บท 146: XII: Smoke... Part 1

‘What do we do?’ I asked for what felt like the thousandth time.

We had camped for the second night, this time close to the first forest I’d seen in this lifetime.

The trees were enormous, lush, but the temperature had descended almost abruptly to the point where most of us began shivering.

I wouldn’t have minded if the difference hadn’t been so glaring, because it interrupted our wood-cutting travel. So far, we had already loaded one of the horses with various branches, leaves, and almost any other organic material suitable for burning. I wanted to find some mineral coal since that would be a better source (and I loathed to think about burning trees to create metal) but did not know how to find it in the wilderness.