11th day of spring, 511 av
With the rise of the morning sun, Noth eagerly made ready for work from the day before. Stretching and having a small bite of his breakfast of an apple, Antar set about for preparing the kill he had made the night before. A possum which he stored in a sack he'd flung up in a 'high' holdalso known as a Bear Bag for the night. Loosening the ropes, he brought the bag down and removed the dead carcass, drew his knife and got to work nearby the firepit. The small hollow within the earth was still filled with a small portion of warm coals from the night past.
Noth started by flipping the animal to the point where its legs pointed up in the air.
He had to in order to begin the gutting process, slicing just below the ribcage as cooled blood and entrails began to spill out. Uncaring of the mess he reached inside to pull the organs, the heart, the liver the kidneys, all of it out in one giant mess. He could feel the toughness of the animal's ribcage he savagely removed the intestines and laid it all on a stone beside the fire. He didn't want to eat such things. For they would have been tainted by the undigested material still within the critter. He took a sharp look at them just to be sure.
There was a small danger of an arrow shot piercing and making a mess of things on the inside, but he had bet upon the cool night air of spring to keep the kill from being spoiled. And it seemed his luck had paid off. For the arrow seemed to have shot the possum in the lungs, causing them to fill with blood and suffocate the animal to death. The stomach , liver, and intestines were unpierced.
With the gutting of the animal done, he flipped the corpse over. With a small grunt of effort, he chopped off the animal's head at the base of the neck, and added it to the discard pile. The tail followed.
Using his knife again Noth made a single incision, cutting a straight line crosswise through the fur around the width of the animal. He made sure to cut through the skin down to the muscle layer below before placing his knife aside. Taking both hands he placed them into the divide and braced himself to defur the beast. He started his way towards the back quarters, ripping the layers of hair and skin off with a sickening squelch as he levered the half pelt backwards, tearing the flesh up and over the hindquarters, down to going over the tail stump and finishing with the legs.
He duplicated his actions for the front, forcing it to come off the shoulders and down over the legs bones of the front feet. Noth set the fur aside, he could use it for lining boots and things with, and it was always good for sale if he could cure it.
With the immediate steps of removing the fur done, he flipped the body over and cut away at its hips, and what was left at the neck removing the creatures colon sheathe, and esophagus to finish the gutting process.
Looking at the corpse, Noth figured he'd get three days worth of meat out of the kill, so flipping it back over he began to de bone the prize. Scraping at the inside of the ribs to thin them enough for him to force the ribs to pop through by pushing down on the meat. He did this for one side, and then the other working his way with the knife closer towards the spine. With a little bit of leveraging and a sharp cutting through the soft tissues with his camp knife he had finished severing the spine from the muscles in the possum’s back.
He was able to separate the spine from the creature, it was only a matter of time before he came to the obstacles of removing the entire thing, including the tail stump before he could place the rib cage with the connecting spine and hip bones upon the discard pile with the rest of the organs. Now was the odds and ends, bringing the scapula out of the flesh, scraping just as he had with the ribs before using the flat of his knife's blade under the bone to flip it up safely through the meat. Then came the time for the legs, carving down the legs themselves he reached inside the flesh to tear out the bones of the hind legs, before severing the feet where there wasn’t enough flesh to save.
With the task done, Noth rolled up fileted meat to form a giant meat wrap, placing it in a few wet down gathered leaves for baking before he gathered up the discard pile of animal guts… He took the out of camp by a few hundred feet to dispose of it, walking ever so slightly in a zig zag pattern through the outskirts rubble before tossing it into swathe of bushes.
With the disposal done, Noth returned back to the fire pit and got it started the hard way, digging with his blade until he found a smoldering coal , heaping some of the stored dry grass he had taken in his tent to get a small fire to blossom to life. He fed it slowly in the pit, adding larger and larger amounts of tinder, then kindling then fuel to bring up the fire to safe blaze before scattering half of it with a poaked stick to form a new bed of coals. Taking the rock with the leaf wrap meat bundle , Noth wet the package down with water from his flask and placed it upon the outer edge of the bed of coals. Within the flat leaves the meat would steam as he finished the rest of the morning camp duties. And he’d dug the pit deep enough to prevent the wind catching an errant spark.
