by Anthony Ryan
And so they worked and sweated in the forge, seven long days of heaving bellows, grinding edges and working polish into the blades so that the soot disappeared and they gleamed like silver. None of them escaped unscathed, Vaelin bore a livid scar on the back of his hand where a speck of molten metal landed, the pain and the smell of his own skin burning was uniquely sickening. The others suffered similar injury, Dentos coming off worse with a scattering of sparks into his eyes during a careless moment on the grinder. The sparks left a cluster of blackened scars around his left eye but luckily there was no damage to his vision.
Despite the exhaustion, the risk of disfiguring injury and the tedium of the work Vaelin couldn’t resist a certain fascination with the process. There was a beauty to it; the gradual birth of the blades under Master Jestin’s hammer, the feel of the edge against the grindstone, the pattern that emerged in the blade as he polished it, dark swirls in the blue-grey of the steel, as if the flames of the forge had been frozen in the metal somehow.
“It comes from the merging of the rods,” Barkus explained. “Different kinds of metal coming together leaves a mark. I guess the star silver makes it more noticeable in Order blades.”
“I like it,” Vaelin said, lifting the half polished blade up to the light. “It’s… interesting.”
“It’s just metal,” Barkus sighed, turning back to the stone where he was putting an edge on his own sword. “Heat it, beat it, shape it. There’s no mystery there.”
Vaelin watched his friend work at the wheel, the way his hands moved expertly, honing the edge with perfect precision. When Barkus’s turn came Master Jestin hadn’t even bothered to show him, just handed him the blade and walked away. Somehow Barkus’s skill was obvious to the smith, they said little, barely exchanging more than a few grunts or mumbled agreements, as if they had been working together for many years. But Barkus showed no joy in his work, no satisfaction. He stuck to it readily enough, the skills he displayed putting them all to shame, but his face was an uncharacteristic mask of grim endurance whenever they were in the smithy, only brightening when they escaped to the practice field or dining hall.
The next day saw the fitting of the hilts. These were ready made, almost identical, Master Jestin fitting them to the blades and securing them with three iron nails hammered through the tang that extended into the hilt. They were then set to work filing down the nail heads so they were flush with the oak handles.
“You are done here,” Jestin told them at the end of the day. “The swords are yours. Use them well.” It was the closest he had come to sounding like the other masters. He turned back to the forge without another word. They stood around uncertainly, holding their swords and wondering if they were supposed to say anything in return.
“Erm,” Caenis said. “Thank you for your wisdom, master.”
Jestin lifted an unfinished spear-head onto his anvil and began to work the bellows.
“Our time here was very…” Caenis began but Vaelin nudged him and gestured at the door.
As they were leaving Jestin spoke again, “Barkus Jeshua.”
They stopped, Barkus turning, his expression guarded. “Master.”
“There door’s always open to you,” Jestin said without turning. “I could use the help.”
“I’m sorry master,” Barkus said tonelessly. “I’m afraid my training leaves me little time as it is.”
Jestin released the bellows and lifted the spear-head into the forge. “I’ll be here, so will the forge, when you get tired of the blood and the shit. We’ll be here.”
Barkus missed the evening meal, something none of them could remember happening before. Vaelin found him on the wall after paying his nightly visit to Scratch’s kennel. “Brought you some leftovers,” Vaelin handed him a sack containing a pie and a few apples.
Barkus nodded his thanks, his attention fixed on the river where a barge was making its way upstream to Varinshold.
“You want to know,” he said after a while. His voice held none of his usual humour or irony but Vaelin was chilled to detect a faint trace of fear.
“If you want to tell me,” he said. “We all have our secrets, brother.”
“Like why you keep that scarf.” He gestured at Sella’s scarf around Vaelin’s neck. Vaelin tucked it out of sight and patted him on the shoulder before turning to go.
“It first happened when I was ten,” Barkus said.
Vaelin paused, waiting for him to continue. In his own way Barkus could be as closed as the rest of them, he would talk or he wouldn’t, prompting or persuasion would be useless.
