Hammer & Air (16 page)

That night, I woke up briefly to Hammer’s light touch on my cheek. I smiled a little in the bright moon from the window and then fell back asleep, and we must have worked harder than I’d thought (we were making sure the cottage were spruce for the next lost children it gave haven to in the woods) because when I woke up again, the moon had moved from our window to below the horizon, and Hammer’s side of the bed were stone cold.

The bear were gone also.

There were noises coming from the living room—sounds, from the bear prince’s throat that I knew very well. And not a sound, not even a grunt, from the other person who should have been there.

My heart fluttered in my throat with iron wings, and I parted the door to the sitting room.

Hammer were there, and for a moment, my relief were such I had to fight to stay standing. Prince or no, the other one wore the form of the bear until midnight, and for a moment… oh gods… for a moment, I’d feared to find Hammer, bloody and… gods. I didn’t even want to dwell on that moment, not ever again.

So Hammer’s form were there, but his heart? His mind?

His body were bent over the chesterfield, his face toward me in the firelight. His eyes were as vacant and as featureless as the sky in a snowstorm.

I endured it,
he said once of his time with the smith. Endured indeed. Whatever the bear prince had said (and I knew… ah, gods, I knew the one thing he could have said to bring this about) whatever transaction had gone between them to cause this, Hammer were not doing this by choice. He endured this violation in the hope of a better choice to come.

The prince’s hand raised then, as he neared his climax, and came down with a resounding smack to Hammer’s bare arse. I flinched, but I didn’t have to look to know that Hammer did not. Flinching would have meant he were doing other than “enduring.”

It weren’t long. The prince heaved his hips forward, again, and again, and then he moaned and spent and sighed inside my Hammer. Hammer waited for a moment, his cock shriveled and thriftless between his legs, and then stood stiffly and turned with heavy movements toward me—and toward, I were sure, the washroom.

He didn’t seem particularly surprised to see me there, but then he didn’t look me in the eyes, either. Hammer—who had never quailed to meet my gaze, no matter how much he thought he were wanting in my eyes.

My blood pulsed in my ears with a terrible tumult, and my hands shook as I caught his chin in my hand.

“You
never
need to hide from me!” I hissed. “And there will
always
be a Hammer and an Eirn!”

And then I were in the front room, my fist clenched, and I barely felt the thrum through my shoulder as it connected with the bear prince’s jaw.

Part IX
Traps and Hunters

The prince didn’t look surprised to find himself on his arse, rubbing the bruise on his jaw, but he did look smug.

He didn’t look so smug when I followed it up with a kick about the ribs—a kick that didn’t land, but only because he could move pretty damned fast. He scrambled to his feet, looking a bit alarmed now, but it weren’t enough.

“
He’s MINE!
” I howled. “
Mine!
And I’m
his!
You knew this when you slunk into our bed. I told you at the beginning, and I thought you understood, well, you understand now, don’t you?”

He had the nerve to extend a placating hand to me, and I wished so violently for a weapon, I were not surprised to hear the clatter of a knife falling out of the cupboard.

I turned my head to the side and spat instead. “I told you ‘no’, dammit. I told you I’d follow him to the ends of the fucking earth, and I will, and you thought that if you took him, you’d take the way I felt. Well, you can’t! Hammer and me—we’re twined together, like rose bushes or wrought iron, and you can’t untangle us, and if you did, you’d have to break us! Don’t you see what you’ve done? You tried to
break Hammer!
He’s mine! My whole life, the only thing I’ve ever wanted were  him, and you tried to break him! And why? So you could have me? You don’t care for me! I were kind to you, and you think that’s… that’s….”

It were so obvious. We’d been reading fairy stories this whole winter, and they used this word, and used it, until our ears were deaf to it. It were what made the prince find the maiden, and the reason the maiden held out for her prince. It were why the girl brought pastries to her grandam, and why the children held hands in the woods. It were the thing that brought down kingdoms and restored families, and caused the girl making shirts for her brothers to persevere, even though her life almost came to an end for it. It were the one thing, the one moment, the one heartbeat that ran through every story, but that we had never heard, not since we had been put in the same bed together and stood back to back in the playground, ready to defend the other to the death.