Not that that would matter as he had assured he kept his tent at least fifteen feet away. He knew, like the wilderness, one could never be cautious enough with fire around. Camp safety was a tenant of his life and he’d be damned before he let anyone he’d been camping with to put his life in danger.
Turning away from camp he took his iron pot to the nearest working well, with the intent of filling it with water from the bucket. It was a good hike, about a quarter mile and he figured that when he returned to camp the meat on the coal bed would be just ready for turning. It took two pales to fill the pot, and hauling it back was difficult. But he managed to get it back in time to flip the meat roll with a stick and set up his pot to boil. He did this by using three cut staves, two with “Y” notches in them. The two with the branched forks, he drove into the ground over the fire pit, thinking they were strong enough to hold the crossbar of a makeshift spit. As a final act of preparation, he hung the pot of water over the half of the fire, just above the flames which were on a ‘slow’ burn as some called it. This meant that that side had enough fuel for about thirty more minutes with a few smaller fuel logs providing the heat of the fire which was provided to begin the water’s boiling.
Taking out some salt from his pack, Noth began working the leaf bundle over to the side of the coal bed and tenderly opened the hot package with his camp knife and a wooden fork, opening the meat bundle up. A small puff of heated steam rose from the opened pouch, forcing him to close his eyesas it washed over his face. It was a discomforting feeling, almost as nasty as getting a spark upon the skin, but it wasn’t anything seriously. When he opened his eyes he peered down into the package tow see that the red meat had nicely begun steaming to the brownish color of being cooked through with just a bit of pink inside. The smell wafted to his nostrils, causing his belly to ache a bit with hunger. But he disciplined himself from eating it just yet. Instead, he salted the meat wrap, wetting it down with a bit more water from his flask before rewrapping it to set it upon the coals again before checking on the pot to see the water had come to a nice rolling boil and realized it was just time to wait.
Noth settled back to finish his morning routine by whittling a stick with his dagger. Just working his hands and the blade’s edge along the wood, bringing small scrapes off with each slice. He was working on something he had seen once but didn’t know how to play. A board game with several types of pieces with the goal of capturing the board so the opponents head piece couldn’t move. He figured eventually he might learn how to make such a thing to pass the time.
About five chimes later the meat was fully cooked and cooling, and the fire had been banked to burn down to coals. Lifting the pot to the side with the stick he covered it with a lid and turned his attention back to the fire.
This time he laid the pelt flaps above the pit in the smoke of the dying fire, letting the hide dry a little as he waited a few more chimes as the smoke cleared and killed any pests that still lay within the pelt. About 10 chimes later, the drinking water he had set aside to cool, Noth drank the rest of his water from his drinking flask and set about smothering the fire with dirt and soil. Ever mindful to leave the cooling meat in the leaves room to sit, straightened his hair using his comb, and rinsed of his knife before stowing it back in the sheathe he had made for it on his shoulder.
He finished a little more whittling work, and stored the meat wrap back in the “high hold” and hung it so animals wouldn’t be able to get it. The salt and the wrapped leaf bundle would keep it safe from air spoilage and investigating pests.
In another five chimes, he removed the smoked possum pelt from the spit and laid them to dry out in the sun on one of the slum's many busted brick walls.
His final act before leaving camp was to water his horse and spend some time talking to her. It was odd how he seemed to get along more with his horse then he did with other people. He spoke to her softly for a few moments before he saddled her up for the ride to the brothers Shop. He patted her on a neck a final time before putting on her saddle, the horse blanket first and then cinching the leather straps closed, lightly swatting her in the side to have her breath out. His horse was a trickster like that, one who liked to breathe in so as not to be so discomforted by the saddle.
She scratched the ground with one of her front hooves in a mix of boredom and irritation before she let him have his way. He mounted up into the saddle and turned for the road that lead out to the Sunberth woods. After all, there was a long day of work ahead and the fruits of hunting alone wouldn’t be enough to butter his bread.