The Kinshield Legacy (15 page)

“I feel terrible,” Gavin said quietly. “But what can I do? I got to go.”

“You’ve been telling him that for two years, Little Brother,” Rogan said. “Have you ever kept a promise you made?” He lit the stove and shut the wood box.

“It hasn’t been two years,” Gavin said. “Has it?”

Liera nodded with a defeated smile. “Just about.”

Then it struck him. Papa knew because Gavin had been making and breaking promises all his life, even as a boy. Afraid to be pinned down to what he feared he couldn’t live up to. “Damn it,” he whispered. “Damn it all to hell and back.”

This wouldn’t do. Jaesh was growing into manhood and Gavin visited too rarely to share in any of it. Jaesh had been the first baby he’d ever held, the first person ever to look up to Gavin as a man, and now look at what a disappointment his uncle had become to him. Gavin made a silent promise – to himself – that he would come back as soon as he delivered Calewen’s Pendant and got his new sword.

“Papa?” GJ sat up on the couch with a confused expression.

“I’m here, Son,” Rogan said. He went to sit by GJ’s side.

“I dreamed a little girl put white butterflies on my leg and made it all better.”

Gavin’s daughter had been especially fond of butterflies. The blood drained from his head and he reached for the table to steady himself. He did not need to ask whether the little girl in GJ’s dream had copper colored hair or blue eyes or freckles on her nose.

“Well, how’s it feel?” Rogan asked his son. He winked at Gavin.

GJ thought for a moment. “It doesn’t hurt. Mama, my leg doesn’t hurt.”

“I’m so glad, love. Maybe the pain tea’s finally working,” Liera replied. “Let’s get ready to eat, and I’ll fix you some more.”

GJ started to get up from the couch.

“Take it easy, Son.” Rogan put a hand on the boy’s chest. “Don’t try to get up just yet.”

“But Papa--”

Rogan’s stern look stopped the argument. “Just because it’s feeling better doesn’t mean it’s healed.”

But it was healed, and Gavin knew it.

Chapter 14

Trader’s Square sat just inside Tern’s gate. Canopies and carts lined the streets in front of the shops and attracted shoppers and merchants, beggars and cutpurses, leaving little room for travelers to squeeze past them to get into the city proper.

Daia looked in awe at the vast city rolling out before her. She’d grown up within its familiar and comfortable walls, but knowing she could run into a disapproving relative or one of her father’s business associates made her neck itch.

The merchant Yardof stopped his wagon, and Daia collected the rest of the payment for their escort before striking a deal for one of his gargoyles. She selected one of the light-colored wooden figurines, shoved it into her leather pack, and shook hands with Yardof and his daughter. Naylen waved mournfully from the wagon’s bed as it headed into the belly of the city, slowly devoured by the crowd.

Daia turned to JiNese. “Where’s our outpost? I need to get the money Tennara’s been collecting before I return to Sohan.”

“Come on, I’ll show you,” JiNese said.

Daia dismounted to walk beside JiNese toward the southwest. Cirang led the way atop her horse.

“Are you going to get a new horse before you return?” Daia asked.

“I doubt it,” JiNese replied. “I haven’t the money, and besides, Aminda has agreements with local horse breeders. I can walk back or ride double with Cirang.”

“No thanks to Daia,” Cirang shot. “You should give JiNese your horse to ride, and walk back yourself.”

“Cirang,” Daia said. “Just shut up.”

“Don’t worry,” JiNese said. “I’ll stand beside you when we tell Aminda.”

“My thanks.”

Cirang turned and glared at JiNese.

The lordover had always made an effort to keep the city’s entry point, Trader’s Square and main thoroughfares clean and attractive. But here, every house, every shop they passed looked like a sick dog that had crawled off to die. Flies swarmed everywhere, and the smell made Daia long for a bath. Children grew up in this filth. The Lordover should do something about it.

A barefoot and dirty-faced child dressed in rags jostled Daia’s coin purse as he ran past, and Daia clutched it to her hip. Little urchins could snatch her purse and be gone before she had a chance to react. “Where’s our outpost? I expected it to be closer to the city gate.”

“Watch out,” JiNese said. She grabbed Daia’s arm and pulled her away just as someone threw the contents of a chamber pot onto the dirt road.

“Ugh! That’s disgusting,” Daia said.

“What, highbrows don’t piss?” Cirang said.

JiNese made a rude gesture. “Did you see the guard post far just inside the city gate? The lordover’s not using it. We want to lease it. It has a room big enough for a couple of beds, so we could save money on lodging.”

“And be readily available for escorts,” Daia said. “It sounds ideal.”

“That’s our current outpost.” JiNese pointed to a tiny shack.

Its rudimentary door hung lower on one side than on the other and left gaps on the sides. Only a stick on a nail latched it shut. The rusted and dented tin roof sat so lightly upon the walls that a good sneeze might have sent it sailing into the sky. On an overturned crate in front of the shack, sat a woman sharpening a knife. Cirang dismounted, and she and Daia hitched their horses to the post beside the shack.

“Hail, Tennara,” Daia said.

Tennara climbed to her feet and extended a hand to each of her fellow Sisters. Gentle lines framed her smile. She had an angular, freckled face with deep-set laugh lines beside her eyes that belied the stern expression she wore. Daia knew no one as agreeable as this battler, nor as deadly. She served as a model for the principles upon which the Sisterhood was founded.

“Which one of you is returning to Sohan first?” she asked.

“I am,” Daia said. “I’m supposed to collect something from you.”

