Chapter 15
I can’t believe I’m delighted to be camping, thought Fern, warming her paws before the tiny fire with her tail draped across her knees.
And she was delighted. Giddy almost. She barely mourned the soft, warm beds they might have slept in if they’d lingered in Bycross until tomorrow.
A persistent chill crawled up under the hem of her cloak and teased the fur of her back, which only made the fire cozier somehow.
Ice-chip stars gleamed sharp in the sky, the red line of sunset long since erased in the west, where Bycross lay behind them. To the northeast? The city of Amberlin, their final destination.
Astryx sat across the fire from her, watching a soot-blackened travel kettle as it boiled nettle tea.
Bucket formed a solid slab of night behind her.
Zyll snored nearer to the flames than seemed safe, tucked up inside of her coat so that no skin was exposed, and she looked like a shabby quilt with a bedraggled orange cat sleeping on it.
Fern recognized a talk looming in the air above the fire—a needful discussion that would gather on the horizon until it broke.
The tea seemed proof of that. Astryx had—in Fern’s opinion—a very unfair talent for rolling over and immediately falling asleep the moment the day’s duties were done.
Obviously, Fern’s sample size of evenings was small, but the elf had never once bothered to sit up late and brew tea.
The Oathmaiden clearly had something to say. A question? A demand? Some set of conditions to lay before her?
Fern didn’t know, and the possibilities prickled her ears uncomfortably.
The talk just kept growing until she could almost feel the weight of it on her fur.
So, she waited.
And waited.
The elf poured tea into two battered tin cups, offering one to Fern, who puffed on it as she cradled it in her paws.
And then she waited some more as they both slurped noisily, and the fire snapped and spat and burned lower betwixt them, and the impending talk threatened.
Oh my gods, thought Fern.
It was dawning on her that the Blademistress didn’t have the slightest idea how to start the conversation.
Is she . . . out of practice?
Fern thought she just might be.
She caught Astryx’s increasingly distressed gaze. They stared at each other for a long, awkward span of time.
Then Fern did the only thing she could think of, which was to talk about something else entirely.
“So. How did you and Nigel end up together?”
The elf blinked and glanced at the Elder Blade where he leaned, sheathed and in easy reach, against a nearby stone. The distress vanished from her eyes, replaced with relief.
“Oh. To be honest, it wasn’t very interesting.”
And then silence again.
Gods and hells, thought Fern. She gulped the last of her tea in exasperation. The bitter taste was growing on her. Definitely better than coffee.
Thus fortified, she refused to abandon the conversational gambit. “I find that very hard to believe. I’m pretty sure Nigel would disagree. What does he have to say about it?”
Astryx looked ready to deliver what Fern was positive would be a refutation, then glanced at the sword and reconsidered. With a quiet sigh, she reached over to bare an inch of his steel. Too late, Fern realized her mistake.
Nigel didn’t bother to wait to be asked.
“Why, there’s no tale more worthy of the telling!” he declared. “Indeed, I can recall it as though t’were only yesterday, though it’s seven hundred years gone now. Seven hundred and twenty-seven, to be precise. Or perhaps eight? Bah, no matter!”
“WhathaveIdone,” whispered Fern, but the Elder Blade either didn’t notice or willfully ignored her.
Astryx made a deep study of the bottom of her tin cup.
“It was the dark of winter in the Bradden Heath, as it was called in those days. Now, of course, it’s known as the Midland Fields, but that wasn’t the case until the fall of the Red Shepherd, as I’m sure we’re all well aware.
” He chortled. “Ah, me, the Red Shepherd. How times have changed, eh? Why, the blacksmith that forged me, Sandrum Temple, had a terribly amusing story about the Red Shepherd. Sandrum was simply stuffed to bursting with hilarious anecdotes—that is, until he grew ill with the blood fever in his latter days. You remember Sandrum, of course, my lady?”
The Oathmaiden looked as though she were about to reply, but he didn’t leave her a sliver of room to squeeze into.
