Ezril woke in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. He made his way out of the tent in quiet steps. He strolled around and finally came upon a flame where a few adults were gathered, amongst whom was Sister Ellenel. They were drinking and laughing and sharing tales. Avoiding detection, he wandered deeper into the forest, finding a more serene and encompassing silence. Unlike the Seminary, where the silence seemed dead, this one seemed very much alive. It was almost as though it stayed awake with him.
The forest seemed so alive that Ezril felt he could hear it should he listen closely enough. After a while, he calmed from the fear of his dream. The light of the fire from the adults had calmed his mind and the stroll had calmed his racing heart.
Satisfied with his escape, Ezril returned to the tent just in time to find Ellenel asleep within it. She was wrapped only in a blanket, her curves evident. He found himself lost in its hypnotism with every slight movement she made in her slumber.
…………………………………
Before dawn Ezril made his way to the smithy in time to catch the blacksmith opening it. He made his way inside behind the man and found his wood and blade unmoved from where he had left them.
As the sun climbed to its peak, it found Ezril chipping away at the piece of wood with a rhythm of his own. At some point, he caugth the blacksmith as he rose his head to assess him for the first time since he had walked into the smithy the previous day. And as the midday sun had found him still carving, the night saw Ezril finally sanding the piece of wood. His bow was almost complete, and in just two days.
“Good work,” the blacksmith complimented as he surveyed the smoothness and curves of the bow or a lack thereof. “Tomorrow we will continue.”
That night Ezril found his dreams haunted by the darkness and its cohorts again. He woke up once more, drenched in sweat. He spent the rest of the night awake and watching the hypnotic rise and fall of Sister Ellenel’s bosom as she slept. He feigned sleep when she awoke to leave. It was the first time he set his eyes on a truly naked woman whilst she dressed.
Young as he was, it was an experience he knew he would not soon forget. It was only dampened by the fact that he had seen nothing in true details in the darkness.
……………………………..
The blacksmith had Ezril draw out a pattern that would be placed on his bow on a piece of paper the next day. Ezril began his drawing, first guided by the memory of the one he’d seen on Teneri’s metal bow and soon found himself ending on an entirely different outline. The blacksmith took a simple glance at it and called it beautiful. Ezril was no child anymore, the compliments of adults did not sway him from the truth. What he had drawn was uglier than week-old detritus that had been stepped on by eight men.
The next agenda on his training of the bow was the forging. Under the guidance of the blacksmith, Ezril spent the rest of the day shoveling coke into the smithy’s furnace while the man hammered away at his work. The smoke threatened to choke Ezril and the sound of the hammer against the anvil left him with a constant ringing in his ears. The task didn’t take too long but the blacksmith brought their day to a conclusion once he was done.
“Time for the forge,” the blacksmith informed him the next day.
Having Ezril empty a few sacks of coal into the forge, he instructed him to light it after which Ezril manned the bellow under his instruction, heaving at the heavy wooden handles as sweat trickled down his skin with each heave as the coal slowly transformed into a soft glow of bright red.
As they waited, Ezril found himself wondering what his mates were doing back at the seminary, and how Salem was. He felt bad to know he had forgotten most of them in his time here; that he had forgotten Salem and his loss.
The Blacksmith spoke very little. He used his words only to give the briefest of instruction that Ezril would at times find himself having to work his brain to understand.
When the blacksmith considered the forge hot enough, he plunged a piece of metal into the forge. He held it with a pair of iron tongs. He watched it take on a similar glow as the orange coal. Then he placed it on the anvil and proceeded to strike it with his hammer. He bent it to shape as he pleased. By the life of Ezril, he watched as the blacksmith hammered and flipped the metal in different ways and understood nothing of what was going on before. He watched the metal curve and take shape and knew he would not be able to replicate what he saw even to save his life.
It was mesmerizing and confusing, but even worse, something about the air shimmered and wavered as the blacksmith worked. At one point he thought the man’s ear was longer than he remembered.
This only happened while the man was at work so Ezril was more than willing to blame it on the heat and the noise rather than believe the kingdom had more than one Scorned walking about freely within it. He found it difficult to believe that the seminary would hold an agreement with a group of people who lived with a Scorned.
Also, there was nothing he could do about it in the event that the blacksmith was truly one of the Scorned. Ellenel seemed to consider the people here as family so he doubted she would act against them if told. And if he pointed it out to anyone else, he was most likely to lose his life in protection of what was clearly a secret. Besides, the man seemed to be using nin in his work which meant he knew how to use nin. That meant, he was a threat Ezril had no plans of calling to himself.
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Holding up the metal for Ezril to see, the blacksmith said, “This metal is special. Your people call it Asmidian ore. It is not like other metals. It is best for making bows, and I suspect your priests use it in the making of their weapons as well. It would do you well to remember its name. It is how we get the bow to bend the way it does during its creation and what makes it capable of withstanding blows from any force.”
At some point in his time in the smithy Ezril found himself barely avoiding a speck of molten metal that had splashed at him. It gained him only a sideways glance from the blacksmith before the man returned to his work.
“Bring,” the blacksmith ordered in one of his famous one-word commands.
Ezril, deducing his request from the formed metal he had taken from the anvil, brought the bucket of water situated at the corner of the smithy. He already knew its use and had been preparing for it. The blacksmith slipped the metal into the bucket without ceremony. The liquid boiled and hissed as the metal cooled. Ezril, unable to escape unscathed was graced by a few splashes here and there on his hand. The blacksmith retrieved the metal only after the boiling had completely subsided.
