by Tom Lloyd
Isak asked Vesna, suppressing a laugh as he saw the count’s expression, ‘Well, Count, if it would not inconvenience you too greatly?’ As he spoke, he saw the soldiers had formed up in two ranks - as always, it looked like the entire palace knew about his plans before he did. Kerin had drifted away, presumably to fetch the others, while those who had been giving Isak a beating began to strip off their armour.
The maids fanned out among them, ignoring the comments they got from the soldiers as they helped them undress. From the baskets the girls produced cream leather tunics and breeches, decorated with green braiding. Isak’s dragon, outlined in green and flecked with gold, was emblazoned across the chest and shoulders. The dragon itself was an altogether more impressive sight than the austere black and white of the Ghosts. Isak couldn’t imagine the full two legions of the Palace Guard wearing this, but it still affected him to see his personal guards so richly dressed.
The others trotted along now, faces Isak recognised for the main part as the men who’d been attending his rooms or eating with Carel. Clearly the veteran and Kerin had handpicked the thirty who were now his guard, split evenly between hardened veterans and the best of the younger Ghosts. The unit looked tight and confident, apparently delighted at their appointment as they joked with each other and held up their new uniforms to show other Ghosts who’d begun to drift over. Isak felt unaccountably awkward as he saw men discard Bahl’s livery.
He rose and pulled off the sweat-soaked tunic he’d been wearing underneath his armour. His bruised body complained at the movement and the chill air rushed over his skin, prickling up the fine hairs and dancing down his spine. A thick woollen shirt sat rolled up at the foot of the steps. Hurriedly he slipped the dark blue material over his head, tugging it down as fast as he could. The cold didn’t upset him, but showing his torso just highlighted how different Isak was to the other soldiers there. Isak’s muscles were so sculpted it was obvious that the Chosen were not just human. He was careful to hide the scar on his chest, but still there were a few stares. People who’d grown used to his size were still taken aback by the sharp lines of his body.
Isak was now the best part of a foot taller than most of his guards, and more than double their weight. He could only guess at the difference in strength, but even thinking about it worried him. He was used to being different, but living with such strength in his body unsettled him as much as it elated him. It was so easy to forget how much more powerful he was - he had once, and he still didn’t trust himself not to do so again.
He straightened the shirt and took Eolis from Mihn, running a loving finger over the claws that imprisoned the emerald. Drawing the blade a few inches, he stared down at the surface, just able to make out the runes, faint and shifting, even under their master’s gaze.
Snapping out of the trance, Isak looked over at the assembled guard, most now dressed in the new tunics and parading for admiring eyes while the maids tried to check the fit. It was a slight shock to see Carel among them, but the veteran’s look of defiance told Isak that his opinion was not invited. Isak scowled at the Land in general and stalked over to the palace smithy, Mihn at his heel. He could hear muted voices from inside, but they broke off when he gripped the door handle and opened it up.
He ducked through the doorway and stood inside, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Three faces looked up at him, but with no words spoken, two rose and left. The third was the head smith, a taciturn man who tolerated the presence of few outsiders in his domain. The first time Isak had gone in, he’d received a glare that made nothing of his rank of suzerain, let alone Krann. After a minute of matching Isak’s stare, the man had shrugged and gone about his work. Isak had watched, fascinated by how a hammer could be used in such a controlled way. On his third visit the Krann had taken up a hammer of his own and mirrored the strokes on the second anvil.
Now he crossed the forge and removed a block of black-iron from the rack on the far wall. The smith watched him select one by stroking the small rectangular pieces until suddenly his hand paused over one. Those blocks were made of the finest steel, re-forged by the College of Magic in some jealously guarded process. Each blank was waiting to be turned into a sword of black-iron, so expensive to produce they were rarely done.
‘Goin’ to teach me somethen’ new?’
As the confusion of his new life crowded in on Isak’s mind, the simple, solid forge had increasingly become a sanctuary. There was no idle chatter, no swirl of politics here. The smith respected ability with a hammer and didn’t give a damn about much else. He was happy to tolerate Isak’s presence, though the young lord had yet to say a word to him. There’d not been any need - and the smith was a man of few words himself.
