Master of Iron (Bladesmith #2)(102)

Magicked throwing axes fly not in a straight line, but in wide arcs, taking out many enemies with each throw before returning to the castor’s hands. I hear laughter behind me and turn just in time to see a large mercenary with magicked knuckles on his left hand and a sword on his right knock enemies unconscious with every swing.

Our enemy’s blows bounce off the magicked armor.

I don’t relax, exactly, but some trembling part within me stills. I see the few magicked weapons I made for Ravis throughout the battlefield. They hold strong under blows, return to their masters’ hands after they’re disarmed.

But they are no match when pitted against all the weapons I’ve made throughout the years for the mercenaries.

Maybe I don’t have to give up making magicked weaponry. As I see all the good it does right here, in this moment, I realize that maybe I can get back to doing what I love if I’m careful in who I allow to commission from me.

All these thoughts surge through my mind in the time it takes for my neck to turn.

Flashes of red come at us from the sides. Kymora’s archers have advanced with spears.

Marossa and her archers take them down with careful shots out of the trees. Still, a few get through, and our men at the sides are forced to fight more than one opponent at a time.

“Go for the gaps in the armor!” Kymora shouts over the chaos. “Beneath the arms. Behind the knees.”

And soldiers from our side start to die.

My arms swing in wide arcs, catching an enemy in the nose, cracking a knee out from under a soldier, caving in a collarbone. Men fall beneath Echo, and other fighters on my side slit our enemy’s throats before I have to make the killing blows myself. A short-lived respite.

There’s always more killing to be done.

A commotion up ahead prompts me to look up from my latest kill. One of the biggest men I’ve ever seen races through the crowds, swinging a giant war hammer as he goes.

I can feel the magic from here. It calls to me because it is a piece of me, born of my surprise when Ravis interrupted me during a magicking session. Ravis called him by name to test out the weapon. I scramble through my memory to find it.

Izan.

I remember just as he sends the massive weapon down against one of our men, who explodes into a million minuscule pieces of bone and blood, sinew and flesh. Nearby fighters get doused in the remains of the fallen soldier.

One of our mercenaries approaches Izan, thinking to catch his next blow on his magicked sword, but that, too, explodes on impact, shards slicing into the owner of the sword before Izan finishes him off in another swing.

Another burst of innards flies outward.

But this time, instead of shame, something new takes root within me.

Fury.

That’s my weapon. He’s misusing it.

I’m not okay with that.

I’m going to stop him.

Rage dowses the fear. My anxieties are nonexistent.

After all, I have no intention of talking to the man.

I’d never thought about it before, but when in the thick of a fight, you’re not watching the eyes of your enemy. Your eyes are on their weapons—their movements—the whole time. For a moment, you can disassociate the being before you from a living, breathing human. Instead, it’s a moving mass intent on your destruction, and you have to destroy it before you die. You pick out your next opponent by the colors they’re wearing. There’s not much thought to the action. As long as you’re acting, moving, the battle rages on.

But this fighter? I picked him. I look him squarely in the eye as I advance toward him, my own hammers pathetically small compared to the sheer weight and size of his war hammer.

A smile glazes his lips, glee burns brightly through his eyes. He’s a man who loves his job. Who takes pleasure in killing.

And he’s excited to end me.

Not if I end him first.

I would have thought he’d be burdened by the sheer weight of the war hammer, but he runs at me, sprints full tilt.

I ought to be petrified. Sensible warriors are running away from this fighter, not toward him.

But I can’t fear a weapon I made, a weapon that is a part of me.

When Izan and I reach each other, the brute raises his hammer in a practiced swing and brings it down.

I hide behind my shield just in time.

As I skid back in the dirt from the force of the blow, Izan goes flying.

The force of his own swing sends him soaring through the air over the heads of other fighting warriors. He knocks another pair over. Agony absorbs the blow, powering her next swing.

Echo is as strong as ever, unaffected by the magic in our opponent’s hammer, because it didn’t actually come into contact with her, just the invisible shield she projects.

It’s beyond satisfying to watch Izan struggle to regain his footing, but eventually, he picks himself back up, shoves another fighter out of the way, grabs his war hammer, and zeroes in on me once again.

His first strike appears to have only enraged him. He charges again.

I extend my left hammer, hiding behind it, waiting for the next bone-crunching blow. Might as well let the brute tire himself out before I advance with swings of my own.

Instead, Izan flips the handle forward, testing it against my invisible shield. He taps the shaft against it lightly, moving outward.

Trying to find the edge.

I shove forward, pushing the handle aside with Echo. I swing my own hammer at the opening presented to me.