Chapter Twelve

 

 

Odrick paused in grinding the latest blade in his father’s shop to wipe the sweat from his forehead. It was hot here, the forges going full blast as they had for days while they tried to meet the impossible demand of the weapons the city needed. Weapons to equip the men and women who’d joined the army of Valeria in the hopes of defending their homes from the monsters—men and nightlings both—who sought to destroy them.

He’d slept little of late, a story all too common in Valeria just now. He and his father had been working in shifts for days, his father even taking on an apprentice—a thing he’d always sworn never to do. It was necessary to meet the demand Alesh had made of them. Although, they each only slept an hour or two at night, Odrick and his father were already behind, and it seemed likely many of those brave defenders would go into battle armed only with their courage.

He glanced over to the corner of the forge where his father’s apprentice, Pellen, a boy of no more than a dozen years, napped. He sat with his back pressed against the wall, the only person who’d answered his father’s summons for apprentices. In normal times, that would have shocked Odrick, for his father was known not just within the city but through Telrear as being one of the finest smiths of his generation—possibly the finest.

For years his father had practically had to beat off would-be apprentices and their stubborn fathers with a stick. Now though, those people who didn’t join the army seemed to want nothing more than to hide in their homes, as if the invading army was no more than a roaming bear, one that might be easily enough avoided with a locked door. Odrick couldn’t blame them, not really, for he too was afraid, perhaps more than others since, being Rion’s friend, he knew far more of the dire situation the city faced than most. Knew, in fact, far more than he wanted to.

Although Pellen had known nothing about smithing, an extra set of hands around the shop had sped things up considerably. He wondered at the boy, sitting there now. When he’d arrived, wearing little more than linen rags, caked with dirt and grime, and with a decidedly malnourished look, the youth had claimed to be a noble’s son from a neighboring city, one who’d traveled to Valeria with his retinue to visit his aunt. A lie, of course, and one that the girl, Marta, would no doubt have been ashamed of.

For one, there was the boy’s clothes—or what was left of them. Even had his caravan been set on by nightlings and bandits, as he’d said, no nobleman’s son would be wearing tattered linen trousers and a shirt that most of the city’s poorest citizens would have thrown out. Neither did it explain his speech. Odrick had been around plenty of nobles in his time—far more than he would have liked, truth be told—and the boy didn’t share their educated, if affected and pompous, way of speaking. Instead, he spoke like what he was—a poor commoner waif who lived on the streets. But the biggest indication he was lying was the fact that, according to him, he and his father hadn’t heard about Valeria being besieged. This was not only implausible—it was practically impossible. Odrick was confident that, by now, news of the threat to the city had spread throughout the width and breadth of Telrear, thought it likely it had reached far-off countries like Welia—or, if not, soon would. News always traveled fast and bad news, after all, traveled the fastest by far.

Still, they’d taken the lie for what it was, not malicious in intent, only a gamble to find some way off the street and away from the criminals which, according to rumor, were growing ever more desperate along with the rest of the city. He’d heard they were taking advantage of the reduced guard patrols to risk the wealthier parts of Valeria, places they normally wouldn’t have dared go. Odrick and his father had fed the boy—who despite his small size had eaten more than Odrick and his father combined—then his father had put him to work, his gruff manner unable to hide the pity he felt for the boy from Odrick, who’d known him too long.

He considered waking Pellen now—after all, his nap time had come and gone—but decided to let the boy rest. If things got as bad as they seemed to be heading toward, they’d all be missing sleep soon enough. Taking another slow but shallow breath—the thick, hot air of the forges made a deep one almost impossible—he shook out his sweaty hair and lifted the blade he’d been working on once more.

He had barely even begun grinding down the edges again when a knock came at the door behind him. It opened to reveal a massive figure. At first, Odrick thought it was his father, for he knew no one else of equal size to his dad or himself save for Sigan, the crime boss, and it didn’t seem likely that the man would visit his father’s shop. After a moment, though, he realized that the figure wasn’t his dad, after all, and of course it wouldn’t have made any sense for his father to knock on the door of his own shop.

