The streets of Kergard were empty and still, fat snowflakes falling, silent and soporific, one landing as gentle as a goodnight kiss upon Drem’s lips. Drem knew where his da was going long before they arrived – he just didn’t know why. His da dismounted and walked his mount through an arched gateway and into a cobbled courtyard situated behind Calder’s smithy. Olin unstrapped a package from the back of his saddle and passed his reins to Drem.
‘Quick as you can,’ his da said, nodding towards the stables, then turned on his heel and strode to the smithy. A jingle of keys and the door was opened, Olin framed for a moment in a red glow. With a sigh, Drem headed for the stables.
‘What took you so long?’ his da said as Drem entered the forge. He was working a bellows, the suck and heave of air sounding like a diseased giant’s lungs, the glow of the forge changing from red to orange, yellow-edged.
‘What are we doing here, Da?’ Drem asked.
‘Here, put this on and keep this going,’ Olin said, ignoring the question, shaking a leather apron at him and gesturing for Drem to take over the bellows. Olin wore his own blacksmith’s apron, scarred and pitted black.
Drem did, grunting at the weight of the apron. He’d worked a forge before, though it had been a makeshift one his da had built when they lived in Ardain. He’d enjoyed it, finding a deep pleasure in the rhythm of work, whether with bellows or hammer. Drem’s thoughts of sleep melted away, along with his irritable mood. Behind him there was the clank and grate of tools pulled from racks, buckets moved, iron shifted through.
The charcoal started to glow yellow, tinged with white.
‘Da!’ Drem called over his shoulder.
A silence.
‘Hotter,’ his da said.
Drem scooped more cinder and ash from the ash-pit beneath the forge and banked the fire higher, then set back to work at the bellows.
Olin appeared, put a pile of iron rods on the workbench, and something else, wrapped in sheepskin. The package that had been strapped to his saddle. Almost reverently, Olin unrolled it, revealing the black lump of rock they’d discovered in the foothills of the Bonefells. Drem’s sense of worry returned like an avalanche.
‘Da, please, what are you doing?’
His da looked up at Drem, as if noticing him for the first time.
‘Please, Da, for once, just tell me. I’m not a bairn.’
‘I’m making a sword,’ Olin said, eyes bright with the forge’s glow.
‘What? Why?’
‘There’s nowhere left to run, Drem. Since your mam, we’ve travelled the Banished Lands, always searching, running, fleeing the tide. Five years since, we settled here, and I thought we’d finally found some peace. And now it’s coming here, the curse of the Kadoshim and Ben-Elim polluting everywhere in these Banished Lands. There’s nowhere left to go. I’m tired of it, worn out by it.’ He went back to his gathering of tools, slipping a bag from his shoulder and rummaging through it. Drem reached out and grabbed his da’s wrist, pulling him back to face him.
‘Da, you’re worrying me.’
Olin sucked in a deep breath, blew out slowly.
‘The newcomers in Kergard, the ones you fought. I don’t like them.’
‘I don’t like them either,’ Drem said. ‘No need to make a sword to kill them with, though.’
A flicker of a smile. ‘No, son. I’m not forging a sword to kill them. My axe or knife would be good enough for that. No, I mean, there’s something wrong about them being here. I feel it. And Old Bodil, supposedly killed by our white bear . . .’
‘I’ve had . . . doubts, over that,’ Drem said, frowning, remembering the strap-mark worn into the flesh of Bodil’s wrist. He told his da about it.
His da nodded, giving him a proud look.
‘Aye, that’s what I’m talking about. Strange things are happening here. The new mine, the miners, men found dead in the Wild, bonfires. Call me suspicious, but I don’t like any of it.’
I don’t like the new miners! Drem thought, thinking of Wispy Beard and the fight near the market.
‘And on top of that, the damn Kadoshim are stirring things up in the south – talk of human sacrifice and who knows what – and the Ben-Elim demanding their warrior tithes and taxes. It’s their fault, all of it,’ Olin snarled, a hint of savagery and rage barely contained. He breathed deep, closed his eyes. ‘And I’ve had enough,’ he said with a slow exhalation. ‘Something feels wrong, and when I’ve had this feeling before, we’ve packed up and left. Moved on. But where else is there to go now?’
Drem shrugged.
‘I’m going to end this. All of it.’
Drem didn’t like the way his da was acting, the way he was speaking, the look in his eyes, a focus verging on frenzy.
‘How? Da, you’re not yourself. What do you mean?’
‘I’m going to forge a starstone sword and cut Asroth’s head off with it.’
Drem felt an overwhelming urge to take his pulse and almost let go of the bellows. There was a long moment of silence between them, even the crackle of fire and charcoal ebbing.
‘What?’ Drem blurted, incredulous.
Has he lost his mind?
A thousand more questions burst to life in Drem’s mind. His da ignored him.
‘DA!’ Drem shouted, but then his da was moving, all grim focus, and Drem could tell from the look on Olin’s face that he wasn’t going to do any more talking. With tongs Olin lowered the lump of starstone metal into the forge, laid it into the white heat of the charcoal, so hot the air was a shimmering haze about it.
Drem felt sick, all this talk of running and hiding, of Ben-Elim and Kadoshim. For as long as he could remember, life had been Drem and his da, just the two of them, a solitary existence, but one that Drem was used to and loved. This talk of the world piercing their bubble and crashing into their lives, changing everything, left Drem feeling scared and nauseous.
And he’s talking about Asroth? The Demon-Lord of the Kadoshim. But he’s dead a hundred years, or alive and sealed in molten rock in Drassil, an eternal gaol. Everyone knows that.
They both stood in silence, looking at the matt black metal. Nothing happened.
‘Not hot enough?’ Drem said.
Olin stood there, staring at the lump of metal, a dull, impenetrable black, then nodded to himself, drew himself straighter. He unsheathed a knife from his belt and opened his mouth, spoke, but in no language Drem recognized, the words issuing from his throat fluid and unearthly, setting Drem’s hairs standing on his arms and the back of his neck, sending an icy chill trickling through his veins, even in the sweat-heat of the forge.
‘Tine agus fola, iarann agus cruach, lann a maraigh an aingeal dorcha,’ his da said, at the same time drawing the knife across his palm, a dark line welling, with a flick of his wrist spattering the blood on the forge and starstone. There was a hissing sound, a sweet smell, and where the droplets of blood hit the starstone the rock began to bubble, rising like blisters, spreading across the dark metal like spilt ink.
‘Da,’ Drem croaked, his voice dry and cracked. ‘You’re scaring me.’
The black metal began to glow, red first, shifting to orange and then incandescent white.
‘Da!’ Drem said, louder.