at this time of year would most likely be a death sentence for any of their animals. This was the Desolation, after all, and there were worse things than foxes that came south from the Bonefells when winter fell like a hammer-blow upon the north.
Hard-frozen snow snapped and crackled under their ponies’ hooves as they rode past Fritha’s hold, warm firelight flickering through the slats of shuttered windows, looking all the more inviting from this side of the cold. Drem’s nose was already tingling, his breath a great mist with every exhalation. Fritha’s dog barked as they passed by, tied to a rope and iron ring close to their door.
I told her to bring the hound in at night. Drem frowned. At the thought of Fritha he felt a strange sensation, as if a fluttering moth was trapped in the pit of his belly.
Twilight was as thick as smoke about them when they reached Kergard. Drem was surprised that the gates were still open. A solitary guard was standing beside the gate, cloak hood pulled up over his head, blowing on his hands. Olin reined his horse in and leaned down, taking something from the guard, the rattle of metal. Drem blinked as he caught a glimpse of the face inside the hood. It was Calder the smith.
Without a word, the big man pushed the gates closed and slotted a bar of oak into place, then walked away and faded into the shadows.
‘Come on,’ Drem’s da muttered and clicked his pony on.
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