HONOR BOUND (The Spare Heir)

by Southwick, Michael G.

  “Good,” Zensa said, satisfied with his answer. “It’s definitely something I would like to study, but this is neither the time nor the place. As for you, my young friend, what has caused such a change in you?”

  Jorem’s brows furrowed with confusion at her question. “I…,” he stammered. “I hadn’t noticed any change.”

  Zensa’s mouth quirked into a smile. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. You never did spend much time in front of a mirror.” She shook her head in amusement. “So, what have you been doing for the past three cycles?”

  “Three cycles?” Jorem blurted. “But it’s still the dead of winter.”

  “Winters up here last six, sometimes eight cycles, not the three you’re used to.”

  Jorem was a little dazed at the amount of time that had passed. “I guess I lost track of time.”

  Zensa nodded in understanding. “That’s not unusual in areas like this, otherwise most people would go stir crazy. What is it that has kept you so occupied that time goes so quickly?”

  Jorem shrugged. “I spend almost all of my time working with the smith, pumping the bellows, hammering out metal, hauling coal and cleaning up.”

  Pursing her lips, Zensa studied him for a moment. “I suppose that kind of work would explain it. I can tell Pentrothe that you are doing well, then?”

  “I’m fine,” Jorem said. “The smith tells me his son Ben, the one that got hurt, is healing slowly but healing all the same. He said that with a little luck, his son will be on his feet by late spring.”

  “His injuries were truly that bad?” Zensa asked.

  “Yes,” Jorem said, unable to keep the disgust from his voice. “They hurt him badly. If there hadn’t been people there to help him, I doubt he would have lived.”

  “Hmmm…” Shaking her head, “I’ll check on him before I leave. I can’t do any actual healing, but I can make sure there are no hidden injuries. I actually came here for another reason, but when Pen heard I would be passing through, he insisted I check on you. Years ago, there was a man living near here who had an odd talent for making a unique magical object.”

  “You mean power stones?” Jorem ask.

  Zensa was silent for an uneasy moment, then asked, “What do you know of the stones?”

  Her worried tone was reason enough for Jorem to be concerned. He explained his chance meeting with the old woman. He was very careful not to leave out any detail of his time with Sashia, including her ability to tell that he had been around magic. At his mentioning of being given a green power stone he thought Zensa was going to pounce on him.

  “Do you still have the stone?” she asked tensely.

  “Yes,” Jorem nodded. “It’s locked up in an old trunk in my room. I had intended to give it to Jennifer, the healer trainee back home.”

  Zensa looked down at the table thoughtfully then nodded her head. “If anyone were to have a power stone, a healer would be the best choice. I’ll need to speak to this Sashia woman. Picture her and her house in your mind, if you would, Jorem.”

  “Does she have something to do with the person you are looking for?” Jorem asked.

  She looked at him quizzically for a moment before answering. “Echalain? No, not directly, anyway. She might know something that might help in my search, though. Now, concentrate.”

  Jorem did as she asked and thought of the large dilapidated mansion and the kind old woman who lived there. Zensa reached across the table and lightly touched his forehead with her fingertips. Other than the feathery touch of her fingers, Jorem felt nothing more than a slight tingling on the back of his neck.

  “That should get me there without any further difficulties.” Zensa sat back in her chair as she spoke. “I should be on my way. It has been good to see you again.”

  “It’s been good seeing you, too.” Jorem tilted his head to one side as he spoke and looked Zensa over. “Even though you don’t look like you.”

  The usual musical trill of Zensa’s laugh came out more like a cackle. “I find that few notice the presence of an old beggar woman. It’s almost as good as being invisible.”

  “Done up like that, you could pass for Pentrothe’s sister,” Jorem commented.

  Zensa raised an eyebrow at Jorem. “Perhaps it’s not so good of a disguise after all.”

  Her statement confused Jorem for a moment until he realized what he had said. The idea seemed impossible, crazy even. Pentrothe was, well, ancient.

