Carmen struggled against her bonds, though it was no good. She’d tried to use her various techniques to escape, but they were all meant to bind things together, rather than to tear things apart. Her lone ability meant for that kind of thing was only useful on metal, so in her current situation, she had nothing. Perhaps one of her future abilities would fill that void.
If there was a future.
She was well aware of how dire her situation was, which made that a dubious prospect. After she and Colt had been captured, they’d been thrust into a cage – which had taken the form of an old clothing store – where they’d rotted for the past few days. It was only recently that they’d been released from that prison, though freedom wasn’t precisely what it was cracked up to be. One of their captors had put bags over their heads, then guided them outside before tossing them into what seemed like the bed of a pickup truck.
That was where she still was, being jostled as the truck sped across what felt like the world’s bumpiest road. Not that she was that concerned with comfort at the moment. For three days, she’d beaten herself up over her mistakes. The first was when she’d tried to ally herself with the rebels, but in her anger and desperation, she had made plenty since then as well. It had all culminated in the kidnapping of her son as well as the deaths of the people who’d followed her.
The only survivor was Colt, and he wasn’t doing so well. More than once, he’d tried to escape, and they’d beaten him bloody. If that was the extent of it, Carmen wouldn’t have been so worried about him, but they’d also taken his sword hand, lopping it off at the wrist, then having a Healer stop the bleeding.
Even then, Colt had never stopped struggling for escape. Neither had Carmen, but they’d treated her much more gently. So, she at least had all her limbs – which was no comfort, considering the worry she held for not only her own fate, but for her son’s as well. There was no telling what Trace had done to the boy.
Eventually, the truck pulled to a stop, and Carmen heard a muffled conversation that suggested they’d arrived in Easton. That wasn’t surprising. After all, Laramie and his warband had clearly made a deal with Roman. But rather than fury, Carmen just felt exhausted. If there was one thing she’d discovered, it was that she wasn’t cut out for leadership. She wanted to be, but she simply didn’t have the temperament. She was too selfish. Too volatile.
Those thoughts occupied Carmen’s mind as the truck entered the city. She knew from experience that vehicles weren’t allowed far past the gates, so she wasn’t surprised when they came to a stop only a few minutes later. Then, one of Laramie’s goons grabbed her and threw her over a shoulder. Presumably, Colt received similar treatment, and like that, they were taken through the city.
More muffled conversation followed them along the way, but Carmen couldn’t hear well enough to understand any of it. However, she did smell plenty of smoke as well as the unmistakable odor of blood and death. Something had happened in the city, she reasoned. Something terrible.
It seemed that that was all the new world had to offer.
Eventually, the smells faded, and the murmurs took on a much more aggressive tone. Carmen wasn’t certain whether that was for her or for her barbaric captors, but she didn’t think it mattered so much. The people of Easton weren’t important. Only the man at the top.
Still, it felt like an eternity before the cool and conditioned air of what Carmen assumed was Roman’s ridiculous palace assailed her, but it wasn’t long after that when she was unceremoniously dumped onto a tile floor. Someone ripped the black hood from her head, and she blinked in the glaring light.
That’s when she saw him.
“Miggy!” she shouted, struggling to go to her son. It was no good, though. With her hands and feet bound, she couldn’t do anything more than flop over. For his part, Miguel raced to her side and buried his head in her shoulder, muttering one apology after another. She soothed him by saying, “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“He’s a good kid,” came the voice of the man who’d been standing behind Miguel. Carmen looked up to see Roman staring down at her, his gaze intense and predatory. “I’m sorry for what happened. If it makes any difference, the man who took your son is dead.”
“Fuck you,” Carmen growled. “I know what you did.”
“I figured as much,” Roman said. “You likely care nothing for apologies, but I am sorry. If there had been any other way, I would have taken it.”
Then, he gestured toward Miguel, and one of his lackeys stepped forward to drag her son away. Carmen started to protest, but when Roman insisted that he wouldn’t be harmed, she let it go, telling Miguel that everything would be okay. She didn’t need to be told that Roman held all the cards. They were completely at his mercy, and Carmen knew precisely how thin that could be. So, she chose to subdue her fury and play along.
Once Miguel was out of the room, she said, “What do you want? Why am I still alive?”
“Straight to the point.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want to enjoy a beer together? Reminisce about old times? Like when you killed my fucking wife?”
“Fair,” Roman sighed. Then, he glanced at another lackey, saying, “Stand her up, and put her in a chair. We can do that much, at least.”
After that, the guard – another man in blue and white – dragged her to her feet before shoving her onto a leather couch. That’s when Carmen took in her surroundings, and what she saw was a grotesquerie of ridiculous trophies. Stuffed heads of monsters Roman had presumably killed, skulls, and a few weapons adorned the walls, giving it the air of a man who was trying far too hard to appear strong and deadly.