“My father had me working in the smithy since I was little,” Barkus continued after a moment. “I loved it, loved watching him shape the metal, loved the way it glowed in the forge. Some say the ways of the smith are mysterious. For me it was all so obvious, so easy. I understood it all. My father hardly had to teach me anything, I just knew what to do. I could see the shape the metal would take before the hammer fell, could tell if a plough blade would cut through soil or get stuck or if a shoe would fall from a hoof after only a few days. My father was proud, I knew it. He wasn’t much for talk, not like me, I get that from my mother, but I knew he was proud. I wanted to make him even more proud. I had shapes in my head, shapes of knives, swords, axes, all waiting to be forged. I knew exactly how to make them, exactly the right mix of metals to use. So I snuck into the smithy one night to make one. A hunting knife, a small thing, I thought. A Winterfall present for my father.”
He paused, staring out into the night as the barge moved further downstream, the shapes of the barge men on the deck vague and ghostlike in the dim light from the bow lantern.
“So you made the knife,” Vaelin prompted. “But your father was… angry?”
“Oh, he wasn’t angry.” Barkus sounded bitter. “He was scared. The blade folded over and over to strengthen it, the edge keen enough to cut silk or pierce armour, so polished you could use it as a mirror.” The small smile forming on his lips faded. “He threw it in the river and told me never to speak of it to anyone, ever.”
Vaelin was puzzled. “He should have been proud. A knife like that made by his son. Why would it scare him?”
“My father had seen a lot in his life. He’d travelled with the Lord’s host, served on a merchant ship in the eastern seas, but he’d never seen a knife forged in a smithy where the forge was cold.”
Vaelin’s puzzlement deepened. “Then how did you…?” Something in Barkus’s face made him stop.
“Nilsaelins are a great people in many ways,” Barkus went on. “Hardy, kind, hospitable. But they fear the Dark above all things. In my village there was once an old woman who could heal with a touch, or so they said. She was respected for the work she did but always feared. When the Red Hand came she could do nothing to stop it, dozens died, every family in the village lost someone, but she never caught it. They locked her in her house and set it on fire. The ruin’s still there, no one ever had the courage to build on it.”
“How did you make that knife, Barkus?”
“I’m still not sure. I remember shaping the metal at the anvil, the hammer in my hand. I remember fitting the handle, but for the life of me I can’t remember lighting the forge. It was as if when I started to work I lost myself, as if I was just a tool, like the hammer… like something was working through me.” He shook his head, clearly disturbed by the memory. “My father wouldn’t let me in the smithy after that. Took me to old man Kalus, the horse breeder, told him he’d tried his best to teach me but I just wasn’t going to make a smith. Paid him a five coppers a month to teach me the horse trade.”
“He was trying to protect you,” Vaelin said.
“I know. But that’s not how it felt to a boy. It felt like… like he was frightened by what I’d done, worried that I’d shame him somehow. I even thought he might be jealous. So I decided to show him, show him what I could really do. I waited until he was away hawking wares at the Summertide fair and went back to the smithy. The
re wasn’t much to work with, some old horse shoes and nails. He’d taken most of his stock to sell at the fair. But I took what he’d left and I made something… something special.”
“What was it?” Vaelin asked, envisioning mighty swords and gleaming axes.
“A sun vane.”
Vaelin frowned. “A what?”
“Like a wind vane except instead of pointing at the direction of the wind it pointed at the sun. Wherever it was in the sky you always knew what time of day it was, even when the sky was clouded over. When the sun went down it’d point at the ground and track it through the earth. I made it pretty too, had flames coming out of the shaft and everything.”
Vaelin could only guess at the value of such an item, and the stir it would cause in a village terrified of the Dark. “What happened to it?”
“I don’t know. I suppose my father melted it down. When he came back from the fair I was standing there, showing him what I’d made, I felt very smug. He told me to pack. My mother was away at my aunt’s so he didn’t have to explain it to her. Faith knows what he told her when she came back and found me gone. We spent three days on the road then took ship to Varinshold then came here. He spoke to the Aspect for a while then left me at the gate. Said if I ever told anyone what I could do they would certainly kill me. Said I’d be safe here.” He laughed shortly. “Hard to believe he thought he was doing me a favour. Sometimes I think he got lost on the way to the House of the Fifth Order.”