The stranger wore a gray robe that was obviously too small for him, stretching across the bulk of his shoulders and arms and looking as if it might tear at any moment. His hood was up, obscuring his face save for the vague outline of a jaw and cheeks covered in gray stubble.

The man didn’t grunt or cry out, only stood there. But there was something about the way he stood that, despite his size and menacing appearance, made Odrick think he was wounded. “Sorry, sir,” Odrick said for what must have been the hundredth time that week, “we’re not taking orders just now.”

“Orders?” the man asked gruffly in a voice that put Odrick in mind of the sound of two boulders rubbing together.

“That’s right,” he said, adding what he judged was just the right amount of apology and firmness in his tone, something he’d grown good at lately. “We’ve got orders from the castle, Chosen Alesh himself, so I’m afraid we can’t afford to take on any more work, not now. Truth be told, we’re all having to work far more than normal as it is.”

The stranger’s hooded head turned to regard the sleeping boy in the corner. “I can see that,” he said dryly.

Odrick grunted, offended for the boy who was probably enjoying the first restful sleep he’d had in years, for once not having to worry about someone robbing him or worse while he rested. “Look, I told you we can’t take any orders, alright? Try back in a few weeks, maybe then we’ll be able to help you.”

The man barked what might have been a harsh laugh. “In a few weeks, you and the rest of the city won’t even be here, lad.”

The stranger might have been big, but Odrick was, too, and he drew himself up to his full height, conscious of the blunted blade he held in one gloved hand. “I don’t do well with threats, stranger.”

“Relax, boy,” the figure said. “I don’t mean you any harm. Besides, that wasn’t a threat. I saw some of the city’s guards on my way in—or, at least, what seems to be passin’ for guards these days. Most of ‘em without swords and more’n a few who look like they wouldn’t know what to do with one, even if they had it. Seems to me, the army of that bastard the Broken does show up, you are as likely to defeat them with mean words as blades.”

Odrick’s frown deepened. He’d been thinking much the same thoughts lately, but he didn’t like hearing it from this stranger’s mouth. He wanted to defend the city, to defend Alesh and Rion and all the others. “Well,” he said. “I’ll be sure to tell Chosen Alesh you don’t approve—I’m sure he’ll be interested to know it.”

The big man grunted. “Might be I’ll tell him myself. But not now. Right now, my place is here, doin’ the work I was made to do, and gods but it sure looks like there’s plenty to be done.”

Odrick sighed. Clearly a madman, that was all, some wandering beggar or brute overcome by his fear of the impending siege. “Know something of crafting then, do you?” he asked, more to humor the man than anything, his only thought on getting the stranger out of the shop as quickly as he could, so he could get back to work as he was falling further and further behind with each minute that passed.

Another grating laugh from the man. “Oh, I know a bit, lad. You could even say I was chosen for the task.”

He said the last strangely, as if it should mean something to Odrick, but Odrick shrugged. “Well, you’re welcome to come back in a few hours—my father, he owns the shop, ought to be back by then. He’s been looking for some help, and he might take you on. He’ll teach you, we both will, best we can, though, I’ll warn you, we can’t pay much. Times have been tough lately.”

The big man ran a thick, calloused hand along his stomach, grunting. “You ain’t tellin’ me nothin. They been tough all around. Anyway, I didn’t come for you to teach me—I came to teach you. You and your father.”

Odrick was becoming angry now. The man was being needlessly cryptic, and maybe he was crazy, but Odrick’s father was the most celebrated smith of his generation. Having to listen to some stranger act as if he were his better galled him. “Listen, I’ve had just about enough of your blather. Now, why don’t you get out, alright? Find someone else to bother.”

He turned back to the grinder, working the blade through once more, but paused when he felt a hand on his shoulder—a massive, long-fingered hand as big as a dinner plate. Though the hand rested on his shoulder softly enough, it was also firm as it turned him around. Odrick raised his fists, for it seemed that the stranger wouldn’t be satisfied until they had it out, but the man held up his other hand in a gesture of peace.

