The Heretic's Song (The Song's Of Aarda Book 1)

by K Schultz

  Aelfric walked on trying to exude confidence he did not feel. “Tell that fool on the roof to put up his weapon before I climb up and feed it to him,” he growled to his guide, hoping to defuse the situation. “I have no wish to begin a fracas but I swear it will end badly for you, if you force it upon me.”

  The guide looked back at him. Seeing the resolve in Aelfric’s eyes, he shouted to the bowman. “Put up yur weapon yuh ass, unless yuh’re trying to get the lot o’ us killed. If ‘e wanted tuh do us harm he would’a done it long a’fore now, an ‘e would’na come alone.”

  The archer hesitated, then lowered his crossbow. Aelfric bowed to the bowman with a flourish. The bowman nodded and descended the far side of the sloped roof. Once he disappeared below the peak, Aelfric breathed a sigh of relief. With that crisis averted, he focused his attention on the street ahead. This town was different from the village near his farm. The Abrhaani here made their houses and shops from squared blocks of stone, not timbers like the ones in New Hope and Dun Dale.

  Sod, not wooden shingles covered the sloping roofs. Each house had the usual Abrhaani garden planted with various herbs and vegetables. Aelfric saw a few small twisted trees nearby, but there were plenty of squarish broken stones along the shoreline. The materials at hand dictated the methods of construction.

  The Abrhaani guide turned onto a side street and walked a few paces, before he stopped in front of a small shop with a colorful painted sign. Aelfric could not read the characters on the sign, but the pictogram indicated that it was a trading house.

  “Duh Master’s in here,” his guide pointed to the door.

  “I suspect you had best go first and give me an introduction.”

  “I reckon yuh be right. He might think we bin invaded if yuh was tuh go first,” his guide smiled, and went through the dark doorway, into the shop.”

  Aelfric ducked through the doorway, built for Abrhaani bodies. The average Abrhaani stood chest height to Aelfric. Very few stood as tall as his wide shoulders.

  Shelves and crates lined the walls, organized in neat rows in the dim interior of the shop. Trade goods of all kinds lay displayed on the crates and boxes. In the far end of the shop, a curtain hung, separating it from the office. Voices came from the room behind it.

  “Duh Master be in duh back sir; I’ll fetch him fer yuh.”

  Aelfric stood among the crates near the entrance so he could see both doors and escape if negotiations went awry. The conversation in the back room subsided when his guide entered. When the curtains parted again, the large Abrhaani man emerged followed by his guide and another Abrhaani of similar build.

  The men approached through the semi gloom and stopped just outside arm’s length. The large man leading them looked at Aelfric and grinned.

  “It’s been a long spell since I laid eyes on yuh. Last time we met yuh offered me a King’s ransom tuh bring yuh tuh the south. I warn’t sure yuh survived the boat ride tuh the shore. Now yuh be standin in front o’ me again after — what — fifteen or so years? An’ where’s dat woman o’yours.

  “My compliments to you captain Harmish. Glad to see you again after sixteen years. I would have believed that you drowned long ago in that leaky tub you sailed,” Aelfric said, avoiding the question about Shelhera.

  “Well as it so happens, dat ship did sink some years back. But I warn’t on it at the time,” he laughed. Harmish’s rough voice sounded more like a seal barking. “I sold it tuh an unfortunate fella and bought me a fine new ship. With what yuh gave me as yer fare, and what I got fer d’other, as payment.” He smiled again and held out his arm in greeting.

  They clasped each other’s forearms in the common fashion.

  “I need your services again captain, to bear me in the opposite direction. I cannot pay you much for this crossing, only a small purse of gold and some fine silver.”

  “Should I ask why yuh be wantin tuh go back, or am I better not knowin?”

  “Let’s just say I want to pay my respects to my family.”

  “Nuff said. Yuh can keep yer gold but how much silver duh yuh have.”

  “I have a half hundred-weight in my pack.”

  “How far have yuh come?”

  “Three tendays ago I left my house with what you see on me.”

