Two
No one notices my white knuckles; they’re too busy cheering. The wedding of the forge maiden is a huge affair in Hunter’s Hamlet. We have precious little to celebrate, so when there is an excuse, the hamlet indulges deeply.
I keep my panic, my worry, within. I won’t be the one to squelch their joy, not due to childish notions of getting to choose my husband for love, or desire, or attraction, or any of the other reasons someone is drawn to a partner.
I have my duty. I have an obligation, and all of it is far more important than anything I would want.
“Into the night,” Davos says, turning.
“Good hunting,” the rest of us respond as the master hunter leaves with his loyal soldiers.
“The bellows, Floriane,” Mother says, gentle but firm.
“And since you have a hammer in hand, help me with a few sickles; the fortress can never have enough.” Her eyes dart from the tool to my face.
Her expression softens into a sad smile.
She knows what my future holds all too well. It was hers too.
And she fell in love with Father, in time.
I can see them together in the forge. Sweat shines on their cheeks. They share a smile reserved only for the two of them. Father is nimble and light. Mother is strong and sturdy. He was her shield; she his sword. They were two parts of one being, one entity.
The image is briefly replaced by the image of the shell of my father stumbling unnaturally toward the smithy without his sickle—that was how we knew he was dead.
I shake my head, scattering the thoughts, and set to work.
Before I know it, the last reveler has wandered away. It’s just Mother and me left, as it always is at the end of a long day. The coals are turning orange-red and the shadows are lengthening.
“That’s enough for tonight.” Mother pats the horn of the anvil, returns her hammer to its peg, rolls her shoulders, and stretches her wrists.
No matter how accustomed we are to this job, there are still aches and pains that come with it.
Every strike reverberates up through the elbow and into the shoulders.
The core is worn ragged. Knees ache. The smithy demands every part of the body.
“I’ll clean up,” I say.
“Thank you.” Mother rests a hand on my shoulder. “What Davos said earlier about your marriage—”
“I thought nothing of it.”
She smiles. She knows I’m lying. “I wanted you to know that I had no prior knowledge that he would bring it up. If I had, I would’ve told you.”
“I know,” I say softly. For years it’s felt like it’s just her and me, ever since Father died and Drew left for the fortress. We work together every day. Share dinner every night. She’s the only one who understands my circumstances.
“After we survive tomorrow, if the vampire lord is not slain, then we’ll talk more about your nuptials. I won’t send you in blind. And I’ll do what I can to find you a smart match.”
“Thank you,” I say earnestly.
“Of course.” She leans forward and kisses me on my forehead, even though I know it’s coated in metal dust and soot. “Now, take your time. We’ll be cooped up tomorrow night and have preparations come dawn, so enjoy this time for yourself.”
Mother knows me too well.
I run my hand along the smooth top of the anvil after she leaves. My nails stick on the grooves of the softer metal of the horn. It’s still warm from her work.
Home.
Every month the vampires come and try to take it all from us.
But according to the old stories, the infiltrations month after month are just glancing blows.
The real fight is tomorrow. For the past few months, Drew has been telling me not to dwell on my possible demise, but how could I not?
Just like the old stories warn, the moon grows ever more ominous, a faint pink darkening with each night. It can’t be ignored.
I set to cleaning. First, I sweep up the scale, then I rake the coals, piling them toward the back. It’s odd to think we won’t be stoking them come dawn. Then I head to the back.
In the rear of the forge is a vault built into the thick walls.
I check and count the silver within, making sure all the bars are stacked in the particular way that Mother likes them.
Then I lock the door with the spinning dials smelted onto its front.
The numerical lock is a strange contraption designed by my great-great-grandmother.
She kept its workings a secret and took that secret to the grave.
Every forge maiden has left her mark, a great work left behind.
What mine will be still remains a mystery.
Perhaps I’ll figure out how to make my own unique lock and replace this one.
No one alive knows how to fix the one smelted onto the door.
But the benefit is that no one but our family has any idea how it works and how to open it.
Fear marries desperation to breed poor decisions, Mother always says.
We must protect the silver, for it is our only defense against the vampires.
A defense that grows more finite by the day.
Those who enter Hunter’s Hamlet by way of the fortress gate and join our community are never allowed to leave.
