The Forge of Men

by Caleb Wachter

  Thankfully, his leg was there. Though his knee was badly swollen and blanketed in a thick, black bruise which was visible between the wooden boards which had been affixed to either side of the ruined joint by straps of leather.

  “You are awake,” a woman’s voice said with no small amount of surprise. “I shall send for Commander Kephus; he wished to be notified if you should regain consciousness.”

  Looking down at his left hand—the one which the scar-faced warrior had crushed—he was surprised to see that only two of his fingers looked to have been broken, as they were now as swollen as sausages with the nails having fallen off between the time he had suffered defeat at the flat-nosed warrior and now. But the rest of his hand was a deep shade of purple, and it had been fixed to a board in order to immobilize it and facilitate the healing process. That process appeared to have begun several days earlier, which meant the aftermath of his duel had already come and gone.

  “How long have I been out?” he asked, pushing aside thoughts of his failure—and the loss of the Minos Sword—as he attempted to grapple with the totality of his current predicament. It would do no good to wallow in despair; he needed to learn as much about his circumstance as possible.

  “It has been four days since you fell to Jason Montagne, Lady Adonia’s Protector,” the woman replied neutrally.

  Nikomedes could not tell if the woman meant to give offense or if she was merely answering the query as completely as possible, but he was in no condition to pursue the matter either way so he simply processed the fact that he had been unconscious for four days.

  The pallor of his skin suggested that he had lost a significant amount of blood, and the increasing pain in seemingly every part of his body suggested that he was not yet finished battling the afflictions he had suffered at this Jason Montagne’s hand.

  “His magical armor was like nothing even described in legend,” the healer continued as she donned an over-cloak, which she tied tightly around her neck and shoulders before, “for what it is worth, Nikomedes Minos, I found your efforts more valorous than those of Hypatios Nykator.”

  Before he could fully process her words, the woman had moved through the door and closed it behind her, leaving him to silently contemplate what she had meant.

  He laid his head down on the hard headrest fixed to the bed on which he rested, and his thoughts seemed to drift discordantly from one topic to another, but he was vaguely aware that they revolved around the healer’s words. His mind made addled connections between those thoughts until he shook his head in an effort to clear the mind fog, but his efforts produced minimal results.

  The door to the healing house opened and in stepped Kastor Kephus. He was soon followed by the same healer who had gone to summon him.

  The guard commander moved to Nikomedes’ bedside but, instead of the anger which Nikomedes had expected to see in the other man’s countenance, he saw only well-concealed pity—it was an expression Nikomedes would never forget and, in a way, would never forgive.

  “How do you feel?” Kephus asked as he pulled up a stool which he sat on at Nikomedes’ bedside.

  “Vanquished,” Nikomedes replied bitterly, gesturing to his bruised, battered, and broken body with equal parts disgust and resignation. Strangely, though, he did not feel the soul-crushing agony he expected. He simply felt…empty inside, and he suspected it was a feeling which would be with him until the end of his days.

  “Even after sustaining the wounds you inflicted on him,” Kephus said in a nearly awestruck tone, “Lady Adonia’s new Protector, Jason Montagne, met Hypatios Nykator—who never even attempted to give the outlander the opportunity to recover from his grueling match with you—and…using the Minos Sword,” he said, his eyes taking on a hard glint as he gave Nikomedes a short-lived, stern look, “the outlander ended that contemptible Tegean’s life, suffering only the loss of a hand in the process.”

  Nikomedes blinked in shock, but contrary to his expectations he did not feel the world begin to spin around him at hearing Kephus’ revelation. “Nykator lies dead?” he asked, unable to immediately believe it.

  Kephus nodded slowly and mutual silence filled the room for several minutes, broken only by the healer’s grinding of a liniment in pestle and mortar near a bank of herbs and other medicinal ingredients.

  “I suppose that,” Kephus said, sighing and shaking his head, “though the sequence was different from that which we had planned, the only one who has truly lost here has been you. The events surrounding Lady Adonia’s return yielded every bit of the result I had hoped for following your planned challenge to take the role of Protector to House Zosime’s eldest daughter.”