“My, my, the conversations we used to have, Sandrum and I . . . At any rate, where were we? Ah, yes, the Midland Fields!”
“Sandrum!” bellowed Zyll.
Fern and Astryx stared in surprise at the goblin, who lurched upright by the fire and laced her fingers between her toes, grinning avidly at the sword.
Nigel, blessedly, had been shocked into silence as well. Momentarily, anyway.
“. . . Yeeesss, as I was saying . . .”
Fern clearly recognized the affronted glare in the sword’s every syllable as he tried to resume his narration.
Zyll ignored him and rummaged through the pockets of her coat while the elf and rattkin watched, and Nigel fretted over his distracted audience.
“Shankling!” cried Zyll at last, and from a hideous green pocket, she withdrew a silver breadknife. Brandishing it in the firelight, her sharp grin stretched wider as crimson eyes reflected the rising sparks.
“Is Sandrum’s blade-ling,” she declared, waggling the cutlery.
“I beg your pardon,” scoffed Nigel, “but Sandrum Temple forged only the finest—”
“Gods, am I glad to be out of that pocket,” gasped a new voice, wheezing like it had only just escaped suffocation. Then, sharp and annoyed, “Hang on, are we talking about Sandrum? Because, you’ll have to forgive me, that guy was a complete asshole.”
Nigel gabbled, apoplectic, and Fern realized with astonishment that the voice was coming from the knife.
“Another Elder Blade?” Her mouth dropped open.
“Kid, you’re my new favorite person. Rat-person.
Whatever, you get it. You wouldn’t believe how long it takes some folks to figure that out.
Look at this white steel! Snowy as hells, right?
I’ve got that, you know, weight of significance.
Runes all over the place. Soul of an ancient hero and all that.
Anybody with a pair of eyes should be able to see that right from the jump. ”
“You were forged by Sandrum Temple?” asked Astryx, whose skeptical gaze couldn’t seem to settle between Zyll or the knife in her fist.
“Oh, yeah, I definitely . . . was . . . um . . . waitaminute. One . . . ear . . . Are you—? Is that—? Frigging hells, you are . . .” The knife’s voice bottomed out to a worshipful hush.
“The Oathmaiden. Uh, that bit about the furry one being my favorite person was just, like, hyperbole, okay? I was only keeping the spot warm for you.”
“Wow,” said Fern.
“Look, kid, you can’t see it, but I’m shrugging helplessly over here.
No hard feelings, but my destiny is sitting across the fire from me, and I can’t ignore that, you understand?
Do you have any idea how big of a deal it would be for me to be wielded by the Blademistress? Still a big fan of you though, okay?”
Nigel recovered his faculties enough to bellow, “I beg your pardon, my lady, but this . . . this stickpin is not an Elder Blade! The greatest blacksmith of the Latter Age never stooped to forging . . . tableware! Speak your name, impostor!”
“Well, if you want to get technical about it—” the knife began.
“Breadlee!” interrupted Zyll, waving him around a little more.
There was a sudden, terrible silence, which was spoiled when Fern snorted and clapped her paws over her mouth.
“I go by Bradlee, these days,” said the knife, in icy tones. “But as I was saying, my forge-name is Bradelys Tertius.”
“Impossible,” scoffed Nigel. “Bradelys was lost. And he was a greatsword. He did not spread jam on toast.”
“Was a greatsword,” continued the tiny blade, mournfully. “Sandrum and me had a, um . . . falling out.”
“He reforged you!” said Nigel, and then laughed, a booming sound that actually made his blade rock gently from side to side. Fern thought she could hear amused tears in his voice. “Into . . . into dinnerware! What on earth did you do to earn his ire?”
“Did I mention he was an asshole?”
“So, Breadlee—” began Fern.
“Bradlee.”
“Is there a reason you’re hanging around in Zyll’s pocket?”