  “So yuh was on duh road thirty days luggin dat great heavy sword, a half a hundred-weight o’ silver, and provisions? I’m surprised yuh be still standin. Yuh set a good pace too — with dem long legs o’ yourn.”

  “I suppose I did well enough for and old man, but part of my journey was by boat.”

  “By boat! Who’d a brung yuh by boat?”

  “No one. I came alone.”

  “Well den, where’s dis boat o yourn?”

  “I lost it in a squall twenty days ago. It broke apart on the rocks, so I walked the rest of the way. My house was near the village called Dun Dale. It’s a three-day walk from the town of New Hope. Do you know of it?”

  “Gods man! Does I know of it? I trade for lumber from dere for our shipyard. It takes over a month tuh get dere! And yuh done it in twenty days loaded like a pack beast!”

  “You might say I took a shortcut, and it was nearer to thirty days.”

  “An I might not say shortcut either. Climbin over dem rocks and through dat gravel, dat’d not be a shortcut I’d be takin, either old or young. But enough o’ dis jawin, we got a bargain tuh strike fer a fare tuh Baradon.”

  “If possible, I wish to leave now, and the price is whatever you name.”

  “Well we be leavin with duh tide dis evening, and because of duh luck yuh brung me after duh last trip, yuh can keep yer silver too. I could’a bin on dat ol boat o’ mine had yuh not paid so ‘ansomly. I reckon I owes yuh dat much at least, fer causin duh gods tuh favor me summat.”

  “The gods have done me no favors,” Aelfric growled. “I’ll have no truck with the gods, if it please you Harmish,”

  “Well, be dat as it may, dey seems to have truck with yuh, whether yuh likes it or not. So get tuh the Sea Witch, and stow yer gear.”

  “Hermad here,” he pointed to the guide. “Will show yuh where. We leaves in three hours. Yuh might want tuh stop and get a good feed afore den — or mebbe not — as I recollects yuh warn’t able tuh keep it down last time. Maybe it’d just be a waste o’ good vittles.” Harmish grinned at Aelfric, amused that such a powerful man had succumbed so horribly to seasickness on his last trip.

  Aelfric nodded, acknowledging his stomach was not equal to the challenge of the pitching waves. He hoped he never repeated spewing until his insides threatened to abandon his body, while hanging over the ship’s rail. Aelfric preferred good solid ground beneath his feet. The constant rolling and heaving of the Syn Gersuul, wreaked havoc on him and Shelhera and their infirmity provided the sailors with hours of amusement. An empty stomach might be better.

  “Duh Witch has another passenger besides yerself. He be a fine gentleman from Narragansett, headed east, just like yer lordship.”

  “Oh, I tend to keep my own company.”

  “Kinda hard tuh do dat on shipboard. It’s close quarters my friend.”

  The prospect of sharing the voyage with a dandy from the big city displeased Aelfric, although he wondered what business an Abrhaani gentleman had in Baradon. He headed for the door, with Hermad in tow.

  “Take me to the ship Hermad, and show me where to bunk and stow my gear,” he ordered.

  Chapter 23

  Laakea and Rehaak rose early with the sound of birdsong in their ears, and gold in the eastern sky. Rehaak started a fire, and prepared breakfast. Rehaak told Laakea that the food he cooked was barely on the palatable side of the thin line, between edible and carrion. Blacksmith cooking, as Rehaak named it, far too often resembled the charcoal that fueled the forge.

  Whatever skills his parents imparted to their offspring, did not include the culinary arts. Perhaps they could not pass along something they never possessed. It was a challenge for Rehaak to cook in this kitchen, where fi
nding the ingredients even for breakfast was an adventure. Rehaak decided that he preferred that test to the trial of trying to choke Laakea’s cooking down, or the even greater ordeal of trying to digest it.

  Laakea went straight to the forge and lit the charcoal. He gathered the tools and implements he needed to reforge the blades they had taken from the dead assassins. He knew it would take days just to weld the blades together, let alone make serviceable swords from them.