  Nikomedes did not take the other man’s meaning at first, but then he found himself nodding even before the thought had coalesced completely within his mind. “Hold Mistress Polymnia Zosime has taken you as her Protector,” he concluded.

  “She has,” Kephus confirmed with a short nod, “and she bears the Light Sword of Power for me which I will use to defend the Hold against her enemies.”

  Nikomedes was surprised to find himself beginning to laugh, but doing so caused sharp, stabbing pain to spread across his chest and he was forced to cut himself short for fear of aggravating his wounds. He snorted softly and shook his head, “Congratulations, Kastor Kephus.”

  “Jason Montagne’s armor was simply too much,” Kephus leaned forward and said in a low, hushed tone. “It took nearly a dozen full-strength blows from the Light Sword to finish the job you started on his vambrace—” he continued, clearly attempting to console Nikomedes but Nikomedes was in no mood for his patronizing so he held up a hand haltingly.

  “I do not wish to speak of it,” he said shortly, knowing that he would have ample time to consider this defeat in solitude after his leg had healed sufficiently to permit his exit from the healing house.

  Kephus nodded and said no more, standing from Nikomedes’ bedside and saying, “I have paid for your ministrations at Helena’s hand. Consider the healing,” he said before gesturing to the foot of Nikomedes’ bed, where the sword he had given Nikomedes prior to his first tournament rested atop his neatly stacked armor, “and that blade to constitute a gesture of appreciation for the part you have played in my ascent to the post of Protector.”

  “I will return from this, Kastor Kephus,” Nikomedes said, knowing that Kephus meant to conclude their dealings with a show of magnanimity since Nikomedes had been permanently crippled by the fight.

  Nikomedes had no way of knowing how he might return from the life-altering defeat he had just suffered, but he knew that he would stand before the Voice of Men and submit to its judgment soon, since it had commanded him to do so. If he survived that particular experience—a questionable proposition, to be certain, for one does not fail a god and expect to survive—he would not rest until he had accomplished the directives he had dedicated himself to accomplishing in the Forge of Men.

  Kephus nodded. “Some songs will spread his glories, but none will share his pain,” he said, reciting the words to an old song which Nikomedes had learned as a boy. It was the tale of a great hero who had been cut down in the midst of his prime, about whom countless ballads had been written which described his valorous deeds. But as soon as he suffered a career-ending injury, his acclaim and fame had disappeared, leaving him a lonely, broken shell of his former self who died facing down a Stone Rhino with nothing but a dull, stone knife in his bare hands.

  Kephus’ message was taken clearly enough by Nikomedes. Kephus was telling him to accept his fate, as all men must eventually do. Some were brought down by the ravages of time, and others after suffering such a horrific defeat as Nikomedes had done. But Nikomedes was not prepared to lay down just yet.

  With that, the new Protector of Argos made a respectful salute and turned his back on Nikomedes before exiting the house of healing.

  It was not long after Kephus’ departure that Nikomedes found himself slipping from consciousness, and he surrendered to the darkn
ess amid a cloud of anger, loss and, most disturbing of all, a loss so profound he could barely comprehend it.

  When he next awoke, Nikomedes saw a tall, blond-haired woman standing at his bedside and he blinked several times as he tried in vain to focus on her features. He only knew she was a woman from the cock of her hip and the sheen of her hair in the candlelight, but he quickly realized it was none other than Lady Adonia.

  “Hold Mistress,” he said, trying to sit and make his respects but finding his body was still incapable of doing so. “Forgive me,” he said with genuine regret tinged by bitter resentment at her having seen him in this state, “I am unable to rise.”

  “I will admit,” Adonia said after a lengthy, cold silence, “that even I was…impressed by your martial skills, Nikomedes. It is unfortunate that Argos has lost such a worthy warrior,” she said with awkward sentiment in her voice. Her icy blue eyes seemed to burn as the light of a candle reflected perfectly in each of them, and Nikomedes was nearly transfixed by the mixture of metaphorical ice and fire in her visage.

