Hero Grown

by Andy Livingstone

  Cannick grunted and spat into the fire. ‘Always a mistake. When you walk with your hounds, you talk to them and they keep to your heels; trust them to control themselves and they will run and chase and play and fight, and you have a task near impossible restoring order. So it is with empires.’

  Grakk stared into the night. ‘Indeed. When Kalos was crowned, it was widely said that Alam had stepped aside because his mind had wandered, and that was certainly the public image we saw at the court. If, as it now seems, that is not so, then not only was he was forced aside, but he has the capacity to plot his revenge.’

  Gerens spoke. ‘And a man such as that will achieve it.’

  ‘And he continues to plot, from the look of the message young Marlo delivered,’ Grakk said. ‘Blue wax is used by royalty alone.’

  ‘But do you not think,’ Marlo’s smile had returned, ‘it is good that a man such as he is helping us? That is a kindness, no?’

  Brann, however, was starting to feel uneasy about such help. ‘A man such as he does not help from kindness. He has a use for us, there is nothing more certain. And his plan, whatever it may be, is more important to him than we are.’

  Grakk shook his head. ‘If you think how he has helped us, what he has done, it is not us he has a use for, young Brann.’ His gaze locked on the boy’s eyes. ‘It is you.’

  Brann’s unease redoubled. He did not sleep that night.

  Brann took the final watch and let Mongoose return early to sleep. If he could not sleep, someone else may as well do so.

  The whirling thoughts that had kept him from slumber refused to leave him. Savage images from the pits swirled into the pain of Myrana’s betrayal; rage at Loku’s ability to scheme freely and smugly swam into fear for Einarr and Konall; pictures of mysterious riders and reported atrocities from his homeland drifted into fear for his village; the memory of his brother’s dead weight in his arms became the sight of his father casting him out.

  As the first ray of dawn slipped over the lip of the gulley and touched the tears on his face, he saw the door of the house open and the smith stride towards them.

  There was no preamble. ‘I need my helpers. Now.’

  And so each day began. No other was permitted into the forge, and Hakon and Breta would only return with hunger, fatigue and mumblings of bellows and hammering and shovelling charcoal and fetching water and endless endless trials with small sample blocks of the metal from fragments that the smith had been able to prise from one side of it.

  A week passed before Tarkanan even spoke to anyone other than the pair who helped him, and that was to drop a small purse of coins among them and instruct that they hitch their mule to a cart he had in a nearby sloping gulley and fetch from the nearest village more charcoal and enough stone to double the size of his fire oven. The cart proved to be a hand cart, but they were able to devise straps to affix the mule and all but Brann and Grakk walked with it. Brann had asked the tribesman to help him practise his swordwork; it had been too long since he had swung a blade, but first he set off on the run he forced his legs to complete every morning. The day did not feel begun without it. Grakk accompanied him, at an easy lope that it seemed he could maintain indefinitely.

  They were permitted into the forge to help rebuild the fire oven to take more charcoal and become a dome, with thick walls and a small opening to insert the objects being worked, a chimney and the forge’s two great bellows fixed in place to either side. A larger opening sealed by a removable stone allowed access at the back to more easily insert charcoal at the start of the process, although any additional fuel that was required during the process would have to be added through the small aperture at the front. The heat that was generated through the design and the effort of Hakon and Breta at the bellows was somehow funnelled back into the oven’s core to redouble the burning and was greater than Brann could imagine possible, as if the sun itself had been hauled to earth and imprisoned within the structure; how the smith could endure working in the path of its blast was beyond belief.

  It was on the second day after the great oven had been completed that the howl of joy was heard. The idle group were on their feet within a heartbeat and were greeted with the sight of the smith capering in glee, while the pair at the bellows stood with their hands on their knees, their faces scarlet and their breathing ragged.

  Tarkanan pointed to the anvil. Lying between a pair of tongs and a heavy hammer was a black disc, the size of a large coin.

  ‘Is that it?’ Marlo felt compelled to ask. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I was expecting something a bit more impressive for Brann to take to a former Emperor.’

