Age of War (The Legends of the First Empire #3)

The smithy had a cot, water, and tools enough to do anything. Better than Roan’s roundhouse in Dahl Rhen, it had more space, a big forge, anvil, trough, worktable with all sorts of tools, and no ghosts. That last amenity was particularly nice. Iver had never set foot here, and no part of Alon Rhist reminded her of him. Nevertheless, Roan still never slept on the cot. The cot had been mostly for show, a concession to Gifford and the dwarfs. Roan never knowingly used it. She worked until she dropped, sleeping wherever she collapsed, which luckily had not yet been while working the forge. She always woke up on the cot. The little men put her there, saying she was in the way. She believed them the first few times, then realized she always woke up covered with a neatly tucked blanket and with her shoes off.

The foursome—whom everyone referred to as the Smith and Her Little Crew, the Lady and the Three Dwarfs, or most often, She and They—had grown close. All of them diligent, single-minded workers, the four never talked much, but that didn’t mean they didn’t understand each other. When they did communicate, it was in grunts or gestures. A tilt of a head meant add more coal, and a nod said pump the bellows. The little men slept as infrequently as she did—not because they didn’t want to sleep, but because if Roan worked, they did, too.



The labor was hard and all-consuming but never enough. In the past, all Roan had to forget about was Iver, and hard work was normally enough to manage that. She hadn’t thought about the old woodcarver once, but it wasn’t because of her workload. For the last two days, Roan hadn’t touched her hammer—which she had named Banger the Heavy, and which she swore had developed wear marks that fit her hand. Since Gifford had left, she hadn’t stoked the furnace, hadn’t polished metal. Mostly, Roan sat in the corner holding the crutch he had left behind. Much of that time she spent crying. The rest she spent twisting her hair, biting her nails, or simply rocking in place.

Most of Roan’s life had been spent in fear. In many ways, terror had become a familiar reassurance. She wouldn’t call it a friend, but certainly fear was a visitor she could always count on to show up. With Iver’s death, everything had changed. She now had the war, but that was as faceless and distant as worrying about famine or disease. Such things paled compared to being trapped in a small house with a huge man who had a propensity to torture. After that, she felt as if half of her life was missing. Part of her was gone, and that vacuum of fear had been filled with guilt.

She had killed Iver. No amount of justification made that right in her head, no matter how hard she tried. From this seed came thoughts that she must have helped make him what he was. Iver was never cruel to anyone else. The rest of the Dahl loved him. So it must have been her. She brought the evil out. And if she could do it to him, she might do it to others.

You’ll be a curse to anyone who cares about you, Roan. That’s what you really are, Roan, a curse, an evil curse, and you deserve what I’m going to give you now…



Then, just as she was beginning to think she might be able to live without the throat-clenching anxiety that drove her to beat Banger the Heavy senseless, the fear returned. But this time it was different.

She had watched from the parapet as Gifford rode across the bridge and through the Fhrey camp. She’d prayed to every god there was, and a few she invented, to keep him safe. And then he was gone. As horrible as it had been to live each day in dread of physical pain, worrying about Gifford was worse. There were precautions she was able to take with Iver. He wasn’t always predictable, but most times she knew how to steer clear of real trouble. She knew to keep things clean, which items never to move; she knew not to speak, but to answer quickly when called; and never, never to protect herself from a beating—that always made him hit harder. And when he slept, she was free to relax, to breathe free air. But she could do nothing to help Gifford, and there was never any pause, no relief from the smothering terror that he might already be dead, and if he was…one and one makes two, two and two makes four, four and four makes eight…

She kept counting. The numbers distracted her, keeping her mind from wandering. When she lost focus, she started problem-solving. The challenge before her was the conundrum of how best to end her life. There was a vast array of possible choices, and picking the optimal solution wasn’t as easy as might first appear. But if there was one thing Roan knew she was good at, it was solving problems. She’d already worked out a dozen excellent choices. Poison was the best, but she was far from isolating the perfect one. All she needed to do was…eight and eight makes sixteen, sixteen and sixteen makes thirty-two, thirty-two and thirty-two makes—

The smithy shook with a jolt. Dust kicked out of the corners, and all three little men stopped in mid–hammer swing to look at each other. A moment later, a second blast shook the place, and all of them ran out into the courtyard in time to see part of the Frozen Tower shear away.

Massive blocks of stone, sliced at an angle, just slipped and fell—mostly to the outside—but a few tumbled and rolled, smashing into the courtyard. One bashed through the roof of the woodshed, spitting a handful of split logs into the air.

A crowd rushed into the yard, everyone in nightshirts. This confused Roan until she realized it was early morning, and only the dull suggestion of the light to come was in the sky.



“What’s happening?” someone asked.

Michael J. Sullivan's books