Weyland and Avril walked north for two days before Avril guided him to the east and then far to the south. Their journey was relatively uneventful; any people they came across were largely going in the other direction. They were common people with common problems. A broken waggon wheel, a hungry child, shoes that were worn thin. The men were mostly elderly, and the women were not the shieldmaids Weyland had grown up with, nor were they smiths or ferriers. It was peculiar to him that no-one went armed at all beyond short utility knives or a shepherd’s crook.

On the day he saw sea-birds again, he came upon a scuffle. A trio of ragged men were beating a peasant dressed in rags, a child sprawled unconscious in the middle of the road. Their pony, an ancient thing with dusty brown hair and a face white with age, stood hobbled over the child, exhausted and confused.

Dropping his pack, he lay down his walking stick and reached into the pack. A smooth handle came to his hand, and he stepped forward into the fray, swinging his weapon down overhand at the brigand beating the peasant while the other two held him by the arms.

The hammer caught the man on the shoulder with a deeply satisfying crunch. Weyland caught him in the ribs on the upswing, and those snapped, too. The other brigands froze as their companion cried out and fell. Weyland stepped to the side, advancing on them while keeping the first man in sight.

They dropped the peasant and ran, leaving their companion at the side of the road.

Weyland checked the beaten man briefly, noting that he was not gravely wounded, and then secured the brigand's wrists behind him with a length of leather. The angle of the broken shoulder and ribs must have been excruciating, and the man lay panting where Weyland left him.

The child had a large lump on the side of his head, but was breathing easily. Reaching up where he knelt next to the boy, Weyland let the pony snuffle his hand and explore his hair.

Wheezing, the peasant struggled to his feet. "Please don't hurt my son," he begged, standing empty-handed

"Of course," Weyland replied. He retrieved his belongings and helped the man gather their meager possessions from where they had been scattered across the road. "Who were they, that they attempted to rob you instead of hunting or working for themselves?"

"They are deserters from the king's army, and it is forbidden to hunt game on the king's lands." The man lifted the child in his arms and settled him next to their ripped pack. Weyland pulled a piece of travel-bread from the hamper and gave it to them. Avril came out of the woods, silent, blood on her muzzle. She bumped her head up under Weyland's hand once before turning to stand guard. He hadn't noticed when she gave chase to the robbers, and felt a bit guilty about it. She glanced at him sidelong, her jaw hanging open in a tooty canine grin.

"I doubt they will give you any further trouble today. Are you injured, can you travel?" Weyland stood and examined the horse, noting the boniness of her hips and ribs. A piece of her halter was cut, and it hung twisted on her head. Weyland replaced the broken bit with twine and petted her neck.

"It is nothing," the peasant replied. Weyland sat with them, reaching into his pack for something to mend the peasant’s ripped bundle. With needle and twine, the tear was quickly put right.

"I see many folk traveling to the north and west, mostly women and children and elderly. Are they traveling to something, or away?" Weyland put his twine and needle in his own pack, transferring more travel bread and some dried fruit into the peasant's bag.

"Most of the men have been taken for the king's army," the man replied. Weyland considered asking the man's name, or offering his own, but thought better of it. "The rest of us travel inland, to be as far from the sea and the invaders as possible."

"Are the invaders Roman?" Weyland thought of Hervor's captured gladius, and the scouting group her hunting party had caught on his father's lands.

"I don't know, except that the stories say they are massive men carrying axe and sword. They steal things of value, and put houses and fields to the torch after they plunder the stores of winter food." The man peered at Weyland's hammer, noting the muscles in his arms, and the burns and scars on Weyland's hands from the bloomery and the forge. "They might capture a man such as yourself, rather than killing you, and put you to work in their camps."

"Perhaps. I must go now. Stay safe, you and the boy."

Avril led him further to the south and east, and he began to smell the bitter smoke of burning crops, and the peculiar mustiness of thatch set ablaze. They moved off the road and slipped through the forest, avoiding the first of the patrols and following it back to the invaders camp.

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The conscripts were kept under guard, it appeared, and the free men arranged their tents in orderly rows. The encampment was orderly, Weyland noted, a separate tent for the commander, and another for equipment. He walked down the rows of men and animals, unchallenged. Avril stayed close to his side, watchful.

The leather flap of the commander's tent was tied open, the man himself standing alone over a table.

