Many mornings since coming to this place of stones and people, Scorpio Kenrai had wished to be back amid the Grass, the home to his father's people. While that longing was with him now, the aroma of kaft fought it back. The strong black brew made from beans harvested in the hills then roasted before boiling for their flavor sank hooks deep in one's mind and nose. The kaft being offered was not good as those of the shops towards the bazaar, but it was hot and strong, which proved needful these days as he tried his hand at a new skill.
Across the table sat his friend and mentor at many things, the gray-skinned short one. Copper strands still streaked the old dwarf's hair, his eyes held the promise of sunlight as well. But around them lay a web of worry. Three attempts to oust as Master of the Blades of late were not enough. Now word floated that his student's foes were stirring again. Though his kind, the Dyermo of the far off Last Mountains, often dealt with the forces of darkness, and he himself sold parts of his soul for power in the past, this bothered Torozu.
The kaft pot sat by the banked coals of his forge, here in the back corner of the Artisan's ward. Around his forge sat many small idols, and above the grated door lay the mark of his own god, one he never named to Scorpio. The young half-elf across from him looked tired, and after the years of hunting men, demons and beasts, not to mention the battles with creatures of the graves, Torozu knew the boy was near his end of strength. So, instead of offering him knives to carry, three moons before, he offered they boy a new career, making the sacred knives holding the contracts of the assassins with mortal men.
Around them, Cosarali still lay sleeping, dawn still just a silver hint on the eastern horizon, outlining the Iron Spurs, home to all the short races at one time. Above them the sacred kamforka lit the room, flickering in the breeze of the open gate of the shop's front. The table for goods made was still barren, for no goods could be offered under the customs of the Ankhgorrans until the shadow of the lesser gate towers no longer touched the Shi's tower to the west of the ward. For one like a dwarf, who considered work a virtue, and all commerce honorable, this seemed foolish. But it did make for nice mornings to talk to his blades, teach and apprentice, or just sip at kaft.
The hunter of men and beasts across from him was no longer the boy who insulted the Shi's left hand, nor even the crafty tracker none could elude long. Something broke in him the last few years, the fire was gone, nothing left to fan the flames of revenge that turned him to this profession many years before. Perhaps it was the goddess he helped save that tempered that fire, but the edge that made the boy Torozu's equal in fulfilling contracts for a time was dulled now. The Dyermo never asked why, how or what. He only asked his blades when they would be ready to take a knife again. To be told a hunter of men was unsure of his taking one ever again, when health still was with them worried the dwarf.
"Well, shall we speak of our project for today?" At least when offered to learn the making of the steel he long used, the boy had accepted. Some left the Allegiance to seek refuge from all violence, even the making of tools or providing services to those doing such work.
Hollow eyes rose to meet his. There was more copper in the hair of the half-elven boy than his head held, but somehow, the boy seemed the older of the two. Even to one who remembered the last three Dark Crossing of Athalan across the face of Jzhun, leaving the world in cold shadows for many passings of __ , the greater of the three moons.
"Tell me all you wish. But something worries my head today." A whisper was all the voice made in the predawn stillness. Even the birds had yet to start singing outside the walls of town, but the occasional wash of waves from some distant storm over the dying breakwater of Lake __ .
Torozu merely poured more coffee. The boy suffered the headaches of his mother's bloodline from dealing with steel. The past moon they had worked many such projects, which made him worry the boy was poisoned. Perhaps Billenius could come later and see what ailed the boy. But the blade had to be made, for coins and blood were already paid.
"I will do the handling today. I fear you touched too much iron this moon." He rarely made such offers, but those with elven blood could die from that metal, if too much entered their system.
Long braids framing the boy's face swayed as the head moved in negation. "No, this is different. It is not a headache. This is the feeling of being hunted again. Eyes are upon us, but I cannot tell if we are prey, predator, or just spectators to something else."
The Dyermo rose, letting his eyes see the darkness as he walked to the heavy wooden gates, slowly bringing them closed. Eyes and ears of outsiders should never enter his shop, on days like today. "You have had this feeling many times lately, and naught has come of it."
"The eyes feel wary, eager even. I think the time of observing us is almost over. The time of the hunt is about to begin." The words bore no inflection, no tone of fear or desire. Just the dry monotone facts were relayed in.
Eyes sweeping places where one could watch the forge from, Torozu spoke softly himself. "Then we shall begin in a moment, for we have a blade to make today. We will let our friend Hua tend the tables as we work." That Hua also was an assassin lay unspoken between the men. Few who worked at the forge were not of the dark profession.
Scorpio rose, slowly bringing the coals to life, adding a new layer of the black rocks across the oven with the hardened bronze shovel. Sweat stained his tanned face, as the color of the fire stained the eagle embroidered on his left shoulder to a soft crimson, with hints of the blue the threads once bore. Brow furrowed at never noticing when his protege stopped wearing buckskins with beadwork motifs normal to his people, the dyermo smith shut the gates, pulling a vial of dark blood from his own leather vest.
"You will need this, some gold and the chablys stock you brought from over the mountains. Today we have the hardest blade to make and redeem. A blade of redemption." His steps seemed loud now, with the gate closed, walking across stone flagging to the forge.
Scorpio's quizzical glance told the guild master that his student obviously had not visited the markets the last few days. "Who needs rescue? None of ours took a capture blade."
"Not all ransoms come from our actions. Most are the work of amateurs, posers who wish to join us or play brigands out for more cash. This is a case you may wish to pass on taking the knife. It seems some merchant caravan ran afoul your kinsmen, and they are holding a lady..."
Laughter filled the shop. "So, Karama eloped with Mosund at last. Good for her."
Torozu shook his head. Karama indeed was the missing lady, daughter of a merchant prince from distant Chiga. How the boy would know of matters Davet Gwortsven had not divined for the guild was something of a mystery. Two days was too short a time to reach the Grass, let alone for word to travel by more than gossip and rumor.
"You know of this?" A stern rebuke.
"Teach me to make this blade, oh grumpy master of knives and cutlery. And set up a pack for me to make trade of your wares with my kinfolk." Shaking his head, still chuckling, the bad feelings fell aside. "Those two have been flirting for years, and Kierlos the Chigan keeps rejecting their pleas for marriage. I will bring them in, but he will have to accept his daughter wishes a clansman for a mate, not some money changer in Thogras."
The dyermo smiled. "And you get to walk the Grass, smell fresh air and slack off your lessons, I suppose."
Clink of chablys, the bronze steel of the elves, on iron was his only reply, besides the shaking of Scorpio's chest as he continued his laughter. Knowing when one can take a lesson no further, the old dyermo shook his own head. "You hear more gossip than the grandmothers in the tea shop down the street, Scorpio."
"Tagrun, please. If I go back to the Grass, the Scorpion must hibernate, lest some Eagle girl seek to bind me to the clan again." Lifting a small 'Lun of gold, the hunter whistled a song of his people, happy for two old friends at last getting what they wished.
Torozu at last laughed himself. "So the guild makes coin the easy way, then." Lifting his hammer, he began his craft at last. "What totem would approve of this? Bird bones do not make good hilts."
Quick replies were not the hunter's way, his whistling dropped to humming, heating the bronze steel, thinking as he examined the ingot coin of the realm. Whistling was his way of being irritating, humming the hunter did only when thinking. So his mentor left him to thinking, as they worked together chablys, gold and blood to make the deadly part of a knife that would have no edge and a rounded point.
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