Isak didn’t reply. His eyes were already lost in the black-iron and the smith immediately gave up his place at the fire. There was purpose in those eyes. The smith recognised it and knew not to disturb Isak. He secretly hoped that Isak would forge with magic one day, something he’d dreamed about but never yet been permitted to witness.
The smith picked up the bellows and began to stoke the flames. Isak sat before the fire and waited, lost in the dancing surge of heat. The image of Carel beaming down at the dragon on his tunic loomed large. Isak knew that Carel still kept a Palace Guard tunic among his effects for the day he died. He couldn’t imagine the man wearing any other. The arrogant dragon symbol had been fine until Carel put it on, but then it looked a sick joke, one that would come back to haunt him. Isak had been tempted to go and ask the Keymaster what he’d seen in his future, but something told him it would be futile.
A slight cough from the smith brought him back to reality. Taking the long steel tongs, Isak withdrew the glowing brick and held it before him. Looking deep into that bright burst of colour, his eyes began to water from the heat. As the image blurred he saw the shape this weapon should take: a slender, curved sabre with symbols he didn’t recognise etched and inlaid with gold. The rounded pommel was to be carved with a hawk’s head. The dusky steel would contrast with Carel’s cream glove.
With a sigh, Isak nodded to himself and laid the metal down on the battered anvil. The first few strokes were hesitant, but he soon found his rhythm. The smith stood and watched the sparks fly, mesmerised by the sweet ring of the hammer. It was only when Isak stopped to return the metal to the fire that the smith realised his eyes had been closed after that rhythm had been reached. Though his bladder was pressing, the smith couldn’t drag himself away. It was pitch-black outside by the time he did leave, drained by the effort of watching. Isak didn’t notice him go.
After the evening meal, Carel found himself a stool in the forge and puffed away on his pipe while Isak worked. The seamstress had been dealt with earlier, storming off in a huff when Isak refused to stop to be measured for his own uniform. Carel didn’t disturb the boy, but Isak did acknowledge his presence. It was almost unbearably hot that close to the forge; Carel could see Isak’s chapped lips underneath the glisten of sweat, but knew he’d not accept any water. Once the sword had gone back into the fire, Carel offered his pipe to Isak, who smiled to himself and accepted. He drew on it a few times, then pulled the sword out again and started hammering. As he did so, he puffed out the smoke from the pipe over the glowing surface and then struck it again, repeating the process until the tobacco was finished.
Carel had half risen from his seat to reclaim the pipe when Isak slipped it under the cooling metal and smashed the hammer down again, shattering the fired clay and sending pieces clattering out around the room. Carel opened his mouth to protest and then closed it again. Isak had clearly done that for a reason, just as there had to be sense in the way the boy had repeatedly gestured towards Carel as though he was wafting the scent of the sword towards him.
Abandoning the Krann to his labours, Carel went into the frosty night air, a heavy fur draped over his shoulders, and sat himself down on a rough wooden bench against the wall. It gave him a good view of the deserted training field, which gliste
ned frostily in the moonlight.
Mihn’s eyes swept over the veteran, then he returned to his own distant thoughts. The foreigner had left the door of the forge only to fetch a fur for himself once the cold night air started to bite. As a cloud covered the gibbous face of Alterr above, Carel fumbled through his pockets for his tobacco pouch, which also contained the scratched wooden pipe that had accompanied him on every campaign of his life. He filled and lit it before offering the pouch to Mihn.
‘Come and sit down, man,’ he said, patting the bench. ‘Isak doesn’t need a guard at this time of night.’
Mihn stared suspiciously at both Carel and his offering, shaking his head to the pouch, but he did leave his post to cross the few yards to the bench. He made no noise as he walked, even across the iced grass. Carel was a Ghost; he had worked with the biggest and best of the Farlan, men who combined skill and grace with more deadly skills. Mihn was shorter than every soldier there, and slender too, but he stood out to the trained eye. The man reminded Carel of the black leopard he’d seen once in Duke Vrerr’s menagerie in Tor Milist. The animal had hypnotised Carel: it moved with an almost supernatural elegance. A drunken soldier had got too close to the enclosure and in the blink of an eye the leopard’s pose had changed from lethargy to lethal purpose.