  The smith’s expression was withering. ‘Stupid boy. That is not the creation. That is the creation made possible.’

  ‘You will not believe,’ Hakon panted, ‘how many different ways and combinations of ways he has tried. This is the first time it has worked. He has broken two hammers and nearly killed Breta with a rebounding blow, without changing the shape of any small block even the slightest.’

  Breta nodded. ‘It is true,’ was all she managed to say.

  Tarkanan grinned. ‘It only needs to work once. So the method is known.’ He pulled forth parchments. ‘A little bit of this process, a little bit of that.’ He swept his hand across the front of a shelf of jars of liquids and powders. ‘A little of this, a little of that, but nothing of that. And definitely not that. And heat. Much heat. And water. In this order, then that order, and now we have the little of this and that and the order in our heads, no?’ Breta and Hakon looked at him blankly. ‘No? Well, probably not. But that is for the best. In mine, there it is, and from there we will work it.’ He waved his arms as if driving hens. ‘Now, out, all of you.’ He turned to the large pair. ‘Not my helpers,’ bringing a groan from them. He pointed at Brann. ‘And not you.’

  Puzzled, Brann waited and was pulled over to a workbench strewn with tools and receptacles, and among them he saw the message Marlo had brought lying open. Following his eyes, Tarkanan grabbed it and tossed it among the hot coals, where it vanished in a bright flame. ‘Always good to tidy up,’ the smith said brightly, ignoring Brann’s pointed look at the general clutter of the place.

  The wiry man held out a hand. ‘I believe you bear an example of the metal worked?’ When Brann hesitated, he flicked his fingers impatiently. ‘Come on, come on. The message mentioned it. I must follow the style as I work. You need not fear, I shall return it when my work is finished, as must you.’

  Brann drew the dagger with his left hand to offer it hilt first. As Tarkanan grasped it, though, he twisted his wrist and an edge ran across the flesh at the base of the boy’s thumb, parting the skin as if it were a razor across taut silk.

  Brann gasped and withdrew his hand with a jerk.

  ‘Oh my, what have I done?’ The smith grabbed his arm and pulled him to the bench. ‘You cannot bleed on my floor. Here.’ He pulled across a wooden bowl and held Brann’s hand over it. ‘That’s better. You will be fine. I will attend to this for you.’ He gave the hand a reassuring squeeze, which only increased the rate the blood dripped into the bowl, tutted and fetched an almost clean rag, which he tied around the hand. At least the application of the makeshift bandage was well done: it was sufficiently tight and well-enough applied that the shallow cut was closed and the bleeding slowed.

  The man looked pleased with his work, despite the fact that he had caused the problem, and gave the hand a pat of satisfaction. ‘Good, good. Now, you strike with your right, yes?’

  Brann shrugged, his mood soured. ‘I can fight fairly equally with either, or at least normally I can when I am not carrying a wound. But, yes, my right is naturally stronger.’

  The smith beamed. ‘Splendid.’ He handed Brann a small hammer that proved heavier than it looked. ‘Come, observe.’ He stopped to look at Hakon and Breta. ‘Helpers, the bellows, if you please.’ They set to work with long-suffering expressions, sweat soon glistening in the light, but Tarkanan flew into a rage. ‘Like
before, like before,’ he screeched. ‘You know what is needed. Do not destroy the process.’ Hakon’s back was to Brann but he guessed he bore the same murderous look as Breta did. Still, the pair redoubled their efforts, shoulders heaving and grunts growing. The small man turned to Brann, a beatific smile on his face and his voice as soft as the occasional breeze that drifted through the forge. ‘We need the heat, you see, we need the heat.’

  He picked up the small black disc he had shown to the group, and tossed it to Brann. He almost dropped it but managed to grasp it at the third attempt. It was as light as paper and around twice as thick as an average coin. None of this was a surprise and when the smith held out his hand, Brann tossed the disc back. The man caught it deftly and, in the same movement, inserted it into the grip of a long set of narrow-ended tongs. He turned it on its edge and placed it on the anvil, a heavy block with a hexagonal top. ‘Now hit it.’ He nodded at the disc. ‘With your hammer,’ he added helpfully.