It were the one word that made our hearts beat, and the one thing that would make me rather draw blood from a prince than turn my back on a blacksmith.

“That’s
love
!” I finished, my face hot and my eyes burning, and my throat so tight I could barely speak. “That’s
love
, and not once have you felt it for me. Gratitude, and wanting, of that I have no doubt. But me and Hammer, we’re bigger than that. We may never be more than tradesmen to you, but even if we never get our cabin, even if we never get our dreams, even if we have to settle for a cot in the back of a master’s shop, we’ll still be more than you are, because that is what we have!”

I tried to take a deep breath, but I couldn’t. My chest were too wracked with the power of my heart, and my hands were shaking as they came up to press the salt from my eyes.

I wiped them and felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned to envelop Hammer in my trembling arms. He were wearing pants with no shirt, and his skin felt flushed and heated under my anger-clammy hands.

“I’m sorry, Hammer,” I said gruffly. “I should have given you the word forever ago. It’s been our word from the start.”

I looked behind me to the prince, and he were looking at us with stricken, remorseful eyes.

He still couldn’t speak—whatever geas had held him trapped in bear form while here during the day had not faded. But his mouth moved, the words as clear to my blurred vision as they would have been if he’d actually put a voice to them.

“I’m sorry.”

I shook my head, too angry to forgive. “Gerrout!” I swore, the old word holding so much more hatred than the proper one.

He had his hand on the doorknob, still naked and running like a man, when the first light of dawn slid through our window, and he loped off into the still-dark morning in the form of a bear.

I didn’t care. Hammer were quaking in my arms, and I had to find words now that would give him his bones back, when he thought he’d sold them for my heart.

“I love you,” I whispered. “That’s our word now, Hammer. It’s not just for princes and servant girls. It’s for us too.”

“I thought he would take you,” Hammer muttered. “I know I said I could set you free, but a chance just to be near you. To see you, to work for you….”

I were crying now, like a child or a girl, and I couldn’t mask it. “Never,” I ground out. “You bow to no one, Hammer. You don’t bow to the likes of him.” I pulled myself together and framed his broad, bluff, dear, handsome face with my nimble, long-fingered hands. “I’ll die before you have to
endure
a thing in order to be near me, beloved. You’re mine. I couldn’t love you if you weren’t bigger than princes and braver than knights. You’re perfect. You’re my Hammer, forever and ever and ever….” I couldn’t talk anymore, and he saved me, as he’d saved me from the first, and met my eyes with a bit of a smile.

“There will always be a Hammer and Eirn, right?”

I nodded helplessly. Gods of magic, gods of motion, thank you, for my Hammer, safe in my arms.

We stayed there for a few moments, shaking, touching, pulling ourselves together, and then Hammer stepped back and wiped his cheeks with the backs of his hand.

“We still leaving today?” he asked gruffly, and I said, “Aye.”

“Good,” he replied. “We’re up. Let’s start breakfast and say goodbye to the place so we can leave before the sun is high.”

I nodded my head and went to get dressed. Neither of us mentioned that in order to leave, we would have to go through the bear’s cave, and that the bear might be waiting for us there, broken hearted and as violent as I had been.

I washed and put the privy to rights, then closed the drawers with their fine clothes regretfully one last time. We made the bed together, and I patted it fondly—it had welcomed us, welcomed what we had done in it, whether it had been for love or for play, and it would be hard to go back to a bedroll on the forest floor again. I found, once again, that the toy bear we’d put in our knapsack had ended up as a decoration there, and I kissed it, half embarrassed, and propped it up on the pillow, as though we’d be coming home to it in a day.

I turned to Hammer, who watched me do this, and shrugged. “All that it’s given us,” I murmured. “It’s the only gift we’ve got to give back.” Hammer nodded, put a hand on my shoulder and kissed my cheek, understanding. Our childhood, left behind in this place—it seemed fitting.

We went into the kitchen as the sky turned pink, and I were surprised to see Hammer rolling up the big sheets of parchment we’d used to plan our home with, with more care than I’d seen him show anything but my flesh.