“Polish,” the man instructed Ezril after he’d had him file away the bumps on the fashioned bow. After over an hour of hard work the bow gleamed beautifully in the light of the furnace.
The next day Ezril weaved the string for the bow. Among the materials presented to him for the weaving of the string were metal wires as thin as strands of hair. They made the task of weaving more challenging.
Asmidian ore, no doubt, he told himself as he weaved alone in the smithy.
On the day of his weaving, the blacksmith came only to open the smithy and disappeared immediately. After weaving more than twenty strings Ezril retired from the smithy as was the blacksmiths instructions. He was subjected to the task of sparring with a wooden sword against Sister Ellenel immediately after.
The only time he was ever allowed rest was when he slept. He could argue that even the seminary didn’t occupy his time as much as the Elken forest did with training.
……………………………….
“Why do you love this place so much?” Ezril asked Ellenel on their way back to their tent after one of their training sessions.
“Because they are family,” she replied.
“But I thought the church is our only family.”
“Yes,” she smiled. “But as a First Bow I can have two families.”
Ezril held his tongue for a while, but in time he found his curiosity winning his discipline. “Why do you sleep late?”
“Why do you wander at night?” Ellenel returned jovially.
Unable to bring himself to enjoy the turn the conversation had taken, Ezril returned to silence. Ellenel looked at him fondly, a soft smile on her face. It almost looked sad.
“If only…” Ellenel rubbed his head, letting her words trail.
As much as Ezril’s curiosity wanted to hear the end of the sentence, he held his tongue in fear of inciting something he would not like to speak of. He had asked of her late nights, thinking it had been a simple question only to be asked one he was not willing to answer.
Once more Ezril woke from his nightmare covered in sweat and panic, but what made it worse was the sight of Sister Ellenel watching him with compassion… and worry… and pity. The shame of being caught in a state of weakness pressed down on him and he reacted the only way he thought how.
Ezril bolted out of the tent and knew Ellenel was following behind him. He moved fast, cutting through the wind. He ignored the sound of the wind in his ears or its feel through his hair. It wasn’t until he took to the trees that he lost her.
Making his way to the smithy early the next morning, he sat and waited. He had not returned to the tent and had opted to miss breakfast. He remained displeased of the events of the night but at least his shame was gone. The blacksmith presented him with two well-made bows when he came: one of wood and one of metal. They both gleamed in the sunlight. The metal bow was much larger than the one made of wood. It looked like something made for an adult.
The wooden bow, polished in black to look exactly like the metal bow, was designed in the pattern he had scribbled on a piece of paper days ago. Seeing it now, he under why the blacksmith had called it beautiful. Where he had been seeing what he had scribbled, the blacksmith had been seeing what he could make it into. The pattern held an artistic note that was an enhancement on the one Ezril had drawn. It was a piece of artistry the likes of which he could only ever dream to attain. Its beauty was something to truly behold. There was a space reserved on the insides of both bows.
“What’s your name?” Ezril finally mustered the courage to ask the blacksmith before he left that night, knowing it might be the last time he saw the man.
“Tandal,” the blacksmith answered. “You have a gift with the bow, child,” he went on, “but you have no place in the smithy.” The last words were given as a form of advice and Ezril found he could not disagree with them.
………………………….
“Every first bow gains a title at some point,” Ellenel offered, entering the tent while Ezril studied the space in the pattern. He midway through appreciating the metal bow after the night had crawled over Vayla’s skies. “The space is for our titles.”
Unable to find any words to offer her, he settled for, “You are early.”
She smiled.
“And how are you?” she replied.
“Fine,” Ezril answered, still inspecting the space with his fingers. The metal was cold to the touch.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No,” Ezril shook his head, knowing she spoke of last night. “It never helps…” …Only makes things worse.
Ellenel stayed awake with him through the rest of the night. She pretended to forget his flee into the night and narrated tales of her endeavors as a Hallowed. She told him of her favorite First Bows since its introduction to the seminary. Apparently, there were only six in the seminary’s history and she was the church’s version of the seminary’s First Bow. She was one of three to exist amongst the priestesses.
“Why do the priests in the seminary look so old?” Ezril asked after a few tales. “I thought the Hallowed are supposed to live long lives.”
“Well, after twenty-five years of service, some priests are offered positions to instruct the younger generations of the seminary.”
“But they look old.”
“Well, as a Hallowed, using nin the way priests do, usually prevents them from living so long. Technically, a priest ends up living up to the age of the average person… that’s if their tasks don’t kill them first.”
“Then why are you so young?” Ezril asked.
Ellenel smiled at the question. “Because, thanks to king Eden who has ensured peace in the kingdom, the demand for the church’s help is as little as its priestesses.” A moment after, she added: “I have only been in service to the Credo for eight years.”
Sensing a bait he could not understand, Ezril replied with a simple word. “Oh.”
“I’m still young, right?” Ellenel teased, nonetheless. It caused Ezril’s cheeks to flush as he turned his face from her. She was right, she was still young. Being a teenager, his mind had a lot of things to do with that information. He remembered seeing her naked and had thoughts he was not going to share with anyone.
Ellenel laughed. “I’m joking.”
Something in her voice led Ezril to doubt her.