  Before Brann could do so, however, he held up a hand to stop him and moved to examine the oven. Satisfied, he lifted a chunk of the black metal, this one half the size of a fist, and took it to two bowls of paste standing alone on a table, one of the concoctions yellow and thick, the other off-white, almost grey, and closer to a liquid. He hung the grey over a small brazier where it soon began to bubble and, humming happily to himself, used a small flat piece of wood to smear the yellow gloop over the metal lump.

  ‘Believe it or not,’ Hakon grunted, each word coming with a single heave of the bellows, ‘one of the ingredients was his piss, though surprisingly not in the yellow one.’

  ‘It does have most remarkable properties.’ Tarkanan’s voice was almost sing-song in his rapture at this work. ‘But you should devote your energy to your effort, hairy boy.’

  The hairy boy found the strength for two more words, neither of them complimentary.

  The smith stood to one side of the oven and used a hook on the end of a wooden handle to swing open a hinged stone that served as a door over the front opening, the blast causing a wave of heat to wash over Brann even though he stood at an acute angle from the source. A heavy outsized mitt on his hand, Tarkanan used a heavy-duty pair of tongs to place the smeared metal inside the oven, then flicked the door shut.

  He retrieved his slim tongs and held the disc in place, edge up, and gave Brann a nod.

  The boy struck and the disc was knocked flat, the tongs twisting from Tarkanan’s hand. Without a word, the smith picked them up and reset the disc, which was undented and with not even the hint of a bend. Brann frowned. He would have to concentrate better to achieve a straighter hit if he were to make any sort of impression.

  He swung directly down and caught the disc perfectly on its top edge. The hammer rebounded violently and his wrist was jarred, but the disc remained as it was. He had the technique now, and increased the power, two, three, four times. He stopped, not as a result of success but because of the stinging sweat seeping into his eyes.

  ‘May I?’ Tarkanan asked. He produced a small square of soft cotton, ironically cleaner than the fabric he had used to bind the wound, and wiped Brann’s brow free of sweat. He wrung out the cloth over the bowl that already held the boy’s blood, and dropped the cloth on the bench. His head tilted to one side, he counted with deliberate slowness on his fingers. When he reached six, he wheeled around.

  ‘You may stop now,’ he said brightly to the pair at the bellows, who slumped to their backs, their chests heaving. Seemingly oblivious to the heat, he reached in with the heavy tongs and transferred the lump to the anvil. It had turned a slightly lighter hue, a dark grey, but that was the only discernible difference other than the power of the heat that emanated from it. Tarkanan used a set of tongs, petite compared with even the smaller ones he had already used but not in any way delicate, to dip the metal into the bowl of grey paste, producing a sudden small cloud of steam, and returned to the anvil.

  ‘Now you hit it again.’

  Brann did so, and was astounded to find there was give in the block. He hit again, and again, squashing it slightly. He looked at the smith in surprise. He had known there must be a difference produced by the process – the flattened disc he had been shown was proof of that – but the marked nature of the difference from unyielding to malleable was astonishing.

  ‘Here, here.’ The small man was impatiently holding out a hand. Brann gave him the hammer and his hand moved automatically to spin it in a whirl as his arm swung to start working at the metal. His arms were less than half the thickness of Brann’s, but the metal moved and shaped quickly, far faster than the boy would have believed possible from his own efforts. Like swordwork, he supposed, technique was the key. Like everything, really.

  ‘You see?’ The pride and delight were in equal measure in the smith’s tone. ‘We can do this.’ The tongs twisted and swivelled beneath the hammer blows, and the block was flattened and shaped long and broad. ‘And this.’ He turned and folded it and hammered it once more into a single piece, metal melding as one as if he were a baker working dough. The metal absorbed the paste with each folding until there was no more sign of it, but still the smith worked. ‘And over and over we do it, then heat again and again and make double then a single piece over and over each time.’ He smiled. ‘And that way, we have a sword.’ He glanced at Brann and the boy’s astonishment must have been plain. ‘You are surprised at the work in a sword?’