“It’s ours,” he said, his voice like tree bark. “They’re our dreams, the home of our heart. Even if it never comes to be, it won’t matter. We thought it for each other. We should keep it.”

I nodded and swallowed, tried out our new word. “I love you, Hammer.”

He blushed, and his head dropped a little, but he held my eyes with his own of lake-blue. “Love you, too, Eirn. Ready to make breakfast?”

The cupboard gave us a feast this morning—eggs and soft bread, bacon and ham and fruit and tomatoes. I cooked the meat to make sandwiches and patted the cupboard in thanks.

“You’ve been wonderful,” I told it, feeling absurdly sad. “We’ve felt cared for here in a way we never had. We can’t thank you enough, little cottage. You’ve a heart in you bigger than your floors and ceiling, and sturdier than your foundations, and we’ll never forget you.”

There were a tiny clatter from the back of the shelves then, and I reached in curiously. There in my hand were the small seeing glass I’d brought from the orphanage and had needed to sell for food.

“Aw…” I sniffled. “That weren’t fair at all, little house. I hope you saved some kindness for the next children you find lost in the woods, and I hope they care for you like we did.”

Hammer and I finished packing up the food in silence, then. It had obviously been meant as a parting gift, and we would need it.

We had just finished getting our knapsacks together and were starting on the dishes when we heard the first scream.

It were a wild animal, a big one. It were a bear.

And he were in pain.

We looked at each other.

He’d betrayed us. He’d betrayed Hammer in the worst of ways—Hammer didn’t even have to tell me what he’d said to know that. He’d betrayed me by trying to trick Hammer, and my anger burned molten in my gut for it, that were a certainty.

But we’d heard that sound before. That were the scream of a creature trapped and in pain. It rang in our ears like the howl of the mountain cat Hammer had injured. The injury wouldn’t kill him, but the results of it were just as deadly.

It screamed again and again, and we nodded at each other as though something had been decided. Hammer picked up the packs, and I went to take the carving knife out of the soapy water, when there were a tromping of big boots on our little porch, and the front door splintered open.

Part X
Blood on the Threshold

He were a bloody great-sized man, he were, covered in black hair and a beard and wearing boots with rusty iron findings and animal skins. He seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see him.

“Two o’ ya?” he growled, as he surveyed the cottage, and the door slammed off the back of the wall. “This place looked near to deserted on the outside!” (Later this would have struck us as odd, for all our preparation to leave. I’m thinking the little cottage tried to dissuade the likes of this one from coming in with a bit of camouflage, and good on it for that!)

Hammer looked up from his pack, and I saw his hand inching inside. His hammer were there, and neither of us liked this stranger one bit. I kept my hands in the dishwater, and my fist wrapped around the handle of the carving knife the cupboard had given me when I were in my killing rage.

“Is it customary in your parts to just barge on in?” Hammer said with a scowl, and the man laughed. He took two giant strides into the kitchen and eyed us both with dismissal. Apparently, not even Hammer’s massy chest looked like a threat.

“Not much two little bits of you are going to do to stop me, now is there?” he boomed. “I’ve got a bear in a trap not far from here. I’m going to need some place to smoke and dress the meat. Saw this little place, thought it were a damned sight more pleasant than any camp I could make, and I were right!”

A slow, evil smile bloomed across the man’s face then. “And look atcha both! You’re near to pretty as girls! It’s been a long time since I had a girl.”

“I ain’t a girl!” Hammer snapped, “And he ain’t yours. Don’t you have a bear to kill?” He met my eyes and grimaced, and I knew that neither of us were going to let him kill that bear if we could help it, but first we had to get us out of our sweet little cottage.

The man’s hand moved so fast to backhand Hammer that not even Hammer could lift a hand to defend himself. He went spinning to the bare wood boards of the kitchen floor, and I had to fight to keep my hands in the dishwater and my fist clenched.

In a quick stride, the hunter were directly behind me, his groin pressed into my backside, his meaty hands on my shoulder. He stood a head taller than I did—a giant of a man—and he smelled of rancid meat and his own filth.