Darius Chapter 42

The western corridors of Erinstone were dark and cold. The servants were instructed not to light any braziers or open any of the locked shutters that spanned the length of the hallway – unless they wanted to find themselves at the end of a Red Plume’s sword. Navigating the halls wasn’t difficult – they were virtually just a straight line – but for those who called the rooms along this section ‘home’, it created a miserable existence of darkness and hunger and cold feet in the mornings.

Lady Silfor strode through the passage with two Red Plume escorts behind her. Her shoes clopped on the stones, the only noise echoing around the drab walls. When she reached the King’s Forge, the Red Plumes turned the handle and nudged the door open, drawing their swords as they did so.

The Forge lay still, nearly pitch-black and silent.

Silfor pointed at a figure lying on the bags of sand in the far corner. They were just visible, a streak of light running across their chest from a gap in the shutter that overlooked the Premarantic Sea. The figure did not stir at the sound of people approaching.

Silfor filled a cup with icy water from the cooling trough and pointed her guards to the man, intending for them to approach. They weaved through the tools and equipment strewn across the floor and jutting out from benchtops until they stood over the man. Silfor threw the cup, hitting him on the nose and splashing the frigid liquid over his face and chest. He sat up in an instant, his bloodshot eyes searching around in the darkness for his attacker.

“Blithering BILGOG! I’m here! I haven’t done...”

He came to his senses when the Red Plumes grabbed him under each arm and heaved him up. The man stumbled and limped, and blood seeped from a thick bandage on his calf. Silfor spoke to him while she opened the shutters.

“Hullo, Bart. Have you been enjoying your stay?”

Bart didn’t reply, instead watching her with wary eyes. He shook out of the Red Plumes’ grip and shifted his weight to his good leg. Silfor continued.

“Look, I know you’ve been working hard for me, and I appreciate your cooperation, but General Mitrev has just informed me that your old master, Darius, has been spotted heading into Barringvale. Unfortunately, he is very much alive.”

Bart grinned, which earned him a punch in the stomach from the Red Plume on his left. He doubled over in pain, but the news put him in high spirits.

“I should remind you, Bart, that since Darius is alive, you just became a whole lot less valuable to me. The troops are being assembled as we speak, and we are going to storm Barringvale before Darius has the chance to forge anything at all for them. When we capture him, you can imagine what we’ll do to you.”

Despite his position, Bart’s good mood motivated him to be a bit snarky.

“That’s not much incentive to work! You’re saying that every arrow or sword I make puts you one step closer to replacing and killing me. Why should I make anything at all?”

Silfor smiled. He hated it when she did that.

“If you won’t work, you’ll just die a lot sooner. Bye bye now!”

The second Red Plume thumped him on the back of the head as they left, knocking him forward onto a bench. He slumped back into the sandbags once the door was slammed shut, assessing his position.

He was lucky to be alive. After Falsith and Darius had managed their escape, he assumed he’d be dragged back before Silfor and promptly sent to the gallows or perhaps something even less eventful.

But when he’d found himself thrown to the ground at her feet, his expected sentence never came. Instead, he was hidden away in the King’s Forge, set to work on the magical tools and weaponry pioneered by his former master.

For a week, he slaved away, enduring fourteen to eighteen hours at the forge, hammering blade after blade with no sign of progress. Darius had told him how to do it, and he’d seen the piles of arrowheads being imbued as well as the axe, but he just couldn’t replicate the same effect. Darius said that it came from strong emotion, but he was starting to think that it was a power only Darius could manifest.

Then, on the eighth day after being locked up in the King’s Forge, he had a breakthrough.

He’d reverted to casting arrowheads – the sheer mountain of molds that Silfor had ordered made forging them far more practical than casting daggers, and he was absolutely miserable. He hadn’t eaten, he hadn’t slept, and his body ached where the guards had beaten him. His calf and leg were troubling him too – the castle medic had fixed him up as best as he could, but the bandage seeped a foul-smelling ooze and his body was too weak to focus on healing it.

He still hobbled around the Forge, half-heartedly hammering arrowheads into shape and murmuring ‘Es-shen’ every time he struck, but he was fading away, letting his sour mood bottle up until he summoned the small amount of energy he had left and burst – swinging his hammer in a roundabout arc.

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“Es-SHEN!” he yelled, slamming the mangled arrowhead into the anvil. Like the first time he’d seen Darius cast the spell, the tools on the bench around him flew around the room, and the detonation was so loud in the enclosed room he thought he might’ve gone deaf. It took almost an hour for the ringing in his ears to go away.

Silfor had come in, shouting orders at a servant to bring bread and wine and fresh meats for him, showering him with praise.

She’d tried and succeeded using the stick, but now the carrot was being doled out.

But the praise didn’t last. From that point on, he struggled to find the place in his mind that took him back to the bottom of the emotional pit, so he was sporadic with his successful creations.

The carrot turned back to the stick once Silfor noticed he wasn’t becoming more consistent, and over the last week, he had been downtrodden enough that he’d become very consistent – succeeding with almost every hit of his hammer.