“Easy, lad. I told you, I’ve no quarrel with you. Your father’s a fine smith, a master and no mistake. I can tell as much by his work.” He nodded his head toward the finished blades hanging on one side of the wall. “And you are a master too, though it seems you don’t know it yet. I’m confident any of the so-called soldiers manning the walls’d be lucky to have one of the blades fashioned here. But blades can only do so much, and they ain’t the best weapon we have, not against what’s comin’. I can tell you now, they won’t be enough.” He grunted, and when he spoke again his voice was considerably lower, little more than a whisper. “Truth is, nothin’ might be.” He sighed. “Gods, I’m not good at this. Brent was always the man for this sort of thing. Still, I’m alive and he’s dead, and we all do what we must. I’m sorry, alright? If I offended you. It wasn’t my intention.”

Odrick studied the man carefully, revising his opinion. Not mad, perhaps, but with a gruff way of speaking that might easily give offense, even if none was meant. That much, at least, Odrick could sympathize with. He, too, often gave offense, if for no other reason than his size, so many young nobles feeling threatened by it, seeing the need to mock or challenge him, eager to prove that they were the better man.

“You said earlier that you might tell Chosen Alesh yourself. What did you mean by that? Do…do you know him?”

“I had that pleasure,” the man agreed. “At least, for a time. Knew his other friends too—Rion and Darl, Katherine and that strange girl, Marta.” His face split into a grin visible even in the shadows of his hood. “And Sonya, of course. Too good for this world, that one. Too good by far. All livin’ it up in the castle now, I imagine.” He shrugged, rolling his massive shoulders. “Never much took to castle life myself, but to each his own.”

Despite the man’s gruff exterior—perhaps even because of it—Odrick found that he believed him. Found, too, that he sort of liked the man. Gruff, after all, often meant direct, and his father had never had time for people who danced around what they meant. He considered telling the man about Sonya’s kidnapping but decided against it. He might have seemed nice enough, in his way, but then Odrick had been fooled before, more times than he could count, and he didn’t think it wise to volunteer such information to a man he’d only just met.

“You said you could teach us? What makes you think you can show us anything we don’t already know? My father, in particular. He’s been smithing since he was younger than I am now, and if there’s another person in the world knows more about it than him, I’ve yet to meet him.” He shrugged. “Or her, I suppose.”

“Well, now you have,” the man said, not as if bragging but as if stating a simple fact. “Your father is a smith, true—possibly the best smith for a hundred years. But I’m not just a smith, boy.” He paused to unlace the ties of his cloak, and he moved, Odrick noted, with deliberate care, once again making him think the man was injured. A suspicion that was confirmed a moment later when the stranger finished undoing his cloak, removing it to display a blood-stained shirt with holes in it, underneath which Odrick could see bandages wrapped tight about his torso. “No,” the man continued, “I’m not just a smith. Folks call me The Builder.”

The Builder. Odrick knew the name given to Chosen Larin during the Nightfall Wars, the man said to be the most talented crafter of all time. All smiths knew of him, spoke of him with reverence, some even choosing to pray to him instead of Amedan. To see him—or at least a man claiming to be him—standing in front of him was almost as shocking to Odrick as if that same man had claimed to be Amedan himself.

Odrick realized several seconds had passed in stunned silence, the man studying him intently. He snapped his mouth shut—realizing, too, that he’d been gaping like a landed fish—then took a slow breath. “This some kind of joke?” he demanded in a stern voice. Or, at least, he tried to. Instead, his voice came out in an undeniable squeak, and he cleared his throat.

But if the man were telling a joke, he must not have thought it funny, for he only studied Odrick for another moment before sighing and rubbing his temples. “Never been much for jokin’, lad. Never been much for talkin’ neither. Look, we’re wastin’ time here, alright? Each second we argue is one second we won’t have to do the things need doin’. And as I told you before,” he said, glancing around the shop pointedly, “we’re already behind.”

“Look,” Odrick said, “I appreciate your offer to help, and if you really can show my father and me something we don’t know, I’d be pleased to see it. After all, my da always told me a man whose pride weighs so much he carries it around in both hands doesn’t have a hand free to pick up whatever else—knowledge, wisdom, truth—comes along. Still, I think it best you come back when my fa—”

As if on cue, the door to the smith’s shop slammed open—his father, for all his talents, had never been a subtle man—and he loomed in the doorway. He paid no notice to Odrick and their guest, at least not at first. Instead, his gaze fell on Pellen asleep in the corner. But instead of waking him up, his mouth shifted in what might have been a slight smile.