‘Have you been watching him?’ asked Mihn suddenly, bringing Carel back to the present with a jerk.
‘I—ah, yes. I don’t know what he’s doing now, but that’ll be one fine weapon when he’s finally satisfied. The shape’s there already, but he keeps beating at it.’
‘Is he speaking?’ There was a slight anxiety in Mihn’s voice, but Carel saw nothing in his face.
‘Nothing I could hear, but I saw his lips move from time to time. Why?’
‘No matter. Is he going to engrave it too?’
‘If you’re so interested, what’re you doing out here?’
Mihn ducked his head slightly and Carel immediately regretted his tone.
‘Sorry, lad, my mind’s still waking up. Feels like I’ve been in a trance while watching him. I think he’s going to engrave it, yes. He’s got some tools beside him - though I’ve never seen him do anything like it before.’
‘I doubt he has.’
Carel drew deeply on his pipe. ‘Being as mysterious as ever tonight, I see. Care to tell me?’
The smaller man shook his head, blinking away the smoke.
‘Then let me tell you something,’ said the veteran, his voice a low growl. Mihn caught the tone immediately and sat stock-still, his body almost quivering with readiness. Had it been almost any other man, Carel would have grabbed him by the tunic, but the image of the leopard rose in his mind once more. The drunken soldier had died.
Mihn had already proven his skill publicly. A friend of one of the soldiers he had felled in the barbican tunnel tried to secure some measure of revenge. He was a hulking brute, but a skilled one. His wrist was so badly dislocated the surgeons at the College of Magic had to be called in to repair the damage. A rib, snapped under a well-placed knee, was still giving him trouble. Carel had seen that Mihn had the killing blow ready and waiting. Luckily, it had not been needed.
‘Whatever penance you’re doing, I don’t care, see? I’ve smacked his arse and wiped his eyes; I’ve taught him when to fight and when to stand back. Even if you’d give your life for him, that’s nothing big to me. If you know something, if you even suspect it, don’t you dare hide it, not from me. In case your nose has been so far up his arse you haven’t noticed, Isak’s a white-eye. He’s a stubborn and wilful shit for much of the time, but I love him like a son and I know his mind better than he does. He can protect himself from others, but he’s no defence against himself.’
Mihn stared into Carel’s eyes and then, without warning, wilted. ‘I understand,’ he said quietly. ‘And I apologise. I held my tongue because there are those who expect great things, or fear them. I should trust you as he does.’
‘And so?’ replied Carel, a little mollified.
‘And so I believe he is beating magic into that sword. Whether he recognises it or not, Lord Isak seems to be something of a mage-smith.’
‘How can he not know it?’
‘If he has the skill, it will come naturally - not the complex spells of Eolis, which would take weeks of preparation, but a white-eye’s version. I’ve heard that mage-smiths go into a near-trance when they forge. I think Lord Isak is pouring raw magic into the blade to help it last, or be lighter to use. With a mind for forging, and his powers developing very recently, it’s an unsurprising outcome, but—’
‘But that’s not what people are likely to think,’ breathed Carel. ‘They’ll see the greatest mage-smith in history, practising his craft once more.’
‘Exactly. Does Lord Bahl have mages he can trust? Could we summon one to be here? It would be best if it were someone willing to take any credit if the sword does have any magic in it.’
‘I’m sure there will be. Go and wake Lesarl - he should be able to organise something like that.’
As Mihn slipped off into the chill darkness, Carel turned back to the closed door of the forge. The memory of Isak labouring away, his eyes closed and a smile on his lips, confirmed Mihn’s suspicions in his own mind.
‘Ah, my boy, you’ll be the death of me yet. I should be abed by now. Instead I’m playing nursemaid and waiting about in the dead of night for some fat mage.’ He chuckled to himself, pulling his fur tighter around him and taking slow puffs on his pipe until the night air grew too cold for him and he retreated inside the forge. Isak was as he had left him, but this time Carel sat closer and paid greater attention. He still couldn’t make out the words Isak was muttering over that blade, but they didn’t sound Farlan.