  “But he’s so old,” Jorem’s words came tumbling out, “and you’re so…”

  “Young?” Zensa interrupted him.

  That wasn’t exactly what he was going to say, but Jorem responded with a weak nod of his head.

  “I’m not as young as I look. Dragon magic has an unusual effect on humans. Pen is actually my younger brother. We chose different paths. I’m not sure which of us chose better, he or I.” Zensa looked at Jorem and smiled. Even through her disguise he could feel the warmth of that smile. “It would probably be best if you didn’t share that bit of information with anyone else.”

  “Of course,” Jorem replied. “Not that anyone would believe me anyway.”

  Zensa stood to leave then turned back. “I almost forgot. Your father sent this.”

  She set a coin on the table and slid it across to him. Jorem looked down and saw that it was a gold crown. He had sent a few letters to his Father, but there had been no response. It was doubtful the King even remembered he was here.

  With doubt on his face and in his voice, Jorem looked up at the ragged old women he knew to be Lady Dragon Mage Zensa and asked, “Father sent this?”

  The wrinkled, weatherworn face smiled back at him, revealing a number of missing teeth. “He may have been coerced just a little. And this,” she said as she tossed an object to him, “is to keep Pentrothe from pestering me night and day. If you should ever need me, and I stress the word ‘need,’ break it in half and I shall find you.”

  The object Jorem caught was a thin rod of glass shaped to look like a miniature sword. “Thank you, Lady Zensa,” Jorem said, closing his hand around the trinket. “Although I don’t know what trouble I could get into around here.”

  The old woman cackled as she turned to leave. “My thanks for the meal, young friend. Be assured, our paths will cross again.”

  Jorem smiled at the thought of Zensa coercing the King. What a sight that must have been! It would be like one of the great wild cats toying with a mouse. That Zensa would take the time to do such a thing for him left a warm feeling in his chest. That she was older than Pentrothe, now that would take some getting used to.

  Chapter XXI

  Time passed quickly for Jorem. Before he knew it, spring had come to the mountains. Of course, the coming of spring meant a great deal more work for the smith. Many of the farmers had put off repairs until spring and horses needed to be shod, not to mention the swords they were making for the Duke. The Duke had been sufficiently pleased with the samples Franks had made to order several more.

  A sword, a simple sword was one more thing Jorem had taken for granted. How hard could it be to pound out a straight piece of metal, sharpen the edges and wrap some leather around one end? How wrong he had been. For the past several cycles, he had learned just how wrong.

  It took Franks a full sevenday to get the raw metal the way he wanted it. So much of this ore and so much of that ore were added to a crucible. A pinch of this and a handful of that were sprinkled in as well. Pumping the bellows until the coal burning within the forge was white hot, the searing heat that boiled out of the crucible containing the molten metal scorched anything that came close.

  When they poured the molten metal out of the crucible and into the mold, flames danced along the surface of the liquid and an acrid smoke tinged the air. As the casting was pried from the mold, Jorem thought the sword nearly done. It had the general shape of a sword. A bit of sharpening on a stone was all it needed. Jorem said as much to the smith and received a derisive laugh for his words.

 
; “We are making a real sword, not a child’s toy.” The smith held the rough looking sword up. “The real work to make this into a proper sword has yet to begin. This next part you will learn to do. It is just heating and hammering, heating and hammering, over and over again. Inside of the metal there is much of the ore that we do not want. Force it out we must, and the only way to do it is with a hammer and the strength of our arms. I will show you how it is done and then watch you for the first few.”

  And so it was, heat and hammer, heat and hammer. Jorem learned to use the rebound of the hammer to help lift it for the next strike. The smith stood opposite of him with a stick that he used for a pointer in his hand. After each blow of the hammer the smith would point to the next spot on the blade to be struck. Jorem even began to be able to tell the difference between a good hammer strike and a bad one by the sound of it. While the sword was reheating for the next round of hammering, Jorem swept the grit that had been forced out of the blade off of the anvil and bench top.