Needless to say, he wasn’t in the best spot – physically or mentally. He struggled up from his sandbag mattress and lit the forge, staring into the embers as they grew into a roaring blaze that dried his eyes. The shutter nearest the forge was unlocked – the castle guests wouldn’t approve of the smoke and burnt smell coming from the Forge, so that one shutter doubled as the smoke chute and all of Bart’s fresh air supply. Luckily, a strong wind blew almost constantly over the choppy waves and shoals below, so he wasn’t left wanting for airflow.

He melted down ingot after ingot, pouring little pools of metal into the arrowhead casts. He was a decent enough blacksmith now that he could’ve made a broader range of weapons like axes and swords, but he’d need an assistant, and Silfor wasn’t willing to allow him that. It was for the better – the less he could do, the less powerful Silfor and the Erinian Army became. These arrows alone would cause unprecedented destruction if the archers were let in range of Barringvale – the sandstone walls would crumble after just two or three well-aimed hits.

He wondered how Darius and Falsith were doing, and how they’d managed to evade the various teams that were sent after them. He knew that Mitrev and several of his platoons had been sent to track down Prince Marth and his men, and if Silfor was to be trusted – which in most things she wasn’t – they must’ve caught up with the Barringvale troops somewhere along the Road. If Darius had survived, it must've been an inconclusive battle – he could only hope Barringvale would be better defended next time.

He went along the row of freshly poured arrowheads, knocking them out of the cast once they partially cooled. He filed down the few that had egregious faults. Taking his hammer, he hit each of them, hammering down a few remaining bumps and misshapen edges before mumbling ‘Es-shen’ and striking them one last time. The finished arrowheads were no longer thrown into a big box altogether – that lesson had been learnt. Now, sets of five were placed into smaller, leather-lined boxes that were packed into a crate and sent to a number of fletchers around the Trader’s District. The fletchers were making a roaring trade – all paid handsomely for their contribution to the war effort.

He was wrapping up a finished box when the door to the King’s Forge swung open, revealing a man holding the magical axe that was Darius’s first creation.

The man was shorter than Bart, but his eyes were sunken, and his skin was old, like a cherry just past its prime. He had a stubby grey beard that he scratched insistently, and bits of dried skin fell like dust from it, swirling around the room in the sea breeze. Bart was a little grossed out and was inclined to hold his breath until it dissipated, but the scratching continued.

“You Bart?”

His voice was low, exactly matching the rugged man.

“I am. I know that axe.”

The man walked in and closed the door behind him. Bart shrank back behind the forge, reaching behind his back for the fire poker.

“Touch that and you’re dead. I’m not here to hurt you. Yet.”

Bart froze, inches away from the poker. There was no use trying any further – if the man swung the axe anywhere in his vicinity, he would be done for.

“I think I know you. Are you Mitrev? Silfor’s dog?”

Mitrev laughed, a long, rasping sound that sounded painful.

“You must have a death wish, young lad, that’s a very ballsy move. But yes, I am ‘Silfor’s Dog’, and you calling me that doesn’t offend me. Better than being you right now I imagine.”

Bart threw two ingots in the forge, returning to his work. Mitrev followed him with his eyes, eventually speaking again.

“Look, I didn’t come here to bother you. Lady Silfor wanted me to supervise while you look at this axe. I think she’s hoping that you’ll have some burst of inspiration or something. You can’t hold it, but you can come look if you want.”

Bart set out another row of casts and kept his back turned to Mitrev.

“I don’t need to. I’m already consistent, and there’s nothing I can learn from looking at the axe – I'd need to watch Darius. So go home to your kennel and eat your supper.”

“You’re playing with fire, boy. You’re lucky I’m in a good mood after crushing that Barringvale lot – it was like fighting cadets, even your poor old father would’ve managed to stay alive this time.”

Bart felt a flash of anger at the mention of his father. He knew Mitrev was just trying to goad him into something stupid, but it was almost working. The iron was hot in the crucible, it wouldn’t be hard to fling the molten contents at the man...

“But if you don’t want the axe, I’ll be going. I’ve got an army to lead.”

He turned and strode out, leaving the door open. Bart fought back the urge to chase after him with the fire poker, knowing the Red Plumes outside the door would be onto him like hounds.

For now, he just had to do his job. It was that or die. The lavish lifestyle and boatloads of gold that Silfor once offered were no longer on the table – his skill was only good enough to grant him permission to live.

Once he filled yet another crate with the small packages of arrowheads, he poked his head out the door, calling in one of the guards. The Red Plume took the box and hefted it up to his chest before leaving down the corridor out to a cart that Bart knew was there, waiting.

He sighed and hung his head out the singular shutter at the rear of the Forge. He looked down, like Darius once had, and saw a glimpse of a red face looking up at him. It looked scaly and manic, and scampered back beneath the cliffside moments after meeting his gaze.

I’m so tired I must be seeing things.

He went back to work.