Chapter 34

I had gotten back a bit late last night, but Hammer and Knick hadn’t commented. Hammer had apparently been asleep and had woken when I knocked only to immediately lay back down on the floor to pass back out after letting me and Dog in. Knick had barely twitched where he lay in his bed, wrapped up in the blanket provided by the inn.

I woke up early with the light of dawn shining in through the window, and looked out to see the city covered in a blanket of snow. Then I noticed something odd. As the sun came up high enough to shine on the city the snow on the streets was melting rapidly away. “Whoa!” I exclaimed. Knick was immediately on his feet beside me looking out the window.

“Whoa,” he repeated, if with less excitement. Hammer laboriously made his way up from the floor while rubbing at his eyes and walked over to see what had gotten our attention. He got there just in time to watch the last of the snow melting into the deep gutters at the sides of the street. His eyes widened.

“Is that some kind of magic?” he asked, confused.

“It’d have to be, but I’ve never heard of anything like it. Given the way it seems to have started when the light of the sun hit the street, I wonder if it’s somehow harnessing the power of the sun to warm the streets or something.” I held my chin in my hand as I pondered this oddness. “Well, that was neat, but we have bigger fish to fry. I think I may have found a forge for us, and we have an appointment with the owner this morning. So get dressed, and we’ll have breakfast downstairs in an hour or so. They should be joining us fairly shortly, but it’ll take the inn a while to cook up the cadraw bird I brought back last night,” I gestured at the bird hanging from a peg on the wall next to our cloaks.

“Wait a second,” said Hammer, holding up a hand to halt me as I grabbed the bird. I turned to look at him curiously. “When did you find a forge? You weren’t gone that long last night.”

I shrugged, “Oh, I got a bit lost on my way to the stable last night, killed a handful of ruffians, saved a damsel in distress, and found us a forge. It was a whole thing. You’ll be meeting said damsel in a bit, since it’s her forge I’m hoping to use. Anyway, see you guys downstairs in a bit!” I laughed at the incredulous expression on Hammer’s face as I made my way out the door followed by Dog. Knick just snorted in amusement and flopped face down back into his bed before the door had even closed.

I made my way downstairs and let Dog outside to do his business while I quickly negotiated with the woman behind the bar this morning. It seemed she was the innkeep’s wife and the head cook of the inn. I ended up forking over six silver for the cooking of the bird and a decent sized loaf of bread that would come with it. I got a couple of free mugs of water, set them on our usual table, and headed back to the front door to let Dog back in. When I opened the door he was already sitting there waiting for me. It seemed he didn’t care much for the cold this morning and quickly shook himself off before flopping down on the floor in front of the blazing hearth with a contented sigh of pleasure. I set one of the mugs down beside him but he barely gave it a glance before ignoring it and going back to luxuriating in the warmth of the fire. I shrugged and took my seat.

I was leaning back against the wall and drowsing a bit when the door opened and Ara entered wrapped in her new dark gray wolf skin. I immediately noticed that the color of her magic was substantially improved from what I’d seen last night. I guess a little food and a warm bit of fur goes a long way. I waved as she looked around, and she walked over. I stood to politely pull out a chair and offered it to her. “Good morning, Ara. You’re looking much better this morning,” I said as she daintily took a seat.

She smiled, “That rabbit and apple helped quite a lot. I hadn’t eaten in a few days and hadn’t realized how tired I was because of it,” she explained.

I smiled back. “Well, I hope you’re hungry. The cook is just finishing up preparation of that cadraw bird I brought back with us from the stable last night. My traveling companions should be joining us shortly.” I could smell the bird back in the kitchen, so it had to be nearly done. Dog got up from his position at the hearth, slurped up a bit of the water I’d left for him, and then made his way over to us while we watched him. He nudged Ara’s arm with his nose until she laughed and patted his head while his tail wagged a bit.

The cook picked that moment to walk over with a large platter containing the roast bird and a good sized loaf of bread along with the four plates I’d requested. “Why if it isn’t little Ara! I haven’t seen you in months, girl. You look terrible. You need to eat more. Why look at you, you're all skin and bones!” exclaimed the cook happily.

“Oh, hello Mera,” said Ara. “Yes, I’m afraid I haven’t been eating very well since Father passed, but hopefully that will be a thing of the past since Nameless is considering renting the forge for the winter,” she gestured to me with one hand, and I nodded.

“I wasn’t aware the two of you knew each other,” I said, inquiringly.

The cook nodded happily as she set down her load on the table. “Oh, I’ve known little Ara since she was a tiny whip of a thing. This was her father’s favorite drinking hole, so she’d often join him for dinner, or be the one to come drag him home when he was on a bender,” she chuckled in remembrance. “I’ll bring you a mug of that apple cider you always liked, Ara, on the house. We need to put some color back in those cheeks, especially if you’re courting a rich young man like the young sir here,” she smiled at Ara knowingly and gave her a wink.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

“Oh! No! No no no, I’m just here to talk business this morning,” Ara waved her hands in the negative while blushing furiously. Mera just laughed as she made her way back to the bar to presumably pour her some cider.

I pretended not to notice her embarrassment and saw Dog glance to the stairs. I followed the direction of his attention in time to see Hammer and Knick making their way down into the bar. I gave them a nod and they headed over and took a seat. Knick immediately sliced off a chunk of breast meat and started gnawing on it. “Ara, these are my good friends, and master smiths, Hammer and Knick.” I pointed to each in turn to indicate which was which.

