Chapter 19

When I woke up, I felt like I was being skullfucked through my eye sockets by the devil himself. I raised my hand to my head with a groan and discovered that I wasn’t being brutally murdered in the most horrific way possible. It was just a sunbeam falling through the window directly onto my retinas. I noticed my back was sinking into the softest, most comfortable bed I’d been in since being reborn. And, there appeared to be a very naked woman laying with her head on my shoulder. I blew some of her long hair out of my mouth and tried to get my thoughts in order. Wait, what was her name again?

I rolled the girl, damn that’s the mayor’s daughter isn’t it, off to the side as she mumbled in disappointment. “Sorry, Gorgeous. I need to use the facilities.” I made my way to the intricately carved garderobe without getting dressed and relieved myself.

“Oh!” she exclaimed from behind me. “Your poor back!” Apparently she’d just noticed the scars from my whipping for the first time. “What happened? What kind of beast did that?”

I snorted as I turned back to her, trying to pretend that I wasn’t on the verge of vomiting from the pain in my head, “The kind with two legs,” I replied. I saw my clothes had been scattered all over the floor and started getting dressed. I noticed my pack was sitting by the door. Whew, woulda been bad if I’d lost all my cash the same day I’d gotten it, I gave it a quick check, and it was still loaded with gold and silver, maybe a bit less than I remembered but not by much.

The girl was completely relaxed with her hands behind her head, lounging naked in the sunbeam on the bed, making no attempt to cover herself as she stared dreamily at the ceiling. “I always wanted my first time to be with a dangerous man,” she sighed languorously. “Never could manage to trip Knick Redwater into bed with me, but I’m glad I waited for someone like you before I found myself someone dependable to marry.” Guess I don’t qualify as marriage material, not that I’m complaining. I walked over to the bed and leaned down to kiss her deeply, grabbing her breast as I did. She moaned with pleasure.

“Happy to oblige, Gorgeous,” I said with a smile as I stood up and slung my pack over my shoulder. I made my way to the door, but hesitated, glancing back at the beautiful naked girl in the devil’s sunbeam looking over at me curiously. I gave a grunt of appreciation and smiled. There was no porn in this world, so it was worth remembering. I took a mental snapshot. I was getting pretty good at drawing with charcoal on slabs of wood after all my winters of practice, I’d have to immortalize it later.

“Bye, Bloody,” she waved happily from the bed, apparently she had no intention of getting up any time soon.

“Bye, Gorgeous,” I smiled back as I made my way out the door. Bloody? What’s that about?

I made my way down the stairs to the bar, my head was really starting to hurt and I was getting a bit nauseous as well. The mayor was already up and standing at the bar, polishing the varnished wood with a clean rag. There were a half dozen or so men passed out at tables or on the floor around the room. Looks like we partied pretty hard last night. I pulled up a stool in front of the innkeep and sat my pack at my feet. “Could I trouble you for some breakfast, Cal?” I asked. “Need something to settle my stomach. Maybe a glass of beer along with it. Bit of the hair of the dog that bit me to help with this increasingly shitty hangover.” I slapped a silver piece on the bar. Cal pushed it back to me.

“On the house, Bloody,” said the mayor with a sympathetic smile. “After how much you spent last night, it’s the least I can do. Haven’t made that much money in one night in some time.”

I grunted. “I thought there was a bit less than I started with yesterday when I woke up and checked my coin. Glad it went to a worthy cause.” I swallowed heavily, the nausea was getting pretty bad. “Excuse me a moment.” I got up and calmly walked to the front door, opened it, and then leaned out to the side of the stoop while holding onto the edge of the doorway with one hand.

I vomited. And I vomited. And I vomited. I felt like I may have puked up an organ there somewhere, holy shit, ugh. I finally stopped puking and wiped my face with my free hand. I looked down at the resultant mess I’d made and saw something glimmering gold. I crouched down and picked it up. It was a gold coin. At least it wasn’t an organ, but damn. What the fuck was I doing last night? It was all a blur after leaving Jeck’s. I wiped the coin off and made my way back to the bar. “Any idea why I just puked up a gold coin?” I asked the mayor curiously.

The mayor laughed, “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised you don’t remember. You had a rather large amount to drink last night didn’t you? I’d offered you some food at one point, the finest in the house. You said to bring you the cheap stuff because you can eat anything. I’d said you can’t eat ANYTHING, but you insisted. I mentioned that you can’t eat metal, for example. You put a gold coin on the table and said, ‘bet i can, put your gold where my mouth is.’ When I put a matching gold coin on the table you picked it up and swallowed it. Everybody thought it was hilarious and said that you won the bet. Apparently the general consensus was that you shouldn’t gamble with Bloody,” he said as he looked longingly at the gold piece.

