Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(160)

"I will be back." The armsman bows and slips out the door.

Hissl's eyes turn to the blank glass. He smiles.





CI



As THE SUN neared the western peaks, Nylan eased the blade he had labored over for more than a day into the quench, watching the color intently, noting the flickering effect created by the wavelike patterns of the hard-forged intertwinings of alloy and steel. When the purplish shade crossed the edge he eased the weapon out of the liquid and onto the bricks to cool in the gentle and dying heat from the forge.

The slightly curved blade, similar to but subtly different from the laser-forged blades, carried order and strength without as much of a black sheen to the metal.

"Another good one," offered Huldran.

"Tomorrow, you can start one."

"Me? It won't be near as good as yours."

"Mine weren't as good as mine when I started, either, but I'll be demon-damned if I'm going to be the only one slaving over weapons. Let's bank this down. I've had it."

Huldran nodded. "Cessya's working on doors and shutters for us, sometimes."

"Good. We might get them before the frosts."

"That's a season away, ser."

"I know." After piling the coals into the corner of the forge, Nylan took a strawgrass broom and began to sweep the now-packed clay floor clean. "The paving crew's going to put in a stone floor next eight-day."

"Do we need it?"

"No more than doors and windows."

The blond guard gave the engineer-smith a crooked smile as she racked the tongs and the hammers.

A cough caught Nylan, and he looked up.

Relyn stood in the unfinished door. He pointed to the cooling blade. "That is better than those you forged with the fires of Heaven."

"I don't know about that," Nylan said slowly, setting down the broom. "I do know that it's slower-a lot slower."

The one-handed man gave a single headshake. "With a simple forge, you create almost a master blade a day. No smith I know could touch that. It is as though you could see inside the metal."

"Not that fast." Nylan frowned. He did see into the metal with his senses, but didn't most smiths on this crazy planet? He looked down at his hands. "I need to wash up."

"I'll finish here, ser. You did the hard work."

"Pumping that bellows is no fun."

"You can do that tomorrow," Huldran suggested as Nylan walked out into the cooler air outside the smithy.

Relyn followed.

"What have you been doing?" Nylan turned downhill.

"What a one-handed man can do. Gather grasses for drying, find leaves from the teaberry bush for Blynnal, lead cart horses with loads of paving stones. I keep busy. This is not a place where a man should be lazy."

"You could slip away."

"Where would I go?" asked Relyn. "I am nothing in Lornth, and anywhere he is not known, a one-handed man is first considered a thief."

"They don't cut off hands for that here?"

"Not everywhere, but it is said they do in Certis and Lydiar. So . . ." Relyn shrugged. "I make myself useful here. Some of the women, like poor Blynnal, do talk to me. None of the angels do, except you, the healer, and some of the other silver-heads. You are the true angels, the ones who can hold the black of order."

"I don't think you have to have silver hair to appreciate order," Nylan answered, his boots scuffing on the stone of the road.

The paved sections of the road ran from the causeway past the smithy and up to the mouth of the stable canyon and to the bridge over the outfall. Piles of stones lined the upper section of the road leading to the ridge, indicating where the next paving and road-building would occur.

A cart full of cut wood creaked toward the castle, the cart horse being led by Kyseen, who flicked the long leather leads not quite impatiently. Already, long piles of cut wood more than guard-high stretched in three rows along the west side of the road leading to the causeway, forming another wall between the low crude one that marked the exercise yard and the road and causeway to the south door of the tower.

Nylan sniffed the air. The wind out of the south carried the smell of damp ground from the irrigated fields, and the fresher smell of cut grass. On the air, also, was the sound of wooden wands against each other on the open expanse of the south exercise yard.

In the late afternoon, Saryn and Ryba, helped by Istril and Kadran, drilled the newer guards with wands that resembled the blades of Westwind.

Nylan permitted himself a half-bitter smile. His legacies would probably be Tower Black and the shape and killing ability of the guard blades. Sooner or later, if not for years, the composite bows would fail, but his efforts in the smithy proved that, to some degree, he could replicate blades without the laser. While the alloys helped, he suspected that a good local smith could do the same entirely with local steels.

As he paused to watch the practice, he noted that Ryba alone wore a slug-thrower, in addition to her twin blades, for the first time in seasons.

"Nylan! You can spare a moment to spar with us," called Ryba.

He shrugged and walked forward.

"You know Nistayna. This is Liethya, and this is Quilyn." Ryba surveyed the three. "Nistayna, you're the farthest along." Then she handed Nylan the wand she had used.