rim.
It tumbled onto the muddy trail with its short legs spread apart.
Its mouth remained open, and mud smeared the ends of its tusks.
Adrian climbed out after it and sat on the ground to recover.
His left shoulder throbbed with a deep ache, while his hands were covered in mud and blood.
The carcass would provide far more meat than the roe deer had.
Once butchered, there would be enough to smoke several large batches of jerky.
But the hide remained the greatest prize.
The skin around the neck and shoulders was exceptionally thick, almost like natural armor.
Properly cleaned and treated, it could be shaped into protective clothing capable of resisting cuts far better than ordinary deerskin.
The coarse bristles could be gathered and made into brushes.
The tusks could be sharpened into awls or other small tools.
Wild boar also carried far more fat than deer.
Once rendered, the fat would cool into a snow-white paste that could fuel lamps, grease scabbards, and coat chainmail to protect it from rust.
Even the bones had value.
They could be cracked open and boiled into broth, while the rich marrow inside would help restore his strength.
Almost no part of the animal needed to be wasted.
Several more sets of tracks surrounded the trap.
Adrian studied the hoofprints for some time.
In these mountain forests, wild boars had few natural predators.
Bears were scarce, while wolf packs usually dared to attack only solitary animals or those that were old, weak, sick, or injured.
An adult boar’s hide was as thick as a shield across the shoulders and back, its tusks curved outward from the corners of its mouth, and it could run faster than a man.
Wild boars generally traveled in groups.
The largest adults walked along the outside, while the younger ones remained protected in the middle.
Whenever they sensed danger, the adults stopped first.
They lowered their heads, sniffed the ground, and released low, warning grunts before leading the rest of the group around the threat.
This young boar had probably been too greedy.
It must have caught the sweet-and-sour scent of fermented fruit and stepped onto the trap before the adults could warn it.
Adrian examined the larger tracks again.
One set was particularly deep, with the tips of the hooves digging into the earth and pushing up small ridges of mud.
They belonged to a fully grown boar.
Its front hooves were wider than his palm.
He crouched beside the pit and followed the direction of the tracks with his eyes.
They continued southward until they disappeared into the dense forest.
As with the roe deer, he butchered the boar on the spot.
He took everything useful and left the rest behind.
The meat, hide, tusks, fat, and tendons required two trips to carry back to camp.
The stomach, intestines, stripped bones, and other remains were abandoned beside the trap for the crows and wolves to finish.
Adrian placed the final load outside the lean-to and looked around.
His small foothold was rapidly filling up.
With the area so exposed on every side, the growing pile of supplies made him increasingly uneasy.
When he had first arrived, the shelter had contained little more than a piece of smoked fish, an empty salt pouch, a short axe, and a sword.
He could roll across the bedding without touching anything.
Now, two rows of smoked meat hung from the rafters.
Bundled hides and tendons were stacked against the rock wall, while the clay jars held seeds, dried fruit, and alkaline wood-ash salt.
Dried vegetables had accumulated beside the stone hearth.
There was so little room left that even the pickaxe had to remain propped against the outside of the shelter.
The more possessions he gathered, the less secure he felt.
Before, when he had owned nothing, even a wolf would have considered him a waste of its teeth.
Now there was meat, hide, fat, and equipment everywhere—each item purchased with his own sweat and effort.
While he slept at night, the creatures of the forest continued to roam.
Wolves, wild boars, and things even more troublesome wandered through the darkness beyond the firelight.
Adrian crouched outside the lean-to and examined the surrounding terrain again.
A mountain ridge blocked the north, dense forest stretched to the south, and the river ran between them.
The location was good enough to hide a man, but not a growing stockpile of supplies.
The shelter itself was too conspicuous.
Built against the base of the rock wall, it could be spotted at a glance from the opposite bank.
There was no fence, no ditch, and no barrier of any kind.
Anything could walk straight up to where he slept.
He needed to establish a perimeter.
It did not have to be strong enough to stop determined men.
It only needed to make it more difficult for animals to enter unnoticed.
Adrian drew the short axe from his belt and headed into the forest.
He cut a large number of stakes, each as thick as his arm, sharpened one end, and drove them into the earth around the shelter.