  “I am not yet finished, Hold Mistress,” Nikomedes said with as much resolve as he could muster, but she snorted and shook her head piteously.

  “You have been ruined, Nikomedes,” she spat icily. “Your leg will never work properly again, and your hand will likely never grip a sword strongly enough to even permit you to continue as a guardsman of the citadel even if your leg permitted you to walk without a crutch.”

  Her disdain for his insistence that he would recover was all too evident, but in spite of her negative response Nikomedes knew that she would not have come here without a greater purpose in mind than simply to ridicule a fallen warrior who had previously sought her hand.

  “Accept your lot in life,” she said in a tone that held the barest hint of urgency, “and there may yet be a way for your body to be healed.”

  Nikomedes arched an eyebrow incredulously, believing he had already guessed her meaning. “I will not grovel before that man,” he spat, “nor will I accept help from his healers.”

  “Even if it means you never walk again?!” she demanded hotly, shaking her head with open contempt. “You would refuse to do your duty to Men by surrendering the opportunity to have your body made whole? You truly are a fool, Nikomedes,” she said acidly, “and I will have nothing further to do with you. If you wish to die in a wrecked body, then I will leave you to what remains of your miserable existence.”

  With that, she turned and made her way to the door. Before she opened it, Nikomedes felt his blood pressure rise and his equilibrium begin to falter, but he managed to bite out, “That is the second time you have asked me not to pursue you, Hold Mistress.” She turned with a surprised look on her face which was quickly replaced by her icy mask of disdain as he added, “The next time you do so will be the last time I offer myself to you.”

  Adonia’s lips twisted into a smirk as she shook her head piteously, “You will find it difficult to climb to the River of Stars—where I now go with my Protector, Jason Montagne—with only one hand and one leg.” She opened the door and the cold night air swirled through the open portal as she said, “You were a brave man, Nikomedes. You should not have sullied my memory of what you once were with this brazen stupidity, you…foolish boy who would have been a king.”

  She moved through the door and closed it after doing so, leaving Nikomedes alone in the candlelight to absorb her rebuke in its entirety.

  Chapter XXVII: The Reward for Failure

  Many weeks later, Nikomedes left the healing house with an altogether grim purpose: to report his failure to the Voice of Men at the Inner Forge just as it had commanded him to do.

  He did not look forward to doing so, but it was his holy duty to do so. In a way he felt no more apprehension for the task than he did for a particularly grueling set of exercises or the training sessions he had endured under Felix’s tutelage.

  His leg, however, was truly ruined. He could hobble along with it well enough, but there was simply no way he could reach the gorge where the Forge was found on foot as he had previously done. His leg muscles had already atrophied significantly, and he knew that it would take many months to recover from the weeks of strict bed rest even if his wounds vanished completely.

  So he returned Kephus’ sword to the guard commander in exchange for a three year old steer and a cart complete with a harness. Kephus initially attempted to talk him out of but Nikomedes had adamantly insisted that he would prefer the sword find its way back to its true owner’s hand rather than end up in the market to be bartered over by the hucksters there.

  After loading the cart with basic foodstuffs which would sustain him until he reached the gorge, Nikomedes set off in disgrace, deigning to don his armor as he rode the cart through the gates of Argos citadel.

  The six weeks he spent on the road were, aside from his occasional interactions with the steer which drew his cart, spent in absolute solitude. This provided him with ample time to come to grips with the totality of his failure at the hand of the Starborn warlord, and current Protector of Messene, Jason Montagne. The brown-skinned warrior apparently had even more names—and titles—than that, but Nikomedes did not care to learn them.

  During his recovery time in the healing house, he had been visited by a handful of his fellow guardsmen, as well as Haldis the smith, and even Nazoraios had come to make a call on him. It was that particular conversation which Nikomedes found himself replaying in his head as the terrain before the cart became too rocky and broken for his steer to continue much further.