  Of the first casting, which yielded three swords, the smith discarded them all. “Too soft,” he’d said. When Jorem asked him how he could tell, Franks took one of the rough shaped swords, slid it between two boards of one of the bench tops and bent it in half. “We’ll have to melt them back down to fix them. These would do for show but never for battle.”

  By the time the snow melted from the ground they had nearly two-dozen swords finished save for the hilts. While Jorem beat the swords to remove the grit he also tried to get the swords to the thickness and taper that Franks wanted. The smith worked at the finishing steps. With great patience the smith would hone the blades until they were smooth and straight. Then he heated the full length of the sword until it glowed brightly and then plunge it into a barrel of water. With a sharp hiss, clouds of steam would billow from the barrel. Franks would then heat the sword again, but not quite so hot, and lightly tap the length of the blade with a small, flat-faced hammer.

  When Franks was satisfied with the blade, he would snip off bits of the hilt until he could balance the sword at a point about a finger width down the length of the blade from the cross guard. Then he would hammer at the hilt until it resembled a thin version of a standard sword grip. Somehow with all of the heating and cooling the smith managed to make the metal of the hilt soft enough to be malleable while keeping the blade hard without being brittle.

  Two of the swords that Franks had deemed as unacceptable, he had kept for a demonstration for the Duke. For some reason unknown to Jorem, the smith insisted on finishing those two swords along with the rest. He spent just as much time honing and polishing them as he did the rest. However, he didn’t put them through the heating and cooling processes. To Jorem, they looked identical in every way to the other swords that lined the wall. He would have asked the smith about them, but he had three newly cast swords to keep him busy.

  The warmer weather brought the other members of the smith’s family out of their house. Occasionally, the smith’s wife or daughter would bring them ice-cold glasses of water or punch. The blacksmith’s wife, Luciel, always had a smile and kind words for Jorem. Jannett, the smith’s daughter, generally did her best to pretend Jorem didn’t even exist.

  Jannett’s attitude was no more than he had expected. After all, she had been the primary target of his brothers’ cruelty. Luciel’s kindness, however, was altogether unexpected. He actually started looking forward to her afternoon visits. He knew she came to lighten her husband’s day and that the warmth he felt at her presence was merely the overflow of the love shared between her and her husband.

  On the day Luciel and Jannett came together with Ben limping along between them, Jorem would have dearly loved to be somewhere else. Ben was thin and pallid. His eyes were sunken and lined with dark shadows. As they sat him down at one of the benches, he sighed as if the trip from the house had taken all of the energy he had. Mother, Father and daughter fussed over the boy until he was settled and comfortable. Franks pulled a bundle from beneath another bench, opened it and spread its contents out in front of Ben. Then he laid one of the swords on the bench and sat down beside his son.

  “Much have I missed you here with me.” The smith’s voice choked with emotions as he gently laid his arm across his son’s shoulders and squeezed. “Much there is to be done that I would trust to no other hands but yours.”

  Ben placed his hand on his Father’s and smiled weakly. “It’s good to be back Father. Another day of laying abed and I think that I’ll go crazy.”

  “Good!” Franks said with a nod that conveyed both approval and pride. “The Duke wants these swords on the first day of summer and that is but a sevenday away. Off with you ladies,” the smith said, shooing the women out the door. “Much we have to do.”

  Jorem had stood frozen behind the forge from the time that Ben had entered the room. The closeness of the smith and his family, the open caring and concern they showed for one another, left Jorem with a dull ache in his chest. The mention of summer season being but a sevenday away left him stunned. He’d been here for nearly three seasons. After watching Franks with his family, it hurt even more to realize that his birthing day had come and gone with nary a word from his Father.

  “Son, son, are you alright?”