  Although it was his first time making something so complex, Laakea decided to make two swords. If they were both serviceable weapons it would be wonderful, but Laakea only expected one to be any good. He remembered all his father’s lessons, but theory and reality were often very different things. Laakea expected that the first weapon would be a practice run. If he got them both right, it would be miraculous. He put two of the long knives in the coals to preheat, when Rehaak called him to breakfast. The heat drove the moisture out of the metal. When he came back to do the welding he would bring them up to welding temperature quicker.

  He needed Rehaak to work the bellows and he hoped that his friend had recovered enough strength to keep the charcoal hot enough. The gray-green metal of the knives was unfamiliar to him, but he suspected it would take high heat to get the stuff to weld. It promised to be a long day.

  After breakfast, Laakea showed Rehaak how to work the bellows and bring the metal up to temperature. Pumping the bellows was a simple task, which required little skill but a lot of stamina. Once Laakea took the white hot metal from the fire to the anvil, Rehaak took a break from pumping the bellows. Laakea began the long process of welding the two knives into one solid piece of metal, by pounding and folding them on the anvil. Rehaak slipped out to get drinking water. They would both need plenty of water, to endure the heat of the forge.

  With the first few hammer strokes, Laakea realized, welding the blades together was not going well, though he couldn’t explain what was wrong. The blades were unlike any metal he had ever worked and reacted to his blows in a bizarre fashion. The metal stretched and deformed like water skins filled with mud, distorting the runes worked into the metal, but little else happened.

  His hammer blows became vehicles of his frustration, until he was no longer trying to work the metal. He was punishing it for not obeying him. The longer he pounded, the more aggravated he became. Absorbed in attacking the metal with his hammer, Laakea missed Rehaak’s return. The older man stood watching his progress, or rather the lack of it.

  When Laakea had exhausted himself, he picked up the still glowing metal and threw it back into the forge.

  Rehaak, seeing the anger in the boy’s actions, went back to the bellows and pumped them to bring the charcoal back up to heat.

  “Never mind,” Laakea snarled. “It’s useless.” Sweat streamed down his back and chest, and soaked his clothes.

  “Something is wrong, either with me, or the metal, and I can’t seem to fix it.”

  “Yes,” replied Rehaak, wrinkling up his nose. “There is definitely something wrong with you. You reek like a corpse left in the sun — are those carrion birds I see gathering in that tree.” Rehaak smiled and pointed toward the forest. “I think they detect a potential meal.”

  Rehaak’s words broke Laakea’s foul mood.

  “Are you so sure it’s not you they smell, you old manure pile?”

  “Wait,” Rehaak pretended to sniff his armpits. “No not me — must be you.”

  At this, they both began laughing, pushing each other around the forge, until they both found themselves outside in the sunlight. Until the cool breeze wafted across Laakea’s skin, he didn’t realize how hot it was inside the forge shelter. It was approaching midday and time for a break.

  “I am hungry,” Rehaak announced.

  “You’re always hungry,” Laakea countered.

  “But I am still recovering from my wounds. I need sustenance to complete my healing.”

  “If you aren’t recovered soon, you will strip the land bare.” Laakea waved his arms in the air at the vultures that Rehaak’s imagination had conjured up earlier. “Fly away, poor little carrion eaters! Flee! Flee for your lives lest you be devoured along with the rest, you poor defenseless beasts!”

  They both broke into laughter again. Laakea was tired, and at least as hungry as Rehaak. He would solve the riddle of the blades after lunch.

  “Let’s eat. We can continue that later,” Laakea pointed toward the smithy.

  The afternoon came and went, the only change, Laakea’s level of fatigue and frustration. Two misshapen masses of metal, not one smooth bar, were what he had to show for his exertions. He could barely lift his arms. Laakea knew he should be irritated and angry because of the lack of progress, but he had no energy left to spend on those emotions.

  The metal of one blade refused to bond to the metal of the other. The blades resisted change and appeared to have memories and wills of their own. Laakea knew that was impossible, because the knives could not have sprung from the earth fully formed. Someone had worked the metal and imposed his will on it to form it into the knives.

  Rehaak was equally exhausted, and after they had washed up and had supper the two men sat before the fire, while Laakea explained his problem to him.

