Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(145)

Huldran still stood by the bellows, waiting. "Tell me when, ser."

"I wish I really knew," Nylan muttered to himself, as he took the square of alloy, one of the ones he knew was iron-based and lower-temperature-rated, in the tongs and thrust it into the coals. "Now . . . slowly."

The engineer watched until the metal finally turned cherry-red, when he put it on the anvil and picked up the chisel. "Hit the chisel," he told Huldran, and the guard struck the chisel squarely.

Nylan tried not to wince. "You hold the tongs, and let me have the hammer."

Huldran took the tongs without comment, and Nylan brought the hammer down, trying to use his senses to find some grain, some pattern in the metal. In a dozen strikes, he finally had a shape that looked remotely like the war arrow that lay in the unframed and unshuttered front window.

Nylan reclaimed the tongs, and sent Huldran back to the bellows.

After the next heat, he bent the sides back and forged or welded them back on each other. With the third heat, he drew out the edges. With the fourth came more ordering through his senses, and finally a slightly overlarge arrowhead lay on the alloy anvil.

"Going to have to do this quicker - or find some other way."

"Could you cast them?" asked Huldran.

"Right now, I don't see how. This is as hot as I can get this with just charcoal, and the metal's nowhere close to melting. Casting would be a lot easier, but I can't seem to melt it without burning it."

"What about copper or bronze?"

Nylan shrugged. "Even if we melted down the copper buried in the landers, copper arrowheads wouldn't do much good against even iron plate."

"Oh . . ."

"Exactly." Nylan lifted the tongs. "So I'd best get a lot faster."

When Nylan looked up from the sixth arrowhead, he could sense that the charcoal was almost gone. Each of the killer arrowheads had been easier, but each still took time.

Since the wood made a good base and stretched the charcoal, he set down the hammer. "We'll build up the fire with those heartwood logs. Then we'll take a break while it burns down to coals. All right?"

"That's fine by me, ser." Huldran blotted her sweat-dampened forehead. "Do you think Smithing's always this hard?"

"We're making a lot of mistakes. I just don't know what they are, but it's always been hard work." He walked out through the open space that was meant for doors to the pile of split and cut logs. Huldran followed.

Once the open forge was blazing, and Nylan hoped the heat wouldn't crack too many bricks, he headed down the road toward the tower. Under the clear sky, the sun beat down, so much that he still did not cool off much once he was away from the forge.

He walked across the short causeway, but stopped short of the door. He could sense people in the great room- guards and infants. Between meals, the great room had become almost a de facto nursery, which made a sort of sense to Nylan, because it had the most ventilation and the best light.

After entering the tower, he slipped along the side away from the great room and to the bathhouse, where he managed to remove some sweat, soot, and grime. Then he squared his shoulders and headed for the great room.

Siret was the closest to the door, and she had Kyalynn in one arm, and Dephnay in the other.

Nylan looked down at his silver-haired daughter, her eyes the darker green of Siret's. Kyalynn looked back. He smiled. She did not, although her mother did. Slowly, he extended his index finger, gently letting it slide into Kyalynn's open palm. Almost as slowly, her chubby fingers wrapped around his finger. He wiggled his finger, and her hands tightened. He wiggled again, and Kyalynn gurgled.

"She's strong," he said.

"Yes." Siret smiled again.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know," he confessed.

"I know that. The marshal told me a long time ago. Do you mind?"

"Mind?" asked Nylan, wiggling his finger to keep Kyalynn interested.

"That I agreed to have your child? After the battle with the demons, I thought... I never would have a child." The silver-haired guard shook her head gravely. "I hadn't thought that would ever upset me, but it did. It really did. Then after the first battle here, I decided that..." Siret paused. "You're not mad at me?"

"I was a little upset-but not at you," he admitted.

"You came when I-when we-needed you."

"I didn't know then, either, but I knew you needed help."

Siret looked down for a moment, then met his eyes. "I am not yours, and I will never belong to any man. But... I'm glad you are Kyalynn's father."

Nylan finally looked away. "It's hard for me."

"You are a healer, as well as an engineer. The other healer . . . you know that she cries when she thinks no one is listening?"

Ayrlyn, the self-contained and competent healer and trader? "No. I didn't know. Or ... maybe I didn't want to see it." He paused. "And you, Siret, what about you? The night vision, the feeling that you can sense things you cannot see?"

"They help. This is a strange world, but in many ways better than what I left."

"I trust you will always find it that way." Nylan cleared his throat. "And that you keep working on those new skills."