  The voice of the smith seemed to come from far away until his large, callused hand gently shook Jorem’s shoulder. Two things entered Jorem’s mind when he looked up at the smith. First was the concern in the smith’s eyes. Second was that he didn’t actually look up so much as over at the smith.

  In all of his years, the only person that had ever shown that much concern for him was Pentrothe. That Franks would worry about him had never occurred to him. The thought caused a lump to form in his throat, making it difficult to speak. Shaking himself, Jorem coughed to clear his throat.

  “Sorry, sir,” Jorem mumbled. “I must have been day dreaming.”

  “That’s alright, lad,” the smith said with a grin. “See what you can do with these last few castings today. Starting tomorrow, I’ll have you helping Ben with the finishing work. I want to have as many swords finished as we can before the Duke comes to collect them. Oh, and if you wouldn’t mind staying late for a few days, I have one more sword I want to make, something special for Pertheron. It’s a wedding gift that will be of good use to him and something that I have wanted to make for some time.

  Jorem nodded his agreement and got back to work. He was about halfway done with the sword he was working on and there were two more he had yet to start. He set to it with a will and by the end of the day had all three roughed out. As he leaned the last one against the wall, he felt a bit of pride as he looked at the row of partially finished swords. He had helped to make these swords from raw ore. One day, these very swords might be used to defend this land from foes.

  After Luciel and Jannett came to help Ben back to the house, Jorem took half a candle mark to clean things up before going to get his dinner. He ate quickly so he would have time to set things in order for the smith. By the time Franks returned from his meal Jorem had everything set in place and was ready to start smelting another batch of metal. Franks looked it all over and nodded at Jorem in approval. The smith walked to a dimly lit corner of the room. Kneeling down, he grasped something in the floor and pulled up.

  Something clicked and there was a creaking of wood scraping on wood. With a heave, the smith dislodged a small section of the floor and set it aside. Then he reached down into the opening and, struggling a bit, lifted out a small chest. Franks carried the chest over to the bench nearest the forge and reverently set it down on the bench top. He blew across the top of the chest and a cloud of dust billowed out into the room. It was a plain looking chest with no special markings. There wasn’t even a lock to keep it closed, just a simple latch.

  Franks pried the latch up and gently opened the chest. Jorem didn’t know what he expected to see inside the chest, but it certainly wasn’t the half dozen or so leather sacks that were revealed. Franks took each o
f the sacks out of the chest and spread them out on the bench. The sacks were stiff and gray with age. Looking closely, Jorem saw that each bag was marked with some type or rune, and that no two bags were marked with the same rune. The runes looked familiar to Jorem. When he leaned over the bags to get a better look at the runes, he knew where he had seen them before. Pentrothe had a few books that were kept locked away that had writings from the ancient race of people that had lived in what was now tumbled down ruins near the capital. No one knew how old the ruins were. Nor was it known what had happened to the people that had lived there. A few books and odd artifacts were all that remained.

  Jorem ran a finger over one of the runes. Looking up at the smith, he asked, “It’s ancient, isn’t it?”

  “So I was told,” the smith answered. “When I was just a lad I came across an old woman with a busted wheel on her wagon. I swear she must’ve been near a hundred years old. Well, I stopped and fixed the wheel for her, took a few days cause I hadn’t any tools with me. When I finished, she came out with these sacks of powder and rocks.

  “She told me they were for making a special metal, a metal to make a sword like nothing we have around here. She told me what each one was for and how to use it. I was well apprenticed for the smith craft by then and had no use for weapons, so I hid all of it away.

  “Ben, he’s like me, better than me, really. In time he’ll be the best smith in the Kingdom. Put a sword in his hand and he’ll just end up dead. Give him a forge and some ore and he’ll build you an army. Perth though, he’s a warrior born. It’s in his blood. He thinks a battle through before it even starts, doesn’t matter whether it’s one-on-one combat or hunting down bandits. I’ve seen him at it. He sits down at a table and marks out all the possibilities. Strategy, he calls it.