Then he turned back to Odrick and the stranger, grunting. “Sorry, fella, but as my son has no doubt told you—” His words cut off as the man turned, meeting his gaze. Odrick’s father wasn’t an emotional man. In fact, Odrick could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen any expression on his father’s face except for the normal placid, gruff one that he’d been wearing when he entered the shop.

But as he took note of the stranger, his face twisted. His eyes went so wide it seemed they would pop right out of his head, and a look of wonder came over his face, one that Odrick had never seen—and certainly never thought to see—there. It was the kind of look one would see on a child’s face if the hero from his storybook suddenly came to life and stood before him.

“C-Chosen?” Odrick’s father breathed.

Larin sighed wearily, but there was a grin on his face. “How many times do I have to tell you—Larin and Larin only. It’s not enough I got those priests of Amedan prayin’ to me as if I’m damned near a god myself. I shouldn’t have to worry about my damned apprentice treatin’ me so.”

“A-apprentice?” Odrick sputtered, truly confused now.

Larin grunted. “Well, close as I ever got to takin’ one, anyway.” He turned back to Odrick’s father. “Been a long time, Ralt. How you been, lad?”

“I’ve been good, sir,” Odrick’s father said, beaming from ear to ear, an expression that looked impossibly youthful on his normally stern face.

Lad? Sir? Odrick’s thoughts were jumbled and unclear.

Suddenly, Odrick realized that he’d just spent the better part of the last half hour disrespecting a Chosen, essentially threatening him or calling him a liar by turns, and he felt his face flush with heat. “Chosen,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper as he dropped to one knee, bowing his head. “I’m very sorry—”

“Oh, gods, stand up, lad,” Larin said in an embarrassed, almost panicked voice.

Odrick did, wincing. “But, sir, I didn’t mean to disrespect—”

Larin snorted. “A good boy you have here, Ralt, if a bit timid. Still…” He paused, eyeing Odrick up and down. “I imagine if he decided to, he could ruin a few bastards’ days with those arms of his. Look like tree trunks, they do.”

Odrick was well aware of the fact that, of the three of them, he was probably slightly the smallest and certainly no bigger, but he felt a wave of pleasure at the compliment anyway. He glanced at his dad who grinned. “Yeah, he’ll do,” his father said, then his expression sobered, and he turned back to regard Larin. “Heard tell you’d been killed, sir. Glad to hear it was just talk.”

“Not killed,” the big man agreed. “But not for lack of tryin’.” Odrick’s father opened his mouth to speak but cut off as Larin lifted his shirt, showing the thick bandages wrapped around his stomach and chest.

“Gods,” Odrick breathed, for though he’d noted the bandages, he’d had no idea how many of them there were nor how much blood stained them. It was a wonder the man could stand. “S-sir, you should lie down. I’ll fetch a healer and—”

“Later,” Larin said gruffly. “There’s no time to rest, not now. We’ve got work to do.

He rolled up the sleeves of his tunic and started deeper into the shop, but Odrick spoke from behind him. “B-but, sir. Your wound…doesn’t it hurt?”

The big man grinned, sharing a look with Odrick’s father. “Me and your dad, we been around a while, lad. One of the things about gettin’ old is that hurtin’ becomes normal. Fact is, if I woke up and wasn’t pained by old scars or old regrets, didn’t ache from a back too tired from carryin’ it’s burdens or joints that sounded like creaky wagon wheels when I moved, I’m not sure I’d know what to think.”

Odrick winced. “Sounds terrible,” he said.

Larin laughed. “Ah, it ain’t so bad. Gives you somethin’ to bitch about, anyway, and most men enjoy a good bitch well enough. Besides, there’s worse things than pain. Hurtin’s what lets you know you’re still alive, boy. It’s when the pain stops all together that you really ought to get worried. Now, that’s enough talk. Time we got to work and let our hands do the talkin’ for us. And wake the boy, will you?” he said, jerking his chin at the still sleeping apprentice. “We’ll need all the help we can get.”