I slid it over the bartop to him, saying, “Well, since I ultimately couldn’t keep it down for a full day, let’s call it a draw shall we?”

The mayor laughed and took back the coin. “I’ll go get that breakfast for you, the wife should have it ready here in a minute.” He headed through the door behind the bar to the kitchen.

I laid my head on the cool bar. So hungover. I burped. It was then that I noticed an imperfection in the otherwise perfectly smooth bar right in front of my face. Some asshole had carved up the bar. Damn, Cal’s gotta be pissed, he loves this bar. My eyes focused and I saw the word that had been carved into the bar. NAMELESS, written in English. Shit, guess I’m the asshole.

Cal came out with a steaming plate and set it in front of me. Bacon and eggs with a fluffy piece of bread. My mouth watered, and I dug in immediately as Cal pulled out a mug and drew a glass of beer from the large barrel on the counter behind the bar, setting it in front of me.

“Morry amout da martop, Gal,” I mumbled through a full mouth of the delicious eggs, motioning to the carving in the bar.

The mayor winced but quickly waved it off as unimportant, “Don’t worry about it, Bloody, you paid a gold coin for the right to do so. Told me if anyone ever tells me what it says I’m to send them your way.” He looked thoughtful, “I think I’ll make it an inn policy that anyone that wants to can carve a word into the bar. For the price of one gold coin that is.” Avarice glinted in his eyes.

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I cleared my mouth with a swig of the beer. “Why’s everybody calling me ‘Bloody’ this morning?” I asked as I bit into the bread. It was delicious as well. Might be worth eating here more often if this kind of quality was the usual, even if it was more expensive than Jeck’s stew.

The innkeep snorted in amusement, “Well, everybody was calling you Bloody Hunter last night. You said, ‘Please, we’re all friends here! Call me ‘Bloody!’ So we did. If you’d prefer Mister Hunter I’d be happy to oblige.”

“Naw, it’s fine. I just flat out don’t remember much from last night…Sounds like me though.” I snorted, amused, as I tore into the bacon. The food was gone in short order, but I was pleasantly full. I started back in on my beer.

“Well, then you may not recall placing some orders with Norbert and Anvil last night. I expect you’ll want to stop by their shops on your way out of town to check on their progress. You apparently paid extra for them to get to work right away last night,” mentioned the mayor as he polished the bar. “In particular you were over in the corner at a table with Anvil for quite a while discussing your purchase, He looked pretty excited when he left. You even bought some paper from me and drew up a sketch and some instructions. I only got a glance at it, but it looked like an odd axe. Norbert was there with you two too for a bit. He left looking more thoughtful than excited.” Huh, wonder what I ordered. Really don’t remember much, although I did vaguely recall paying a full gold piece for that sheet of paper.

“Guess I’ll hit the forge then,” I said, draining off the last of my beer. One of the men slumped over the tables fell off his chair and hit the floor with a loud groan. Wait a minute, I know that groan. I gave the innkeep a nod, picked up my pack, and walked over to the large young man where he lay. “Well, good morning, Hammer!” I said loudly. He groaned again and put his hands over his ears.

“Too loud,” he muttered miserably. A couple of the men nearby mumbled their sleepy agreement without moving.

“C’mon bud! Let’s get you home!” I grabbed him by one of his large shoulders and levered him to his feet. He swayed unsteadily.

“Home?” he asked blearily.

“Yep, back to the forge. Time to get to work,” I responded more cheerfully than I felt myself. Hammer groaned but began stumbling alongside me, his hand on my shoulder for support, as we made our way out the door.

We only made it a half dozen or so strides down the street before Hammer suddenly stopped. He bent over and violently puked on the snowy road. I chuckled and patted his back until he was finished. Hammer wiped off his mouth with another groan, and we started walking again. It wasn’t far to the smithy, only being a dozen houses east of the crossroad where the inn sat. We walked in the door, and Hammer let go of me to slide along the wall next to it, where he sat clutching his head at the sound of metal striking metal repeatedly.