That is part of our sacrifice to keep the world safe.
No one goes in or out, and that includes vampires.
The single, tightly guarded path through the fortress is the only connection to the outside world.
The one exception to sequestering is for the master hunter. He is permitted to leave through the outer gate to engage with the traders the other hunters call from the walls. There are some things we cannot produce on our own; namely, iron and silver.
According to Drew, the Applegate Trading Company, which transports rare raw silver from the distant northwest, has not come to the port town near us for almost a year.
Mother and I have begun to worry that they might not ever return.
There have been many dinners spent discussing what we will do if the veins of silver in those faraway mines have run out.
She has already begun consulting the old family records for ideas on how to more efficiently smelt down broken weapons and recast them into crescent-moon sickles without losing the silver’s potency.
The door of the forge opens. Moonlight dances with lamplight as a cloaked figure slips in. I do not sound an alarm because I know the man at a glance.
Drew glances around. “Everything looks good.”
“I’m glad to have your approval.” I hop up onto one of the tables to sit. “I really didn’t think you’d be able to come tonight.”
“I had to.” He sits next to me and we linger in comfortable silence for a few minutes. “Listen, we don’t have much time, so tomorrow—”
“Don’t. I don’t like that tone.”
He continues anyway. “Tomorrow, it’ll be up to you to protect Mother.”
“I know.”
“Do you still have them?” He sticks to the point. Relentless, my brother.
“Of course I do. One here”—I nod toward the forge tools—“and one in the house, just like you told me.” I shift uncomfortably. “But wouldn’t it be better to give them to the fortress? Can’t the hunters use all the weapons you can get?”
“Thanks to you and Mother, we have more than enough.” He pushes off the table and crosses to the rack of tools. The wood on the side of the rack is loose where it meets the wall. Wedged behind it is a sickle. Drew told me to make it in secret.
Then he insisted I learn how to use it.
He holds out the hilt to me. “Keep it on you in the coming hours.”
“Mother will see.”
“It’ll be too late for her to do anything.”
“She’s just going to love us breaking the law.
” I roll my eyes, fingers closing around the cool metal.
Drew releases the familiar weight of the sickle into my palm.
I wonder if any other forge maiden has been so comfortable with a weapon in her hands.
I doubt it. We’re to be protected and kept off the battlefield at all costs.
Resources are too precious for everyone to have weapons.
Everyone has a role and is given the resources to fulfill the duties of that role. No more, no less.
“She’ll be grateful if the need arises.”
“She will be cross with the two of us the second she sees it.” The hunters have claimed both my children, I can hear her saying. Lamplight glistens off the wicked-sharp blade. I’ve been honing it for weeks. As if I could make it so sharp that it could cut away my worries.
“I have something else for you.” Drew hovers, looking both uncomfortable and determined at the same time.
“What?”
He fishes in his pocket and produces a small obsidian vial. “Here.”
“What’s this?” I place the sickle on the table next to me and turn the strange vessel over in my hands.
“It’s the reason I was late to sneak out and the reason I had to come.
” Drew inhales slowly the way he always does when he’s working up the courage to say something he knows I won’t like.
“If the vampires reach the town, it means things have gone awry. The remaining hunters here will need all the help they can get. And…and I can’t go out into the marshes tomorrow without knowing you and Mother will be safe. ”
“No one is safe in Hunter’s Hamlet,” I huff bitterly. Our lives are spent locked in combat, trying to fight off vampires and our own fear.
“This is why you have been training.”
“And I’m still not good enough to face a vampire.”
“You’re better than you think. And with this, you’ll be unstoppable.” He nods to the vial.
It dawns on me what his gift actually is. Chills run up my body, starting from the hand holding the vial. My skin puckers to gooseflesh.
“No.” I thrust it toward him. He takes a step away. “No, no.” I jump off the table; he takes another step back. “You cannot—”
“I have.”
“If you—if anyone—if it’s discovered that you took this from the fortress and gave it to me, you will be hanged.”
“If you and Mother aren’t here for me to return to, I’ll wish I were dead anyway,” Drew says severely.
I stare at the vial in my palm and whisper, “Hunter’s Elixir.” It feels forbidden for me to even say the words. It is very illegal for me to be holding this vial.