“This I am also interested to know,” added Astryx, folding her arms and studying Zyll narrowly. “Since I searched every fold of that coat.”
“I, uh. Do you want to tell it?” The breadknife’s attention shifted to the goblin, somehow.
Zyll lowered Breadlee until he was at eye level, studying the length of his blade.
She licked him.
“Hey!” cried the knife.
“I have, how do you say . . . conf-is-klated him. He is murrrder weapon.” Zyll purred the R in murder like she was savoring the taste.
“That’s not a good way to tell the story!” Breadlee protested. “Look, I didn’t murder anybody. I was barely involved. Except for the stabbing part.”
“I have so many questions now that my mind has gone absolutely blank,” said Fern.
“Give him here,” said Astryx, extending a hand. Her tone was even, but full of steel.
The goblin narrowed her eyes in return, delivered another long and deliberate lick to the knife—who made a strangled noise—and then flipped and extended him, haft first.
“Thank you,” replied the Oathmaiden.
She brought Breadlee up to her face to examine more closely, studying his bolster and running a thumb gently along his spine.
“Oh my gods,” he whispered, reverently. “It’s happening. I can’t believe it! Hold me forever.”
“My lady,” said Nigel, reproachfully.
“Bradelys, was it?” asked the elf.
“Blademistress, you can call me whatever you want.”
“Breadlee,” insisted Zyll.
“Except that.”
Astryx tipped the knife in the direction of the goblin across the fire. “I imagine there are a lot of stories you could tell about our mutual friend with the pockets, aren’t there? Stories that might make it worth keeping you around?”
Fern decided that she very much wanted to hear them, too.
“Um. I mean, maybe one or two, sure. And, you know, I may not be a greatsword these days but, like, I can absolutely punch through a breastbone. I’m still very Elder.
Plus, you go wandering around with some longblade on your back and everybody knows what you’re packing—but me? Very, very concealable.”
“Mm. I’ll bear that in mind.”
“My lady!” cried Nigel again, with a note of desperation.
“But for now,” continued Astryx, “I think we could all use some sleep. Some words are best spoken in daylight.”
She twirled the Elder Blade between her fingers and returned him to Zyll, who snatched him back, her mouth for once flattened into a thoughtful line.
“Wait!” protested Breadlee. “Hang on, I—”
The goblin stuffed him back into the ugly green pocket, extinguishing his voice.
Nigel breathed an audible sigh of relief.
A sudden night breeze fluttered Fern’s cloak and made the dwindling fire struggle. She shook out her whiskers and shivered all over, as though waking from a lucid dream.
Her gaze met Astryx’s. The talk brewing between them only minutes before seemed to have receded, and from the look in the elf’s eyes, they both knew it.
Fern thought the talk was just biding its time, though.
Maybe Astryx was right.
Some words were best spoken in daylight.
Curled on her side with her snout to the fire and her back to the night, sleep continued to elude Fern as Zyll’s peeping snores issued from the pile of pockets to her right.
She couldn’t see Astryx’s eyes, as the elf always lay facing away into the dark with one hand on Nigel’s hilt, but the Oathmaiden’s shoulders moved gently with the slow cadence of her sleeping breath.
Fern closed her eyes, but images of the day crowded behind her eyelids.
Bycross climbing up white cliffs in the dawn light.
Astryx whirling amidst a sea of warriors, effortless and graceful and brutal.
A goblin with bottomless pockets and a fistful of stolen purses.
The Territory’s most ridiculous Elder Blade.
She sighed and whispered, “If I read this in a book, I’d never believe it. It’s too amazing and stupid at the same time.”
Opening her eyes and blinking in the firelight, she patted around with one paw until she found her satchel. Quietly unbuckling it, she slipped her fingers inside and pinched out a sheet of the fresh parchment she’d bought, then rummaged for a pencil.
Squinting in the dying firelight, she began to write, until everything in her was out of her.
She had to use five more pages to finish the job.
When she was done, she repacked the satchel, and slept.
Soundly.