one heavy buckler shield. One was shorter and broader, with a thickened hilt obviously made for a dwarf. The second was a single-handed longsword suitable for a human. Both had the distinctive dark, mottled gray sheen of dwarven steel.
Not all smiths were weaponers. It was a specialty of great skill, though Wynn knew little about the craft either way. But those weapons, simple and unadorned, as preferred by the dwarves, looked finer than all she remembered from her travels.
Someone here had higher skills than the making of mule shoes.
A strange sound filled the smithy, like a rhythmic puffing of breath, as a gray mass slowly descended beyond the open forge. Two cask-size iron counterweights, one rising as the other fell, hung on a chain over a cart-wheel-size gear mounted to the ceiling. At each jolting descent, a smaller gear did a full turn, driving an iron arm connected to a bellows pump. But the coals did not pulse with the bellows.
A wide tin flue above the forge caught rising smoke and seemed to suck it up like a mouth. Each “breath” came in time with the bellows’ pumps. The counterweights halted, and the tin mouth went silent.
Wynn saw thin smoke spill upward over the flue’s lip.
The woman jammed the mule shoe into the coals in a burst of sparks and stepped around to grab a chain dangling from the higher counterweight. She hauled upon it, thick muscles bulging in her arms as it changed places with its counterpart. When she released her grip, the clicking of chains and gears resumed, along with the flue’s pulsing breaths. The woman rounded the forge and picked up her iron tongs.
Though dizzy, Wynn clearly remembered Hammer-Stag’s accounting of names. High-Tower’s sister was named Skirra, which roughly meant “Sliver” in Numanese. As the smith jerked the mule shoe from the coals and set its red-hot metal upon the anvil, Wynn stepped in and dropped her pack inside the doorway.
“Is this the Iron-Braid smithy?” she called out. “Run by Sliver?”
The woman’s hammer hung poised in the air. Her dark eyes rested briefly on Wynn, shifted to Chane, and finally dropped to Shade.
“We are closed,” she said in a deep voice.
The hammer fell with a sharp clank, sparks spitting from struck metal.
Wynn hesitated. “Are you . . . Sliver Iron- Braid?”
“Come back tomorrow,” the woman said.
That wasn’t a denial. Wynn’s stomach rolled again as she took two steps, trying not to trip on her robe.
“We’re not seeking s-s-services,” she said, and then stopped, trying to swallow away the cottony sensation in her mouth.
The woman lowered her hammer until its head barely clicked upon the anvil.
“I am Wynn Hye . . Hyj . . . orth . . . of the Guild of Sagecraft,” Wynn added. “I . . . we stay at the temple of Bezu . . . Bedaka . . .” She gave up on Dwarvish. “We stay at the temple of Feather-Tongue. We traveled a long way for news of your brother.”
Sliver’s expression hardened. Even her cheekbones appeared to bulge above a clenched mouth.
“The smithy is closed!” she snarled. “And maybe you would know more of my brother than I!”
Shade paused in sniffing about the nearest table legs, and Chane stepped in quickly, placing a warning hand on Wynn’s shoulder. Wynn didn’t know how she’d given offense.
“No . . . not High-Tower,” she corrected. “Your other brother.”
Sliver straightened slowly, not blinking once as she stared back. She sucked air through reclenched teeth and took a fast step toward Wynn, the hammer still in her fist.
“Get out!” she roared.
Before Wynn finished a cringe, Chane stood partially in front of her. Sliver sneered at him, not the least bit intimidated.
“I said leave,” she repeated, full of warning. “I have no other brother!”
Wynn’s brief fright faded. Perhaps it was how dwarves respected strength and forthrightness, or maybe just pride at her successful “telling” in the greeting house. Something emboldened Wynn, but it certainly wasn’t the ale. She stepped directly into Sliver’s face.
“Don’t lie to me!” she shouted back. “I saw him when he came to the guild to visit High-Tower. He’s one of your people’s Stonewalkers.”
Sliver’s mouth gaped, and she backed one step. “Meâkesa . . . went to Chlâyard?”
Then her voice failed, and so did Wynn’s.
Why did a meeting between brothers shock their sister so much? Then Wynn realized through her haze that Sliver had just given her the name of a stonewalker.
Meâkesa . . . Ore-Locks.
“We need to speak with Ore-Locks,” Wynn insisted. “It’s critical.