But Carmen didn’t need convincing. She knew that Roman was a snake in a person suit, and though she didn’t respect him as a man, she was more than wary of his lethality.
Shifting, she asked, “So, now that we’re comfortable, what do you want?”
Roman, who was leaning against the edge of a monstrous slab of a desk, said, “I want your services. You make me a weapon to the best of your abilities. I’ll provide the materials. All I care about is the product.”
“Or what? You’ll kill me?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m not a monster, Carmen. I don’t kill people unnecessarily. And the fact of the matter is that you are powerless, now. The rebels have pitched their fit, and they have been punished accordingly. Their leaders are dead. Laramie has agreed to a truce. And everyone loyal to you has been captured or killed. You are no longer a threat to me, so I see no reason to kill you. After this, I intend to let you go. We’ll call it banishment. You will no longer be welcome in Easton. But I won’t kill you. And I certainly won’t do anything to your son. You have my word on it. No matter what else happens here, he’ll be safe.”
“Is this where you take him hostage or something?” Carmen asked, noting the ambiguous wording.
“Of course not. What do I want with a child? He’ll go with you.”
Stolen story; please report.
“I refuse.”
“You haven’t heard the rest of it,” Roman said. “You do want your people to survive, don’t you? What about your friend there? He’s a powerful fighter. Shame about his hand, but your captors had to take precautions.”
Carmen glanced at Colt, who hadn’t moved since she’d had her hood removed. He was still breathing, but he was clearly unconscious. “So, you’re going to kill a bunch of other people if I don’t build you a weapon. Is that it?”
“It is.”
“What kind of weapon? I don’t know how to make a proper bow.”
“A longsword,” Roman answered. “The specifications will be forthcoming once you agree.”
There really wasn’t much of a choice. Even if he was lying, Carmen could never refuse, if only because of the possibility that Roman would make good on his promise. If he didn’t, then Carmen was no better or worse off for having tried. Certainly, she didn’t want to give him anything that would make him more powerful, but given the options before her, she didn’t see as she could make any other decision.
So, Carmen said, “Fine. I’ll do it.”
“Really? Just like that?” Roman asked.
“There’s not much choice, is there? You’re going to kill a bunch of people if I don’t. If you think I’m going to make any other decision, you obviously don’t know me.”
“Perhaps,” he allowed. “Maybe I never did.”
After that anticlimactic exchange, Roman called for a healer to take care of Colt. Then, he had someone show Carmen to a forge in the lower reaches of the palace. There, she was given access to a pile of cold iron ingots and enough ethereal coal to run the forge for a month. She didn’t think she’d need that long, though.
As she started working, she considered trying to build a flaw into the weapon or giving it less than her best effort. However, she ultimately chose not to for a couple of reasons. The first was that she wasn’t certain how to do the former, and the second was that she was afraid that giving Roman an inferior product would result in the execution of the people she hoped to save. That would have negated the whole decision, so when she embarked on the question to forge the weapon, she did so with every ounce of skill she possessed.
So, after using Decontaminate and Refine Material on the metal billets, she stacked them atop one another until she had a dozen layers. Then, she shoved the result into the forge so they would weld together. Normally, she would’ve used Bond to shorten the process, but with the ethereal coal – and so much of it that she didn’t have to ration it – she could afford to do it the old-fashioned way. That, in turn, meant that the resulting billet would have been exposed to more ethera, and theoretically, it would have a higher ceiling in terms of quality.
After completing the forge weld, Carmen started in on shaping the piece. The specifications she’d received were simple. Just a typical longsword with a cruciform hilt and a two-inch wide blade forty-two inches long. Completing the design was a fuller that ran along the length of the blade.
Shaping the piece took quite some time, due to the curious trait of cold iron to dissipate heat very quickly, but Carmen was used to working with it. So, she persisted until, what felt like a day later, she completed the blade. However, that didn’t mean the project was done. Instead, it was only the beginning.
The next step was to create the cross guard, which required much the same technique, yet with a different aim. This time, after forging a bar in the right length, she used a drifting tool to hammer a hole in the center. Once that was done, Carmen used Summon Tool to manifest a file so she could shape the hole into a slot that would fit the blade’s tang.
It was an arduous and tedious process, but she found the monotonous work soothing. Eventually, Carmen managed to complete the cross guard before slipping it into place. It was close to a perfect fit, and she used Bond to weld the pair together. Just like that, she had a sword, though a crudely shaped and dull one without a proper hilt.