When the old man did finally retire for the night, it was with worry etched into his brow.
CHAPTER 23
Two days later they were ready. The cold heart of winter seemed to have thawed for a moment, and a rare sparkle of sun had lit up the previous afternoon when Isak finally emerged from the forge, happily exhausted. Fetching a mage from the College of Magic had turned out to be a real blessing, for Chirialt Dermeness, a strong, fit man of forty summers, was an authority on magical forging.
The man was not what Isak had expected. Even the battle-mages tended towards the portly, but Dermeness had realised that to be a mage-smith meant first of all being a capable smith. He himself had beaten out every piece of Count Vesna’s armour before engraving the necessary runes into its surface.
Mage Dermeness had, in a brief time, taught Isak much about the basics of the art. Isak had an image of the end result in his mind, and the mage had improved the reality. It had taken a full day of engraving, sharpening, sharpening again, and finally detailing with gold-leaf before the sword was ready. Then Isak had staggered away to sleep while Tila prepared his baggage and got everything ready to be off the next morning.
A bright, clear dawn found the Krann and his companions checking over their horses, waiting only for Bahl’s signal to be off. Isak stood between his two chargers, comfortable there as they hid his size a little. The smaller, Megenn, was close to eighteen hands in height, the second, named Toramin after a famous Farlan warhorse, was a shade off nineteen. Horses this big were ruinously expensive animals, frequently produced just to demonstrate a breeder’s skill. Crossing hunter stock with the largest breed of carthorse normally produced one viable charger in a dozen, but both of Isak’s were a horseman’s dream: incredibly powerful, and swift enough to keep up with hunters half their size.
Isak felt the eyes of the whole field on him, and the glare of Tila’s chaperone most pointed among them. Resisting the temptation to pull on his hood, he busied himself with checking Toramin’s saddle. He would have to get used to people staring; he’d endure far greater scrutiny than this in Narkang.
The crash of the doors to the Great Hall drew all heads as the Lord of the Farlan, hooded, but for once dressed in all his ducal finery, came through, Lesarl a
t his heels. Bahl’s eagle was emblazoned in white on a deep-red tunic, the sleeves of which were slashed to reveal the white silk underneath. Silver embroidery and pearl detailing gave the richly coloured fabrics texture. No one had expected the normally sombrely clad white-eye to make such an effort.
‘Sergeant Carelfolden,’ called the old lord as he approached. The veteran stepped up, a quizzical look on his face. Isak was close behind. Bahl took in the crowd watching with an air of approval before his eyes settled on Carel.
‘Lesarl reminds me that Narkang is a city of crass foreigners who respect only rank and wealth. You seem to have neither, so it would look strange for you to wear the same uniform as the guardsmen you command when you’re old enough to have fathered most of them. It would be more fitting if your presence in Isak’s party were justified by something more than the fact that you’re the only one who can tell him when to shut up.’
Carel smiled with the rest of the crowd. Bahl had been extremely impressed when, one evening in Isak’s chamber, Carel had clipped the youth round the ear for a typically impious comment. The old lord had been more impressed that Isak had accepted the chastisement without even a flicker of anger.
Later he’d told his Krann that his relationship with the old man was something to be cherished. Bahl had said nothing about the danger it posed; that they both recognised all too well.
‘There’s supposed to be some ceremony for this, but most of it is unnecessary. I know Isak is keen to be away. Betyn Carelfolden, please kneel.’
Carel dropped to one knee immediately, his head bowed low, almost hiding the surprise on his face. Bahl reached to his hip and drew White Lightning. The massive broadsword looked a little incongruous next to the lush velvets and silks. He lifted the blade and laid it down on Carel’s right shoulder. The veteran raised his eyes as the blade stayed there, instead of moving over to his other shoulder, as would happen with a knighthood. Less than a foot from his eye was one of the spikes that curved out from the wide base of the blade. It was hard to fight the prickle of nervousness as that lethal edge sat so close.