  ‘I am astounded at the skill you are showing right now.’

  The man snorted. ‘This? This is the work of an apprentice. My genius will come later.’ He walked to where the stream ran through the forge and dipped the metal block into it. Once the steam had stopped rising, he returned to the anvil. Not one of his hammer blows made even the slightest impression. He grinned at Brann.

  He turned to Breta and Hakon. ‘You, my helpers, may go and rest now. We work the large block tomorrow, and I must prepare sufficient of the unguents for that.’

  Brann was unsure whether to follow them. ‘Tarkanan? Should I…?’

  The smith was already selecting powders and potions from the shelf. He placed them on the table and lifted the bowl of grey paste. He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Yes, yes, you go too. I will see you again once the work is done. Oh, wait.’

  He walked over, the bowl still in his hand. ‘You know the strangest thing? There is no odour once this has been absorbed by the metal but, by contrast, smell this now.’

  He thrust the bowl under Brann’s nose, the fumes burning his nostrils and catching at this throat. His eyes streamed and Tarkanan used another small cotton cloth to wipe the boy’s eyes.

  ‘My apologies, but this is most fortunate,’ he said brightly, moving to the workbench at the back of the forge and carefully squeezing the moisture from the cloth into the same bowl as he had used before. He held the bowl aloft. ‘Behold! Blood, sweat and tears, the final essential in the forging of a magnificent weapon.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s quite what is meant by that phrase.’

  The smith stirred the mixture in his bowl and sat it beside the two lotions. ‘It is precisely what I mean by it.’

  It took almost a month before they saw Tarkanan again. Sheets had been hung around the forge to mask the interior, and only Breta and Hakon would emerge before dark, leaner every day despite the feeding of a hunger that necessitated several extra trips to the village for additional food. There would always be a task that would keep the smith at work beyond the hours of his helpers. When pressed for news, all that either of them could offer was ‘We worked the bellows, we hammered the large hammer, we held the tongs, we fuelled the oven.’ Then they would wash off the grime, eat and sleep.

  On the twenty-eighth day, the covers came down. There was no shout of joy from within, no congratulation of each other by the three inside, no triumphant laughter. Just the lowering of the covers.

  The group by the pool looked at each other, unaccustomed to the absence of activity’s clamour. They rose and, hes
itantly lest they should not be doing so, edged towards the forge. But no rebuke came their way, no order to step back.

  Hakon and Breta sat back-to-back on the floor beside the anvil, with identical expressions as they stared blankly. Tarkanan stood before the long worktable, his back to them. The table appeared to have been cleared, but as he heard their approach he stepped to one side, still staring at the table.

  The long black knife, what Brann thought of as ‘his’ knife, lay in the centre, its point towards them. Crossed over and with the dagger on top, were a sword and axe, the blade of each slightly broader and thicker than normal and of the same black metal and the same long elegant simplicity of design as the knife. Even the hilt of the sword and the handle of the axe had been bound in identical fashion to that of the dagger.

  All were mesmerised, but Brann was utterly transfixed. He had to force his feet forward, unable to take his eyes from them. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you for letting us witness such as this.’

  ‘Thank you,’ the smith said, ‘for giving me the opportunity to do so.’ He looked at Brann. ‘You may see how they feel, should you wish.’

  Brann lifted the knife and placed it back in the sheath where his fingers had felt at the emptiness night after night. Slowly wrapping his fingers around the haft of the axe, he lifted it and weighed it in his hand, trying it in his right, then his left. It felt equally good in either, the balance and movement completely natural. He lifted the sword in his right hand and the two felt perfect as a pair. He placed the axe on the table and the sword felt just as good on its own. If anything, it felt better, but then a sword always was his weapon of choice, should the choice be possible.