Anvil was hard at work at the forge, holding tongs with one hand and pounding away with the hammer in his other, sparks flew with each strike. He appeared to be folding a piece of nearly white hot metal over and over while I leaned against the wall and watched him work. He glanced up with a happy smile. “Welcome, Bloody! I followed your instructions for the construction of your axe. You were right, I had to try a few different things to get it the way you wanted, but I learned a lot! Cutter is going to be furious that I finally figured out his method for making blade steel. He swore I’d never do it” He chuckled happily, putting the block of metal back into the forge to heat as its glow had slowly faded.

I laughed, “To be honest Anvil, I was so drunk last night that I barely remember the conversation,” I laughed again, “But yeah, I’ve been thinking about it for some time, and I was pretty sure I knew roughly how it was done, more or less anyway. I’d be willing to bet I couldn’t do it myself, but I’m glad it was enough to point you in the right direction.”

Anvil laughed back, “Yeah, you were pretty trashed last night. Come see what I made you,” Anvil walked over to the table under the window and pulled off a piece of leather to show three axe heads beneath it next to a piece of paper with a rough sketch that matched the axe heads fairly closely. I saw some notes on it in my own handwriting detailing how I thought steel was made. Anvil indicated the axe head on the left. “This first one I followed your instructions pretty much exactly. You can tell it’s better than normal iron, but it’s no blade steel.” He pointed to the second axe head in the middle. It clearly had the same carbon patterns on it that Cutter’s blades contained. “The second one I did came out just like one of Cutter’s blades!” he said excitedly. “It was all about the heat and the type of wood used for the charcoal. I had to use blue heartwood to get the forge to maximum heat. Then I used charcoal with a finer grain from windwood trees, and there it was! Well, there’s a bit more to it than that but by and large that’s what did the trick. The third one came out just the way you wanted it, ‘shiny, like silver,’ you said, and so it is!” He held it out to me, and I took it gently in both hands to examine it. It looked like your basic stainless steel you’d get back on earth. I smiled. Hell yeah. This baby could cut through iron chainmail no problem. It was essentially a bearded axe, with a long curving blade coming down on the bottom side of the blade, a thick slightly downward curving hook on the other side would balance it. “It took a lot more folds to get the carbon coating evenly spread through the metal, but I see why you wanted it done that way. It’s less brittle than one of Cutter’s blades so it won’t hold the same sharp edge, but it seems tougher and more flexible, better for an axe. It’s way more work, but that’s the finest axe head I’ve ever seen. I daresay you’ve gotten your three gold worth on that beauty. Of course, I’ll have an ironwood handle, like you wanted, installed by my favorite woodworker, but I’m damn proud of that work as it stands.” Anvil put his hands on his hips and looked down at the axe head with a grin. “I ordered a ton of blue heartwood and charcoal from the loggers this morning. I’m going to be redoing half my inventory this year,” he glanced down at Hammer where he was sitting on the floor next to the table. He may have passed back out. “You hear that, boy!? We got work to do! Go get some breakfast, and then we’ll get to it!” Anvil could obviously tell the boy was hungover and was rubbing it in. I grinned at Hammer’s discomfort as he put his hands over his ears and groaned despondently.

“Too loud!” muttered Hammer dejectedly as he laboriously raised himself to his feet and headed slowly up the stairs to comply.

Anvil smiled, chuckling, after his son, “Good to see him acting like his own man for a change instead of just being the dutiful apprentice.” He looked back to me, “Should have the handle made and fitted within the next couple of days, you know how hard ironwood is to work. Oh, and Norbert said he’d drop off his work with me to give you at the same time.” He glanced back to the forge, the metal was starting to glow bright again. “Need to get that covered in charcoal now. See ya in a few days then?” he asked as he headed back to the forge.

“Sounds good, Anvil. Thanks for putting a rush on it. I’ll feel better knowing I have something I can cut through mail with,” I said with a wave as I turned towards the door.

Anvil stopped in his tracks, “Oh, shit. You absolutely could, couldn’t you? This would change warfare as we know it if it gets out wouldn’t it? This knowledge could get me and the boy killed couldn’t it?” he looked over his shoulder at me, a pleading expression putting a damper on his earlier excitement.

I waved a dismissive hand at him as I opened the door. “Not if you keep that shit to yourselves and burn those instructions I wrote out. Why do you think Cutter was so closed-mouthed about it.” A look of realization came over Anvil’s face just as I closed the door.

Well, guess I don’t need to go to Norbert’s after all. My pack jingled on my back. What else could I buy before I make my way back home?

A dog barked in the distance. I smiled.