He was a tall man, lean in his boiled armor and riveted breastplate. He wore a gold signet ring on his right hand, the face of a man in profile etched and flaked with wax. When Weyland paused at the door, the man looked up from the maps and counters spread over the tabletop between them.

"Hello," the commander said absently, his grey eyes kind when he saw Avril. "Are you the smith?"

Weyland barely hesitated. "Of course," he replied, and the commander smiled.

"Are you the regiment's smith, though." He stood straighter, taller than Weyland by a head, but not as broad in the chest or shoulders.

Weyland shrugged. "Perhaps. Do you have need of a metalworker?"

The man laughed, a strained sound but the mirth genuine. "Always. Call me Patricius, and help me get this damned armor off." He turned, and Weyland saw a rent in the side of the breastplate that slashed down across Patricius' side and hip.

Curious, Weyland came into the tent, circling the table and looking at the damaged armor. He realized that the man was standing because he would never have been able to sit with the armor battered the way it was. Blood had soaked into the man's legging and boot.

Setting his pack down and gesturing to Avril to stand guard, Weyland ran a finger along the tear in the metal. "What caused this?" He found the straps securing the leather and metal to the man, and teased one of the buckles loose. The breastplate shifted, and the commander sucked in a breath in pain. Weyland pulled his knife out.

“Serpent. Please don’t cut that, it’s hard to find someone to replace it in the field.”

Weyland cut the strap anyway. “I’ll mend it.” He eased the armor off of the commander, hooking a foot around the leg of a stool and pulling it to them, helping the taller man sit. He stepped into the sunlight light with the breastplate, examining it closer. There were two punctures in the front and the tear in the backplate. The punctures were each large enough for Weyland to push his smallest finger through, and the metal at the edges was discolored as if they were wet with acid. Avril looked up at her person and whined softly.

“How do you treat the poison?” he asked, turning back to the commander.

“Prayer, mostly. It hasn’t killed me yet.” He poured himself a cup of wine and took a shaky sip.

“Interesting. Perhaps foolish, but interesting. If I fix this, and improve it to keep you from peril, will you answer my questions without haste or offense?”

The grey eyes darkened, and the commander’s expression grew very serious. “This is an interesting bargain, blacksmith. Are you fey, then?”

“Would I answer that question if I were?” Weyland asked, amused. Thinking about the question, he extended his hand to the commander. “You may call me Weyland.”

“Yes, Weyland, I will answer your questions, but only three.” Patricius smiled faintly.

“That is more than fair.” Weyland reached into his pack and pulled out leather of the same weight as the straps, and put the armor on the table on top of the maps, sweeping the counters to the side. He unbuckled both ends of the strap and measured the uncut leather against the damaged strap. “Is this a camp of war?”

“No.” Weyland raised an eyebrow and looked up at the other man, who grinned. “We are not here for war, but for the extermination of foul creatures. Serpents, dragons, the odd demon.”

“What do the people of the countryside flee from?” The replacement strap cut, Weyland examined the ripped metal, deciding it would need heat and hammer to repair.

“The pestilence of the same evil creatures. The King of the Geats sailed three years hence to kill the great Wyrm. The Wyrm has never been seen since, but neither has old King Bodulfr.”

Weyland dropped the breastplate in astonishment. “Bodulfr has become king of the Geats?” The young warrior had not been much older than Weyland when the Nightstalker was slain.

“That’s a strange choice for your last question. Yes, Bodulfr became king of the Geats a dozen years after defeating the monster at Hart-Hall. Married well, too.” Patricius took another drink, turning the cup between his hands. “Well? Can it be mended?”

“I will need the use of a forge and anvil, but yes, all three marks can be made whole.”

“Another bargain, then, man who is not-fey. If you can make all three marks whole, then I would employ you as my personal armorer.”

“Choose a harder test,” Weyland countered. After the silences and terse teachings in the tower meadow, and the remembered hardship and pain and terror before, he found the conversation to be something akin to the joy of making things. He paused a moment as the commander continued, realizing that he felt joy in making things, even when the creation was difficult.

“Well, then, make all three marks whole, and land a hit on me in the practice ring. A man who can make armor and arms who cannot wield them is suspect.”

Weyland grinned fiercely. “Two out of three hits. A man who would lead men but cannot take their measure is a fool.”

Patricius chuckled, then turned, falling to his knees and vomiting into a bucket nearby, all of the wine he’d drunk and a measure of black bile as well. “See? Prayer.”