After ensuring that everything fit together properly, Carmen used the forge’s grinder to refine the blade into its final shape. Sparks flew as she removed the unneeded metal until, hours later, she was left with a perfectly crafted sword blade. Even the cross guard followed the specifications exactly.
Next came the heat treat. So, Carmen shoved the entire blade into the forge, then waited for it to reach the proper temperature before summoning a pair of tongs and removing the metal from the forge. Moving quickly, she dropped the blade into a barrel of heated oil. Flames shot toward the ceiling, but because of Resist Fire, Carmen ignored them. Instead, she listened for any tinging sounds that might indicate that the blade had cracked.
She heard nothing, and when she removed the blade, she saw that it was entirely straight. That was a relief, because Carmen knew how easily such a long blade could warp.
After that, Carmen created a handle from a block of wood, then fitted it onto the tang. Using Bond, she then attached a pommel and wrapped the handle in soft leather that she then adhered to the wood using her ability.
That completed the sword, though Carmen still needed to add the embellishments as well as the enchantment. For the first embellishment, Carmen spent quite some time filing the likeness of a dragon’s head onto the pommel. The second came when she embedded a pair of onyx gemstones on either end of the cross guard.
To her, it looked a little ostentatious, but she was working from Roman’s specifications. So, Carmen reasoned that if he wanted the weapon to look like some edgy teenager’s idea of a perfect sword, then that was what he would get. The stakes were too high for her to place artistic integrity over the lives of her people.
Once that was finished, she used Bond to ensure the onyx gemstones would never move.
Sighing, she looked at the weapon. She still hadn’t sharpened the weapon, but it was already beautiful, with a Damascus pattern dancing along the blue-white steel. She hated that it was going to such a monster.
To complete the project, Carmen started in on the enchantment. On the surface, it was a simple task. She simply needed to carve a couple of symbols onto the weapon while using her Minor Enchantment technique. Yet, it required significant concentration as well as a steady flow of ethera. So, after taking a few deep breaths, Carmen got to work, bending her entire mind to the task. It took a lot longer than she would have preferred, but she wasn’t one to cut corners. So, after etching one side of the blade, she flipped it over and used a different symbol on the other.
The enchantments themselves weren’t complex. One was intended for durability, the other for sharpness. Yet, they were elegant in their own way, and when Carmen finished, she received the notification she’d sought for all those long hours:
Congratulations! You have created a unique item [False Dragon’s Fang].
Overall Grade: Simple (Peak)
Enchantment Grade: F
She let out a long, slow sigh. It was the highest-graded item she’d ever created, which came with mixed emotions. On the one hand, Carmen was proud of herself for the accomplishment. It was the culmination of long hours’ worth of work as well as years of training and practice. However, at the same time, she hated that it was going to someone like Roman, who would doubtless use it for detestable purposes.
She took solace in the name, at least. While Carmen wasn’t certain why the system had labeled it false, she felt it was appropriate, given Alyssa’s class. To her, it said that Roman’s entire position was a charade. That he was a fake. That gave her some comfort, though it was still a bitter pill to swallow, considering how everything had gone of late.
There was a lesson there, and one that Carmen had only just begun to embrace. The first part was that she was no leader. She didn’t want to be responsible for anyone but herself and Miguel. But the second bit was that she needed to keep her priorities straight. Sure, imagining vengeance on Roman was an enticing thought, and she still longed to plunge the False Dragon’s Fang’s blade into the man’s heart. Yet, she knew her priorities should be to protect Miguel and the people she’d already put in danger. So, with some regret, she sheathed her desire for vengeance while doing the same for the blade she had just created.
Once that was done, she left the forge to find a pair of blue-and-white clad guards standing outside. They escorted her to Roman’s office, where she presented the blade. He was impressed, though Carmen saw a slight tick of anger on the man’s face when he was told the weapon’s name.
But miraculously, Roman was as good as his word, and soon enough, Carmen found herself standing between Miguel and Colt in front of Easton’s gates. Fifteen people were to her rear, and each person had been given a small pack of supplies. It was only enough for a few days’ survival, but it was more than Carmen had expected.
Nobody had been allowed to take weapons or armor.
“I hate that it ended this way,” Roman stated from behind them. Carmen looked back to see that the man was wearing the armor she’d made for Colt. He had the False Dragon’s Fang in a scabbard at his hip.
“Me too,” Carmen said. Though, she was certain that they meant very different things. For his part, he probably regretted that she wasn’t working for Easton anymore. But for Carmen’s, she wished it would have ended with Roman dead at her feet. She had other priorities now, though, so she pushed those thoughts aside and told her people, “Come on. We need to get moving.”
Then, without another word, she set off into the wilderness, her son’s hand clutched tightly in her own.