by Sword Stone Table- Old Legends, New Voices (retail) (epub)
Like all tales told by terrified boys and drunken men, however, it was more myth than fact, just as she was.
But myths made for boasting, and boasting made for danger—especially to their subjects—and she learned young that when a woman was a myth, her danger was magnified. Because myths bestow power as well as fear.
And men do not like women with power.
Worse, still, those who wield it.
She spent her days alone in the forge, her only companion the wolf who shadowed her on weekly trips into town, when the whole village took inside to watch warily through the corners of their distorted glass windows. The baker, the grocer, and the butcher were the only ones brave enough to come close, and even then, they charged her triple the cost: a risk tax. A curse tax.
She paid it without complaint.
It was not the first tax she had paid for this village that feared her, nor was it the most devastating.
In her solitude, she wielded hammer and flame and forged the most glorious steels the world had ever seen. And the men who heard her story came from the far reaches of the land, each promising to conquer the Bladesmith Witch in his way. Each vowing to leave with the greatest of her swords.
A sword that could cheat death.
A sword that could make them kings.
When they came, she sold them blades. And some she charged exorbitant sums. A curse tax. Most paid without complaint, and it was proof enough that it was deserved.
Until him.
II
She went days without speaking, the only sound in the cottage the roar of the fire and the heavy clang of the hammer and the hiss of the honing wheel and the smooth slide of her leather apron, all punctuated by the wolf’s snores.
That day, however, the wolf did not sleep, instead standing sentry by the door to the forge, the morning hours slipping by into the long afternoon, the animal unmoving.
Waiting.
When a low growl sounded deep in the beast’s chest, the bladesmith turned from her work. That morning, she’d woken restless to bright sun and cool air, the autumn teasing at late summer—a day that should have brought a deep breath of relief but instead made her uneasy.
She went to the forge earlier than usual—unable to think of anything but a new blade, long and sharp, with a honed edge that would slice through bone. It was not the first time she made for her hammer with nerves roiling. There had been another, followed by days of work, resulting in blades like nothing she’d made before.
Blades stamped not with the thistle that marked so many of her steels, but with the thorny leaf.
Sharp, gleaming weapons for men without mercy, and who deserved none.
When she went to the fire that morning, she feared she was to make another. And when the wolf growled, she knew there would not be time.
She stood at the door, sure fingers tangling in the animal’s thick white fur, her gaze on the horizon as dust rose behind the rider in the distance. She watched with the wolf as the warrior neared, all in black atop a stunning mount—an enormous dark chestnut that might have been black if not for the gleam of the setting sun belying its rich color.
She did not move as she cataloged the rider’s features: leather straps mapmaking across his broad chest; a short sword; a broad one; an ax with double blades, the kind that was for work and not show; five knives, one at each boot, two sheathed beneath his arms, and the last strapped with thick black leather over his heart, like a vow.
Arms like steel, themselves.
Fists like stone.
He was power.
Another low growl from the wolf as the rider dismounted, collecting a long parcel from his saddlebags and crossing the property through the dried summer grass. It was only then, as he approached, that she thought to consider the rest of his features.
Square jaw. Dark hair. Broken nose. The grime of an endless ride settled on him and somehow not off-putting. At least, no more off-putting than a man of his size was on approach.
Eyes like the forest to the north. Not quite brown, not quite black, not quite green.
Not quite safe.
The leather scabbard at her own thigh was tight comfort as he stilled mere feet from her. She thought of the metal she’d thrust into the fire that morning.
Not safe at all.
She lifted her chin.
He watched her for a long moment and said, “Does he bite?”
“She does,” she replied, stroking the wolf’s head.
One black brow rose. “I seek the Bladesmith.”
“You’ve plenty of blades.”
The second brow joined the first. “Do you not think that I should be the judge of that?”
“You came to me because I am the expert, did you not, traveler?”
Something shifted in his gaze. She didn’t care for it.
“You came to me first.” He spoke in riddles; she’d never left this town. When she remained quiet, he added. “I am here to discuss a blade.”
She already knew that. She could feel the heat of the weapon he’d come for at her back.
“You cannot afford me,” she said, leaving him, the wolf at her side as she checked the steel.
He followed, filling the room with his broad brow and his wide shoulders and his chest that seemed to have acreage. His silence was maddening—the others always ran their mouths. But this one, he was big and quiet. She refused to look at him, knowing it was a game. Knowing that if she did, he would score a point. Instead, she watched her forge, the steel inside now gleaming, hot and malleable.
Behind her, he shifted, barely a movement. Just enough to take in the space.
She imagined him cataloging her as she had done him. Instead of a horse, a wolf. Instead of a sleeping roll, a pallet in the corner. Instead of a saddle, a wooden chair.