Tennara looked her over. “Not my knife, I hope. You should be carrying a second blade.”

“What are you talking about?” Daia asked as she looked down at herself. Her sword hung ready at her left hip, but the sheath on her right was empty. “Callibisters! I must have lost my dagger in the beyonder fight. I’ll look for it on my way back.”

“Callibisters?” Cirang laughed. “Is that the best you can do? Oh, I forgot. Highbrows don’t curse. That would be unladylike.”

“Unlike yours, Cirang, my mouth and my ass have different functions,” Daia shot back.

Tennara turned to Cirang. “Don’t tell me Aminda sent you to negotiate with the lordover.”

Cirang sneered. “I can be diplomatic when I need to be.”

“You mean, you can hand him cow shit and make him think it’s rose petals,” Tennara said.

“You call it cow shit; I call it ‘a rich, fragrant material to encourage growth.’”

They all laughed.

“Listen,” Tennara said. “The lordover passed a law a few days ago forbidding women to carry blades longer than ten inches in the city. We all need to--”

“What?!” Daia shrieked.

“--try to avoid the men-at-arms. I doubt you’re going to have success convincing him to repeal it, and I suspect that you traveled all this way for naught. From what I hear, he’s calling for your return,” Tennara said, turning her eyes to Daia. “If you renounced your affiliation to the Sisterhood and reclaimed your place as his heiress, supposedly he’d repeal the law.”

“What a grand idea,” Cirang said, slapping Daia’s back. “You should do it – for the good of the Sisterhood. Show us what a noble woman you are.”

“To hell with you,” JiNese said, shoving Cirang’s shoulder. “Daia’s a better battler than you’ll ever be.”

“Ladies, please,” Tennara said. “I’m sure you two will present an argument so compelling that he will gladly repeal the law without such a ridiculous stipulation. If not, he can arrest us and have the entire Sisterhood pounding fists on his door.”

This was insane. Daia couldn’t believe her father would be so vindictive. Yes, he was a jackass, but this law was beyond ludicrous. Her fists trembled, and she clenched her jaw. She had more than a few words to say about it, and say them she would. Loudly. As Daia started toward her horse, Tennara seized her arm.

“Do you think you’re in the right frame of mind to talk to him now?” the elder battler asked.

“No, I’m not,” she said. “But he’s gone too far this time. He--” Daia stiffened. He was baiting her. He wanted her to go storming into his office so he could detain her. This was just another attempt at controlling the daughter with whom he’d always been at odds. The better plan would be to find out what Cirang and JiNese had to say after their meeting, and perhaps confront the lordover later. Daia breathed a sigh. “You’re right.”

“Let JiNese and Cirang have a chance with him first. We might be surprised. Are you returning to Sohan right away?”

At Daia’s nod, Tennara gave her the money she’d been collecting for her services in Tern. Daia added it to the money she’d received from the merchant.

“I’m going to find lodging near the edge of the city,” she told JiNese and Tennara, avoiding eye contact with Cirang. “That way I can rise early and be on my way without having to travel through the market during the morning frenzy.”

Chapter 15

Risan Stronghammer’s skin glistened in the red glow of the furnace. After melting the iron ore, he poured it into a mold to create a long strip, then heated and hammered it flat. He heated it twice more to infuse it with the power of fire. Satisfied that it was the best quality steel he could forge, he mixed iron ore with the sky rocks he’d saved. While he had no name for this metal, he knew its strength by the way it felt when he hammered it, and by the color and intensity of its glow when heated. When he turned the metal bar over and began to pound it again, the dreamlike sensation that he’d done this before told him he was on the right path.

Once he had the metal forged, he folded the steel with the sky rock alloy. Never had he tried this pattern welding in waking life, and he questioned the wisdom of using a new technique on a sword so important. The king’s sword. But Risan had to follow his dream -- his premonition -- and his dream-self had folded the metals this way.

He pounded it for hours, heating, folding and shaping it until it was exactly the sword he’d envisioned. Finally, he plunged it into a vat of snake blood to harden it, knowing its viscosity would cool the metal at just the right rate.

When, at last, he’d tempered, sharpened and polished the sword and bolted its hilt to the tang, Risan took it outside and held it in the sunlight. The pattern created by his folding technique, along with colors the sky rock alloy reflected, gave the surface of the blade the appearance of snake scales. He smiled, pleased with his work.

No,
he told himself.
I must look at it objectively.
Was it good enough to present to the king? He took it back into his forge and held the flat of the blade on the top of his work bench, bearing down on the hilt to test its flex. The blade was stiff, but bowed a good four inches.
Perfect
.

Risan plucked a wiry hair from his beard. He leaned down and shut one eye, then pushed the hair’s end against the sword’s edge. The hair split in two.
Hoo! That will do.

He’d sculpted the snakes on the hilt in the style common to artisans of Fartha, but would people of Thendylath find Farthan artwork beautiful? Would Gavin be disappointed in his new weapon? Risan looked it over. No. He couldn’t do better. Here, in his hands, was his life’s best work.

It was time.

He set the sword on his workbench and went into the house, pausing to wash and dry his hands. In his bedroom, buried in a chest with sweaters and bedding, the three gems lay twisted within one of his wife’s handkerchiefs. He took them to his forge.

Risan carefully placed the gems in the hilt, setting them into small holes the mold had created. The snake’s head that formed the pommel received two gems for the eyes; the head at the weapon’s shoulder received the third. His hand trembled, and he shook out his nervousness and bent down again. With a soldering iron, he melted a length of wire around each gem to hold them securely in place, then gilded the setting with gold.