  “Ah,” intoned Rehaak. He nodded as he listened to Laakea pour out his frustration.

  “Do you understand?” asked Laakea as he finished his explanation.

  “I understand that you are working with two different materials and that one of them refuses to allow you to shape it, but I am afraid that much of what you are telling me is outside my understanding. There are words you use I do not comprehend.”

  “Oh.”

  “I suspect what I feel now is akin to your confusion when I tried to explain the concept of k’harsa. We speak the same root language, but some words and concepts integral to each of our species have no equivalents in the other’s language and culture. How much must the Sokai have changed over the centuries? Meeting the Sokai — hmmm — an interesting experience,” Rehaak mused aloud, as his attention wandered again.

  Laakea had held out a faint hope, that his friend might have an insight, to resolve the problem. When nothing useful was forthcoming, he sat, reflecting and weighing the options he had left if he was unsuccessful. He needed to solve this puzzle, or continue with what resources they had in hand.

  Laakea hated to admit defeat but he was unsure how much time they could afford to waste, while he tried to resolve his dilemma. He was glad t he had only committed two of the blades to his project. Seven unspoiled blades remained, a small arsenal, and more than he could use, but he wanted the extra reach, that longer weapons gave him. Laakea felt compelled to complete his apprenticeship by forging the weapons he envisioned. He felt sure more was at stake than simply creating better weapons.

  The two misshapen pieces at the forge upset him, but they presented him with a challenge that intrigued and excited him. Laakea had enough charcoal to make several more attempts; he would continue until the supply ran out. If he didn’t master the metal by then, they would go ahead without new weapons.

  The Warrior Code taught, men to make choices and live with the consequences. “What cannot be overcome must be endured,” he muttered another of his father’s aphorisms.

  The next morning, they began again, though their muscles ached. At the end of the fourteenth day, Laakea decided to remove the steel tang and guard from the blade. Laakea thought he might save the steel and forge a decent weapon from it alone. In spite of his obsession with the project, he knew that they must give up soon, if he failed.

  The difficult work hardened both men. They fell into bed exhausted each night, I rose the next day and began again. Their unrelenting exertions blunted even Rehaak’s sense of humor. It was unnatural for Rehaak to keep such a punishing pace, but he wanted to support Laakea in his project. Rehaak owed the lad his life, and he found the work easier as the days passed. He saw they could not continue much longer, because the charcoal wo
uld run out soon, and he doubted Laakea had time and energy to make more.

  Rehaak had become stronger than he had ever been before, although he was still a weakling compared to Laakea. His muscles grew slightly larger, although he was much tougher and leaner. Rehaak never grew like his young partner. Laakea had gotten gigantic from his continued exertions at the forge. The discipline that Laakea exhibited was new to Rehaak and he admired the young man for it. The idea struck him like Laakea’s hammer, that there was plenty of welding going on in this place. It was unfortunate it was not metal-to-metal.

  “We work as a team now, welded together by the constant pounding of our work in the smithy,” he thought, as he sweated and strained through the long days.

  Laakea paused his hammering and let out a whoop of triumph.

  “What happened?” Rehaak asked.

  “I removed the steel guard and tang from the blade, the green metal might work easier now.”

  “I take it that is good?”

  “It’s a very good thing. As long as I tried to work the two metals together, it was impossible, but now I have them separated, I hope I can work them both like normal steel. I still don’t know what this greenish metal is.”

  “The blades are hard, light, and sharp, but it might be brittle. It’s too early to tell yet. The green metal alone might not have enough weight to cleave armor or bone.”

  “Does it need to be heavy?” Rehaak asked. “It seems to me a lighter blade is easier to wield, and that should make it better.”

  “Well, it takes as much force to stop a blade as it does to swing it. Have you ever noticed how a heavy ax splits wood easier than a light one?”

  “Yes, I have noticed.”

  “It’s the same with weapons. A light weapon is easy to wield, but bounces off dense objects, unless its user swings it very fast, and its edge is very sharp. A heavier weapon will cut with a slower swing, but it requires more strength to move it. That makes it awkward to use for defense. The balance of the blade is another issue that needs to be taken into account.”