Instead of a broadsword, a dozen of them.
Weapons everywhere, on the walls and nearly every surface. Double-headed axes and longswords, fine knives with smooth stone hilts, carved by her father’s father to fit the hills and valleys of a warrior’s grip. And in a place of honor above the hearth, two gleaming steel blades that had waited generations for their owners.
But those weapons did not matter that day. The ones that mattered were the half dozen within arm’s length, each more deadly than the last.
If she turned, would there be fear on the warrior’s face?
Their fear was her only defense.
“They say you are a witch.”
“In my experience, that descriptor is not complimentary on the tongues of men.”
“They say your blades cannot be beaten.”
They lie. “They say many things.”
He kept his distance, remaining just inside the door, and still the entire space had gone heavy with the strange weight of his presence. She considered it, unsettling, and somehow, without fear.
No. Not without fear. Without the kind of fear that threatened. Full, instead, of the kind of fear that tempted. Like the line of his jaw. The cord of his neck. The ridge of his torso, bound with leather and steel.
“They say you forge them with magic.”
She did turn back at that, to find him staring at her. “And do you believe them?”
He waited a beat, the silence flooding the space between them, his eyes gleaming like agate in full sun. Her pulse raced as she waited for his reply. “I have not yet decided.”
“And if it is true? Why would I waste that magic on you?”
“Because you have wasted it on the others.”
He was wrong; if it existed, it had never been wasted. “And are you like the others?”
“I am nothing like them.”
Her breath stuttered at the truth. “I am to believe that?”
“You are to kno
w it.”
She shook her head. “How?”
A beat. “I can afford you.”
Her work. The blade. “Are you very rich?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation, “but I do not intend to pay with coin.”
On another man’s tongue it would have been a threat. Would have straightened her spine. On another man’s tongue, the words would have conjured an image of the burn she would put on his handsome face if he came closer.
But there was no threat in the words. Only promise.
“You think highly of yourself.”
A slight curve of his lips sent a lick of pleasure up her spine, shocking her. How long had it been since she’d felt such a thing? Had she ever felt such a thing?
He moved before the answer could come, away from her, around the edge of the small, warm room, made warmer by the lingering summer and his presence. He set the long package, wrapped in black cloth, on the scarred oak table at the far end of the space and stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest, meeting her gaze through the dust dancing in the light between them. “Payment.”
She couldn’t help herself. She approached, drawing near enough for the heat of him to burn, and pulled back a corner of the cloth, revealing scant inches of the blade within before she caught her breath. She did not have to see the silver steel to know the mark it bore. She did not have to hold it to know who had carried it.
She recoiled, her gaze flying to his, finding him unsurprised.
He knew she’d made it.
“How did you get it?”
“I took it from its owner. After I took his head.”
For the first time in her life, the Bladesmith felt relief. But relief was not the emotion for the moment.
Not when he continued. “Do you know what horrors that blade wrought?”
Only her strength kept her from retreat. “I am a swordsmith. All my blades bring horror.”
His gaze narrowed. “Not when held by the just.”
“And you? Are you just?”
He seemed to grow in the wake of the words, filling the room with his broad chest and his strong arms, yes, but also with his breath and scent—leather and steel. And with the kind of certainty that ensured warriors victory. Might.
And still she did not fear him.
Not even when he looked down upon her—when was the last time she’d met someone who could look down upon her? Weed, her father had called her as she’d grown—she’d heard it more than she’d ever heard her name, because she’d kept growing, unable to be cut back.
Until, of course, she had been.
“That blade took good men in battle.” His gaze did not leave hers, and she found she could not look away, even as she wanted to. “It took people from homes.”
Even as she needed to.
“It took livelihoods.”
Even as tears welled in her own eyes, unbidden. Unwelcome as she finished the list for him. “Babes from mothers,” she whispered. “Fathers from daughters. Sisters from brothers.”
He was close enough to touch now. She would not have to reach for him. And perhaps it was proximity that made it easy to see the surprise in his eyes. Worse—the understanding. “You have seen what he was capable of.”
“I can still smell the sulfur in the air.” She could hear the cries. Feel the bile and the terror in her throat as she agreed to the offer that would save the village that loathed her. “He fought alone?”
She could not hide the tremor in the question.
He noticed. “You knew what he was.” It was not meant as an accusation, and still it felt like one.
“I see the truth of every man who enters this place. Every one who demands a blade. This one—he demanded a scourge.”
“Then you are a witch, as they say.”
“No.” The tears were salt now, tight on the earth of her cheeks. “I am a woman with a lifetime of knowledge. And a lifetime of shame for that sword.”
He watched her carefully for a long, unbearable moment. “Shame? Or regret?”