Vaelin shook away the memory of hoof beats and, remembering Sella’s tale, said, “He was right, Barkus. You shouldn’t tell anyone. You probably shouldn’t have told me.”
“Why, going to kill me are you?”
Vaelin smiled grimly. “Well, not today.”
They stood at the wall in companionable silence, watching the barge until it turned the bend in the river and disappeared.
“I think he knew, y’know,” Barkus said. “Master Jestin. I think he could sense it, what I can do.”
“How could he know such a thing?”
“Because I could sense the same thing in him.”
Chapter 6
The next day saw the first practice with their new swords. It seemed to Vaelin that half the lesson was taken up with the correct method of strapping it across the back so it could be drawn by reaching over the shoulder.
“Tighter, Nysa.” Sollis tugged hard at Caenis’s belt strap, drawing a pained grunt. “This thing gets loose in a battle you’ll know about it soon enough. Can’t kill an enemy if you’re tripping over your own sword belt.”
They then spent over an hour learning the correct method of drawing the sword in a smooth, swift motion. It was harder than Master Sollis made it look. The leather strap holding the sword firmly in the scabbard had to be thumbed aside and the blade pulled clear without snagging or cutting its owner. Their first attempts were so clumsy Sollis ran them twice around the field at full speed, the unfamiliar weight of the swords making them sluggish.
“Faster Sorna!” Sollis lashed at him as he stumbled. “You too Sendahl, pick your feet up.”
He ordered them to try again. “Do it right. The faster you can get your sword in your hand and ready to use the less likely some bastard is going to spill your guts out in front of you.”
There were more runs and several canings before he was satisfied they were making progress. For some reason Vaelin and Nortah were attracting most of his ire today, the cane falling on them more than the others. Vaelin surmised it was punishment for some forgotten infraction. Sollis was like that sometimes, often remembering past misdemeanours after an interval of weeks or months.
As the lesson ended he lined them up to make an announcement. “Tomorrow you little buggers are to be let loose on the Summertide Fair. Some boys from the city may try to fight you to prove themselves. Try not to kill any. Some of the local girls may also see you as a different kind of challenge. Avoid them. Sendahl, Sorna, you’re staying here. I’ll teach you to slack off.”
Vaelin, crushed by disappointment and injustice, could only gape in shock. Nortah, however, was fully capable of voicing his feelings.
“You must be bloody joking!” he shouted. “The others were just as bad as us. How come we have to stay?”
Later, as he sat on his bed nursing a bruised and aching jaw, his anger was no less fierce. “That bastard’s always hated me more than the rest of you.”
“He hates everyone,” Barkus said. “You and Vaelin were just unlucky today.”
“No, it’s because my father’s the King’s First Minister. I’m sure of it.”
“If your old man’s such a biggy big, how come he can’t get you out of the Order?” Dentos asked. “I mean you hate being here.”
“How should I know?” Nortah exploded. “I didn’t ask him to send me to this pit. I didn’t ask to be frozen, nearly killed ten times over, beaten every day, live in this hovel with peasants…” He trailed off miserably, huddling on to his bunk, head buried in his pillow. “I thought they would let me leave at the Test of Knowledge,” he said, more to himself than them, his voice muffled. “When they saw my heart. But that dammed woman said I was where the Faith needed me to be. I even started lying about everything but they wouldn’t let me go. That pig Hendril said the Sixth Order would benefit from having one of my breeding in its ranks.”
He fell silent, still hiding his face. Barkus moved to pat him on the shoulder but Vaelin stopped him with a shake of the head. He pulled the small oak chest from under his bed, his most valued possession next to Sella’s scarf, stolen from the back of a merchant’s cart carelessly left near the front gate. He unlocked it and retrieved a leather pouch containing all the coins he had found, won or stolen over the years. He tossed it to Caenis. “Bring me back some candies. And a new pair of soft leather boots if you find any that’ll fit me.”