“Well, Father never declared that I had reached master level before he died,” said Hammer doubtfully.

I snorted, “I bet there aren’t five smiths in the entire kingdom that could match you Hammer. Name one smithy we’ve seen on our way north that had better goods than what you could make,” I stared at him, waiting.

“...Maybe,” he said, still in a doubting tone.

Knick reached over and punched him in the shoulder roughly without looking. “You’re really good, stupid,” said Knick as he went back to eating

“I still can’t make knives as well as Knick though,” said Hammer a bit mournfully.

Knick shrugged, “Nope,” he added unhelpfully with a grin. To which I snorted in amusement.

.”Ara here happens to be in possession of possibly the finest smithy I’ve ever seen, it’s definitely the largest though. It’s a bit run down, as it hasn’t been used since spring, and it doesn’t come with any tools included, but I figure we can secure those fairly easily from another smithy if Hammer can’t just make them himself. What we need to do first though is come to an agreement with Ara on price. As far as that goes, Ara, I’m curious how much you’re thinking would be a fair price for the rest of the winter, keeping in mind we were hoping to get lodging there while we were at it,” I said as we looked at her.

“Um, I’m honestly not sure what would be a fair price,” she started, hesitantly, “I was mostly hoping to get at least the fifty gold that the tax collectors will be coming for with the spring taxes, so that I won’t have to sell the house and the forge, but I suppose I need enough to eat too, and I still don’t have enough firewood for the winter even if it’s just for the house. I feel terrible that the forge is so underprepared for use, but, while I can do a bit of smithing myself, we never had enough food for me to really put on the muscle that father said was necessary to run the forge properly.” Hammer nodded at that, looking at her thin arms. “What do you think would be a fair price, Nameless?” she asked.

“Hmm,” I put my hand to my chin in thought, “Well, when you consider rent in an inn like this runs five silver a day, we could use that as a rough estimate for lodging at the least. Say we double that for use of the forge while we’re at it, and call it a gold per day. I suppose we could call it a hundred gold for the winter if you’d be comfortable with that?” I asked.

Ara’s eyes widened in surprise, “I-I had no idea it could be worth that much,” she said, holding a hand over her mouth with tears in her eyes.

“Does that sound about right to you guys?” I asked, looking at Hammer and Knick.

Knick just shrugged, “Sure.”

Hammer nodded in agreement. “That seems like a good deal to me, especially if the forge is as nice as you think. We could make far more than that amount if we were selling the stuff we make. As it is, since we’re making things for our own personal use, we won’t recoup the expense, but if we finish early we could make some things that would sell for more than that with no difficulty.”

“That was kind of my thought as well. I mean, if you can put together a few steel swords for sale once we’re finished, we could probably cover our rent costs right there. Nobody else can do it, so they’re practically unique, aside from the few your father made over the last year or so, and unique is always valuable. We’ll still have to buy a large quantity of wood, but I figure we can cover that and any other set up expenses without cleaning out our nest egg. Besides, while you guys are smithing away over the winter I’m not planning to just lounge about. I can hunt the forests on the north and south sides of the lake and sell the furs and meat. I’ve always made good money doing that over the winters in the past so that should supplement our income in the meantime while you guys are working. Plus there are apparently a lot of nobles in town here. Maybe I can find a decent game of liar’s folly while we’re here and make some REAL coin.” I chuckled as I rubbed my hands together greedily. Gotta love the idea of taking money off the nobles that take it off the less fortunate.

“Uh, Nameless?” asked Hammer tentatively, drawing my attention to him. “Could you maybe win in such a way that you’re not forced to kill all their men when they try to rob you to get it back this time?”

I shrugged, “Well, I can try, but that’s kind of up to them now, isn’t it?” Hammer sighed and rolled his eyes while Knick chuckled. Ara looked back and forth at us confused. “Sorry,” I said to her, “Long story. Anyways, we can get you the hundred gold today if you like, and we can have Goliath pull over the cart and we’ll start unloading everything. I’ll find the local loggers and put in an order for firewood for the winter before it gets even more expensive, not that it’ll be cheap this late in the year. We can look into tools tomorrow, and we’ll likely be getting started on our project before the end of the week. Sound good to everybody?” I looked around the table to see nods all around. Hammer looked excited. Ara looked really happy that she had finally found a way to pay her upcoming taxes and feed herself through the winter. Knick was as inscrutable as ever and seemed more interested in the roast bird he was chewing on.

“With that settled then, let’s eat!” I said reaching towards the bird with my snake blade. Practically before I finished speaking, Knick’s blade had whipped out and sliced off the drumstick on his side of the roasted bird. He bit into it with gusto as grease dripped down his chin. I politely cut a good sized piece of breast meat for Ara as Hammer cut the loaf of bread into four equal pieces and shared it out to each of us. Mera brought over mugs of water for Knick and Hammer with a large glass of cider for Ara. I took the thigh off Knick’s side of the bird for myself and bit into the tender dark meat. God damn, that’s some seriously tasty bird. That might be even better than the one we had in Springfields, I thought as I filled my belly. No one talked as we devoured the bird, tossing the odd scrap to Dog. Not much better than a good hot meal in a good warm inn with good friends.