Chapter Eleven - A Smith

51st Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era

Shorefarm, Yellowfield, Draya Calyrex

"Hhhh," Green started, then paused. There were some sounds that were going to take her a while to master, she figured. "Hhhheeello," she said, very slowly.

Next to her, Red grunted a greeting of her own, and Blue remained quiet, her head slowly turning as she scanned the area around the little blacksmithy and home.

The blacksmith's brows drew together. "Hello," he replied. "I don't recognize the sound of your voice. You mustn't be from Shorefarm."

"No," Green said.

The man nodded slowly and solemnly. "I must confess to some joy on hearing that. Wherefrom do you hail, then? What winds brought you to this fair corner of the land, and are they of good tidings or ill?"

She glanced to the others, but neither seemed ready to reply to the man. Without a word spoken between them, she had been elected as their spokesperson. Or spokespuppet, she presumed. "Good," she finally said. "Wat... wat hhhhapp..en?"

"What happened?" he asked.

Green nodded, then realized that the man couldn't possibly see it. Still, he seemed to catch on.

"Ah, I don't rightly know. I woke in the dead of night, cramped from toe to fingertip, my body wracked with pain the likes of which I'd never felt. But it seems like what I experienced was but a shadow of the suffering of the townsfolk I'd been getting to know. My shop here, it is an old thing, but my presence is new. My name is Tomas Fletchscale, I'm a blacksmith of Fangspire, to the far north and east. I moved here a scant few years ago, for a quieter sort of living."

He deposited his hammer onto his anvil with a clink and leaned forwards slightly. Calloused hands came to rest on the solid metal. Tomas looked ready to faint.

"I don't know what disaster has befallen the locals. But I can feel that it is something that stretches beyond these fields." He clutched at his chest for a moment. "Vyrwolf... Something has happened to the lady wolf."

"Sssorry," Green said. "Sorry."

Tomas shook his head. "No. No, something has befallen our noble home, and I doubt it is you who is to blame, stranger. The lord of our small town has... I believe he has gone mad with fervour, and the townsfolk follow his lead as the loyal serfs they are. I paid him a tithe in eyes and gold already. I am left with nothing. Perhaps your arrival is a good sign."

"Yes," Green said. She hoped it was. Maybe this poor man could be moved back onto their ship. She wasn't sure about repairing his eyes, but healing him in other ways might be possible.

Tomas smiled, though it carried little true mirth. Then he raised a hand and picked up his hammer once more. "I must continue my work, I'm afraid. Tools must be made. The village will forget this folly, I hope, when their hunger comes calling, and it will be back to the ocean for a bounty of fish. They'll need my tools then, and resting upon my laurels will help no one."

"Thank... you," Green said. She meant it, too. Kindness like this felt precious, and perhaps like something too rarely seen in these parts.

The blacksmith paused for a moment, then turned his head to look deeper into his little shop. "One moment," he said before he moved back. A few items were shifted aside, and his fingers ran delicately over an array of tongs and tools before he found something and returned. "Here. This will serve me no longer, and I... I feel as though the lord perhaps does not deserve it. Take it, and may it serve you well."

Green carefully plucked the item resting in Tomas's hand. It was a small wolf-head, made of blackened, wrought iron. The head surrounded a metal cage of sorts, and its mouth was hinged to open. A metal ring ran around the top, for ease of handling, or perhaps to hook it onto something.

Carefully, Green shifted the item around, then she discovered a clasp at the rear. Tugging it down opened the iron wolf's maw and eyes, and from within came a warm yellow light.

The interior was filled with several small mirrors positioned around a gem the size of a thumb joint. It was crudely cut, but that didn't prevent it from glowing all the same.

"Light?" she asked.

"Indeed. A trinket from my homeland, for precise work in the dead of night without heat or flame. May it light your path, because mine feels quite impossible to see at the moment. Now... I'm afraid that I truly must resume my work."

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"Thank... you," Green said.

She clicked the little lantern shut, then looked to the others.

Red shrugged, and Blue stared at the device for a few moments longer before her attention snapped back up to Green. She pointed, a single finger raised up towards the hill circling around the rise.

She looked down at the ring on the lantern, then removed her satchel, the one with the compass given to her by Magus Nocthorn. With a bit of finagling, she was able to tie the ring onto the strap so that the lantern hung by her hip.

It was nearing noon, at the moment, and the sun was warm enough that even the most tenacious remains of the fog that had clouded the region was being burned away.

"Lighthouse," Blue said.

Green was taken aback by how fluidly the puppet had said that. It was a single word, certainly, but it was pronounced very well considering the strange accent their voices carried.

"Yes," she agreed.

Tomas the blacksmith turned his head up, almost as if looking at them. "The lighthouse? Ah... beware. The keepers of the lighthouses along these shores are all devout. They do not appreciate strangers interfering with their work."

"Thank you," Green replied. She glanced at the others, but there wasn't any reason not to at least go and observe.

And so they set off. The path to the lighthouse peeled away from the village and along a beaten dirt path. There were ancient ruts, dug in by cart and carriage that moved up a slight incline and then continued on.

The path rose the entire way, making each stumbling step somewhat treacherous, but without the ability to feel tired, it was easy to keep a steady pace that didn't throw any of them to the ground.

Blue eventually stopped and found a branch on the ground with which to walk, but Green decided to keep her hands free, just in case.

They made it to a stretch of thick forest, the road crawling alongside it, and as they rose up and over a hill next to the rise on which the lighthouse sat, Green found herself pausing to take in the sight.

"Look," Green said.

She pointed below, where Shorefarm lay. The village was laid out below them in the mouth of a wide bay. The ground rose past the village, gently sweeping upwards until it reached a hard cliffside where bare stone rose up to a plateau just a little lower than the hill they were on.

She wished she could squint to see better, or that she carried something to help her see further. Still, it was enough to see the fields of yellow stretching out to the horizon about the plateau.

A larger town was spread out at the base of the cliffs. Three times as many homes as the little village they'd visited. A paved road led from one to the other, but the larger town was too distant for any precise details to be made out. It did have a small palisade wall about it, however, and few larger buildings in its centre.

Red made a noise, then pointed to something in the distance. Not in the direction Green had been looking in, but towards the south.

She turned and stared, then stared longer until the distant form started to make sense.

It was a ballista. A big crossbow-like weapon, set on the top of a large cliffside way, way out in the distance. The cliff jutted out of the waters a little, and a large platform sat atop it, of stone and brick.

The ballista was huge. It took a moment for her to realize its scale from so far away, but there were trees around the platform it sat on, and next to those were racks holding spare bolts. The bolts were twice as tall as the tallest tree, and wide enough that Green was certain her armspan was shorter. The ballista itself was likely bigger than the Gentle Tidings.

It pointed out towards the ocean, as a silent, unused threat, a bolt sitting primed and ready to fire already.

"Big," Red said.

"Yes," Green agreed.

What kind of person would build something like that? And what did it mean, to have it point out across the ocean? Was it a weapon? A warning? What would happen to a ship struck by a bolt larger than its main mast?

"Lighthouse," Blue said, and they all turned towards the hill behind them. Up a short path alongside it was the lighthouse. A square-based building with a massive, narrow spire jutting out of it, topped by a glass-walled lantern room.

She supposed it was about time that they checked it out. If they couldn't clear the town, they could at least clear the lighthouse.

***