The morning dawned thick with mist, a heavy, soft blue haze hanging over the surrounding fields, waiting for the summer sun to burn it away. Vaelin and Nortah sat in miserable silence through the morning meal as the others tried not to appear too eager to leave for the fair.
“Think they’ll be any bears?” Dentos asked casually.
“I suppose,” Caenis said. “Always bears at the Summertide Fair. Drunkards wrestle them for money. Plenty of other things too. When I went there was a magician from the Alpiran Empire who could play a flute and make a snake dance.”
Vaelin had been taken to the fair every year before his father gave him to the Order and retained vivid memories of dancers, jugglers, hawkers, acrobats and a thousand other marvels amidst the mass of sound and smell. He hadn’t realised before just how badly he had wanted to see it again, to touch something from his childhood and see if it matched the whirlwind of colour and joy he remembered.
“The King will be there,” he said to Caenis, recalling a distant view of the Royal pavilion where Janus and his family looked down on the many contests played out on the tourney field. There were horse races, wrestling, fist fights, archery, the victors receiving a red ribbon from the hand of the King. It had seemed a poor reward for so much effort but the winners all seemed happy enough.
“Maybe you’ll get close enough to let him use you as a foot scraper,” Nortah said. “You’d like that wouldn’t you?”
Caenis seemed unperturbed. “It’s not my fault you’re not allowed to go, brother,” he responded mildly.
Nortah looked as if he was about to voice another insult but instead just pushed his plate away and got up from the table, stalking from the hall, his face set in a mask of anger.
“He’s really not taking this well,” Barkus observed.
After the meal Vaelin bade them farewell in the courtyard, gratified by the effort they put in to their façade of reluctance.
“I’ll...” Caenis began with an effort, “stay if you want me to.”
Vaelin was touched by the offer, he knew how badly Caenis wanted to see the King. “If you don’t go how am I going to get my boots?” He clasped hand
s with each of them and waved as they walked to the main gate.
He went to see Scratch and found to his surprise the slave dog had made a new friend, an Asraelin wolf-hound bitch almost as tall at the shoulder as he was, although nowhere near as muscular.
“She got into his pen a few nights ago,” Master Jeklin told him “Faith knows how. Surprised he didn’t kill her outright. Think he wanted the company. Reckon I’ll leave ‘em be, maybe have us a litter in a few months.”
Scratch was his usual happy, bouncing self at seeing Vaelin, the bitch cautious but reassured by Scratch’s welcome. Vaelin tossed scraps to them, noting how the bitch wouldn’t eat until Scratch had.
“She’s afraid of him,” he commented.
“With good reason,” Master Jeklin said cheerfully. “Can’t keep away though. Bitches are like that sometimes, choose a mate and won’t let go whatever he does. Typical women eh?” He laughed. Vaelin, having no idea what he meant, laughed along politely.
“Not at the Fair then?” Jeklin continued, moving away to toss some food to the three Nilsaelin terriers he kept at the far end of the kennels. They were deceptively pretty animals with short pointed snouts and big brown eyes, but would nip viciously at any hand that came too close. Master Jeklin kept them for hunting hares and rabbits, an activity at which they excelled.
“Master Sollis felt I was slacking at sword practice,” Vaelin explained.
Jeklin tutted in disapproval. “Never make a brother if you don’t try hard. ‘Course in my day they’d flog you with a horse whip for slacking off. Ten strokes for a first offence, ten more for each offence after that. Used to lose ten or twelve brothers a year through flogging.” His sigh was heavy with nostalgia. “Pity you’ll miss the Fair though. They have some fine dogs for sale there. Be off myself when I’ve finished up here. It’ll be terrible crowded though, what with the execution and all. Here you go, you little monsters.” He threw some meat into the terriers’ cage, provoking an explosion of yelps and growls as they fought each other for the food. Master Jeklin chuckled at the sight.