  “You have misunderstood me, Nikomedes Minos,” Nazoraios had said many weeks earlier, with a dismissive wave of his hand after Nikomedes had angrily asked if the old man had come to finish him off. “Though each of our fortunes has taken a recent downturn following the arrival of the Starborn, I still consider you to be a friend even though you likely do not reciprocate that particular sentiment.”

  “Who will lead the Tegean Host?” Nikomedes had asked, having suspected Kapaneus would take up the mantle as much as any man could claim to do following Nykator’s death.

  “The Host is sundered,” Nazoraios had explained. “Five hundred or so have joined Kephus after finding their roots had dug too deeply into Argos’ soil, while roughly the same number have banded under Kapaneus. The rest, however, have opted to join the man who vanquished their longtime warlord, and have begun to leave on the strange airships to join Jason Montagne’s war band.”

  “Airships?” Nikomedes had asked, thoroughly perplexed at the old man’s words.

  “Indeed,” Nazoraios had replied gravely, “Lady Adonia Zosime’s new Protector has a citadel which can move about the River of Stars, and tales of even his most recent exploits suggest he is a truly peerless leader of men.” The old man had leaned forward conspiratorially and said, “It seems that Messene already bursts with Starborn settlers who have, in the span of a few weeks, erected structures which of all rights should have taken months—or even years—to complete.”

  “Why tell me this?” Nikomedes recalled asking with more bitterness in his voice than he had hoped to hear. “Of what use could I serve to you? The Minos Sword is no longer mine, and Kastor Kephus has taken control over all that which your former master claimed for his own.”

  “I have already told you,” Nazoraios had explained all-too-patiently, “I value friends more greatly than trinkets. Objects come and go,” he had said with a strange, hungry gleam in his eye, “and a man’s station rises and falls like the tides. But friends…friends persist. I would gladly call you my friend if you would but do the same, Nikomedes Minos.”

  “Do not call me that,” Nikomedes had growled, suspecting that the old man had invoked his chosen name as a veiled insult.

  “Again, you misunderstand me,” Nazoraios said, his eyes piercing Nikomedes’ own, “I have great respect for your actions, and for your…shall we say ‘less than subtle’ declaration by publicly adopting your chosen moniker, ‘Minos.’ A man must have
purpose in his life,” he had said before leaning back and bathing his face in gently waving shadows cast by the flickering candles, “and, if I may be so bold, I would suggest it is entirely possible that our purposes run closer together than you might believe—though I, of course, have yet to make such a bold declaration as your own.”

  The old man had left at that, and Nikomedes now pondered what he had meant. Nazoraios’ station had vanished overnight, and he was now a free warrior surrounded by enemies on all sides. Yet he seemed as calm as could be, apparently unconcerned with the disastrous turn of events which had befallen his former warlord and all those who had followed him.

  Nazoraios, more than anyone else in the Argos citadel, bore keeping a watchful eye on for that reason, and Nikomedes knew it would be folly—possibly of the fatal variety—to underestimate the white-bearded man in the future.

  But Nikomedes found his thoughts becoming jumbled and disorganized, so he cleared his mind and continued the rest of the way to the Forge while contemplating how he would report his failure to the Voice of Men.

  Nikomedes had managed to drive the steer several more days, until very nearly arriving at the edge of the chasm where the Forge lay nestled in a blanket of poisonous fog. But the animal had collapsed with nearly a half day’s travel to go, so Nikomedes had put the animal out of its misery by bleeding it dry before donning his armor and making his way to the gorge.

  The journey took him nearly two days, but thankfully his leg did not rebel overmuch as he shuffled his way to the edge of the massive, noxious gorge.

  He stood and beheld the awesome sight of the vaguely bowed line which seemed to have been gouged out of the world beneath his feet by an unimaginably large sword. He pondered how such a wound could be inflicted on the solid stone of the world he called home, but quickly dismissed the thought from his mind as he made his way down to where the bronze chain had been.