He then wove vines tightly between the stakes, gradually forming a crude fence.
The work was far from simple and took him several days to complete.
This time, however, the effort was worthwhile.
The fence would not stop a person who truly wanted to enter, but it could keep out wild boars, wolves, and other creatures that might otherwise creep into camp while he slept.
Once it was finished, Adrian felt considerably more at ease.
He could now turn his attention to the materials taken from the boar.
Its hide was much thicker than the roe deer’s, particularly around the shoulders and the back of the neck, where it was nearly as hard as a wooden board.
Such hide had to be tanned before use; otherwise, it would become rigid when dry and begin to rot whenever it grew damp.
Adrian collected the hide from the rocks but did not begin working immediately.
He possessed no alum or lime, and the only salt available to him was the alkaline mixture made from wood ash.
The forest, however, contained something else he could use.
He stripped bark from an oak tree, chopped it into small pieces, and placed it in a clay pot filled with water.
As the mixture boiled, the bark rolled through the bubbling liquid and slowly released its color.
The water gradually changed from clear to dark brown.
That was the tanning solution he needed.
After boiling the bark for half an hour, he removed the pot from the fire and soaked the boar hide in the liquid.
He left it there for an entire day, allowing the tannins from the oak bark to penetrate the skin.
By the time he removed it, the hide had changed from grayish black to a deep brown.
He hung it up to drain, and the sharp, astringent scent of boiled bark clung to its surface.
Adrian stretched the hide between his hands to test it.
It remained flexible and resilient rather than dry and brittle.
Once it had dried enough to work with, he cut it into two large sections.
One would cover his chest, while the other would protect his back.
He overlapped the pieces at the shoulders and stitched them together with thick linen thread.
The work resembled the roe deer vest he had made earlier, though the heavy boar hide was much more difficult to pierce.
After completing the stitching, he pulled the armor over his body to test the fit.
It was heavy and stiff, but a knife would have to work hard to slash through it.
He then put his chainmail over the boar-hide armor.
The iron rings pressed firmly against the thick leather beneath them.
Two layers of protection.
The padded hide would absorb part of the force behind a blow, while the chainmail could resist the cutting edge.
Together, they were far more effective than either layer alone.
Adrian next turned his attention to the tendons.
The fresh boar sinews had been trimmed clean and laid across the rocks to dry.
They were still moist, soft, and pale white.
He also retrieved the roe deer tendons he had collected earlier.
After drying for many days, they had become hard as stone and changed from pinkish white to a translucent pale yellow.
He placed both kinds beside the hearth and began preparing them.
The roe deer sinews first had to be soaked in warm water until they softened enough to twist.
The boar tendons were still supple and could be worked immediately.
He placed one strand of boar sinew between two strands taken from the roe deer and twisted all three together.
Once the first cord was smooth and tight, he set it aside and began another.
After producing seven or eight cords, he gathered them into a single bundle.
He twisted them together and wrapped the length tightly with linen thread, binding it section by section.
He left a loop at either end.
The bowstring was finished.
The bow itself would be much more troublesome.
The wood could be neither too thick nor too thin.
A straight stave about as wide as his arm, without knots or large branches, would be ideal.
Ash trees were common enough in this forest.
Adrian had noticed several while gathering materials for the shelter, so he selected a suitable young tree, cut it down, and dragged it back to camp.
He trimmed away the branches and shaped the trunk into a rough stave.
Then he leaned it beneath the overhang of the rock wall, where it could dry slowly without being exposed to rain.
This part of the work could not be rushed.
A bow made from wet wood might warp or crack the moment it was drawn.
The ash stave measured roughly five feet in length.
He split it vertically into two halves, exposing wood that was still green and astringent with moisture.
It could not be shaped properly until it had partially dried.
If he carved it too early, the wood would shrink unevenly and split as the remaining moisture escaped.
He would allow it to dry until most of the water had left the grain and the wood had stabilized.
Only then would he begin shaving it into the final shape of a bow.
A draw weight of forty or fifty pounds would be enough.
As long as it could drive an arrow into the flank of a deer from thirty paces away, it would serve its purpose.