The question shocked her. To so many, they were the same. She raised her chin, the memory of what she’d done, of why, in her reply. “Never regret.”
“The pain of the just.”
She shook her head. “Do not pretend we are the same.”
“But we are,” he said, one side of his beautiful mouth curving in a barely there smile. “That is the truth I see. You, cursed with the past, and I, cursed with the future.”
Confusion flared, banished when he lifted a hand, bronzed with sun and the dust of the summer, slow and certain but without force. A request.
Granted.
His touch was hot as the forge, sending fire and something more dangerous shooting through her, making her want to lean into it. To lean into him.
“Do you see my curse, lady?” The words were low and dark, full of heat and pleasure, spiraling deep into her like a threat.
“No.”
His thumb pressed to the edge of her jaw, lifting her chin, revealing the long column of her neck, stroking the place where her pulse pounded in the same wild rhythm as his.
And that single caress drew a little sound from her, a sound of unmistakable want.
“I fear it is you.”
She shouldn’t like the words. Shouldn’t want them to be true.
He drew close enough for her to feel his breath on her lips. Close enough for her to want more than breath there.
Perhaps she was his curse.
She pulled back. “No.”
He did not advance. Did not kiss her, not even when she could not imagine wanting anything more than his kiss. His thumb moved again. “Here?”
Everywhere else. She nodded. “Yes.”
He set his lips to that place, claiming her skin and her heartbeat with a slow lick and a soft slide and a lingering suck that was nearly unbearable.
When he lifted his head, she was consumed with desire, foreign and familiar.
And impossible, threatening to destroy them both.
Panic replaced it. “I shall make you your sword.”
But he wasn’t there for a weapon. She knew that now. And she feared the truth of what he had come for. Those eyes like agate, seeing too much. Understanding even more.
That he might have come for her, instead.
“How many more?” he asked.
She did not misunderstand the question, her gaze flickering to the blade on the table. How many blades had been forged for men like the one he’d killed. How many enemies were to be vanquished.
Neither did she misunderstand the vow there, simmering in the question. That they would share vengeance. That he would find the men who held her blades. That he would end them.
And though she did not know the price of his might, she knew she would pay it. Knew, too, that she would want to.
She did not hesitate.
“Three.”
III
The first time he saw the woman with the white wolf, the warrior had been covered in the blood of his enemies, after fighting the worst of battles to protect people who were not his but who claimed him, nonetheless. The hero mercenary, whose sword was available for hire, for a singular price, but only if he believed in the killing.
His faith in the kill separated him from the rest of his kind, strong and swift and made for destruction, with muscles and sinew and strength that laid enemies low long before they felt it—before even the moment they discovered they should fear it.
He’d come for them one by one, one body barely in the earth before he faced the next. Around him groans and grunts, curses and fury, and the knowledge that the soldiers would keep coming until he dispatched their leader. And so he picked his way through the battle until he
faced a man with strength beyond reason and something in his eyes that would have terrified a warrior with a different destiny.
Infallibility.
The battle raged, the clang of steel cocooning them until the warrior could not see the rest of the fight, the rest of the soldiers, riled to madness by this, their mad commander, who fought like an animal. Who carried a blade like none the warrior had ever seen, even when it had fallen to the earth, stained with the blood of its owner.
Even in defeat, that blade, marked with the thorned leaf of the thistle, had called to him. He couldn’t have left it, even if he’d tried. But he did not try—it was too much.
When he’d touched it, vision had come like memory. The garden of a bladesmith’s cottage. Summer, giving way to autumn, the soil turned to dust. The door open, a forge within, out of sight, but there, nonetheless.
In the doorway, a woman, taller than any he’d ever seen, with a narrow gaze the color of the sky at midnight and full lips and brown skin and a wild mane of black curls tempting the wind. Her arms were bare, revealing her strength, and the rest of her was shielded by a long leather apron. By her side, a white wolf, big enough to reach her waist—still enough to pose a threat to any who neared.
In his vision, like memory, the warrior neared.
In his vision, like memory, the bladesmith smiled and came to him, and he swept her into his arms, lifting her high and pressing his nose to the place where her neck met her shoulder, breathing her in as her arms wrapped around his head and clasped him to her, as though she could draw him deep into herself.
As though they were two halves, pieced together at long last.
In his vision, like memory, he belonged to her.
He’d searched for her for months, sword in hand, haunted by that vision—the one that showed not discovery but return. And one night, in a dank tavern in a barely there village, a drunk had run his mouth and spoken her into being. The woman with the white wolf.
The Bladesmith Witch.
When the warrior had come over the rise and his vision had unraveled before him—it had taken all his strength not to urge his mount forward and race for her, like home.