“What is this?” Khollo murmured, tracing the lines of the drawing with one finger.
“New weapon,” Tarrik grunted.
Khollo waited for him to elaborate, studying the design pointedly. When the smith did not continue, Khollo glanced up at him curiously. Tarrik rolled his eyes and bent over the drawing, keeping his voice low.
“The hilt is a meter-long staff, four centimeters thick,” he began, tracing the centerpiece. “To either end is affixed a single-edged sword blade, facing opposite directions.”
“No cross guards,” Khollo observed.
“Knew I was forgetting something,” Tarrik muttered, snatching up a charcoal writing stick and drawing in new lines. Khollo looked at the revised drawing and saw two curved cross guards had been added, one at the base of each sword blade.
“Wouldn’t be much use for close quarters fighting,” Khollo murmured as he studied the weapon critically.
Tarrik smiled with delight. “Ah, but it will be. You see this here?” he asked, jabbing a thick finger at a seam in the center of the wooden handle. “That is a joining piece. The two halves screw together at this point, which is reinforced by a metal sleeve attached to one of the halves. The weapon can be broken down into two smaller components. Here, I have a sketch of that too.” The smith dug through his stack of drawings quickly and produced another sheet of parchment. Here there were two drawings of soldiers armed with this weapon, one holding a single, long staff, the other holding two short swords.
Khollo nodded slowly. “Ingenious,” he murmured. “This is rather . . . unconventional.”
Tarrik scratched at the thick, knotted beard that covered his jaw. “That’s the idea. If it comes to a fight, I’d like to have the element of the unknown on my side. Nobody will know how to counter this kind of attack. And if I can find a wood sturdy enough, this could be used by cavalry men as a lance in a pinch.”
Khollo pictured this in his mind’s eye, watching as an army of charging vertaga were skewered with the curious weapons by a small force of cavalry. “The idea has merit,” he acknowledged. “Where do we begin?”
“Well,” Tarrik said furtively. “Normally, I would need the approval of the fortress commander for a project like this. But seeing as he’s not here . . . ”
Khollo smiled. “You have my permission to use any materials you need to make this weapon. If Janis doesn’t like that, then I’ll deal with him when he returns.”
Perhaps it was the fact that Khollo used Janis’ name instead of the honorific ‘lord’ that made up Tarrik’s mind. At any rate, he seemed immediately reassured on that count. “Excellent,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “This will be a masterpiece such as I have never attempted before. Thank you, Khollo. I will begin immediately.”
Khollo grinned. “We’ll get started immediately. How can I help?”
In minutes, the forges were roaring under the influence of Khollo’s bellows and the workshop rang to the sound of hammers on metal and was alive with the hiss of hot pieces being quenched in brine. Aaron and Wendell were molding arrowheads at a prodigious rate, while Tarrik began shaping the sword blades for his project, brow furrowed in concentration as he heated the metal, folded it upon itself, hammered it flat, and heated it again. Khollo was kept busy throughout the morning, fetching and carrying, heaving on the bellows, holding various bits of metal steady while they were shaped by the master smiths. Several times, people looked in to see what the commotion was, noticed the furor with which the smiths were working, and then wandered off again. Khollo did not even realize the rapid passage of time until the sky began to darken and his stomach rumbled angrily at the fact that he had missed lunch.
The next several days fell into a pattern of productivity Khollo had never before experienced. He would sleep late, compared to his life as a cadet, eat a quick breakfast, then return to the forges and help with the smiths’ projects. Each day, dozens of arrowheads were turned out and Aaron was now experimenting with a new spearhead. Progress was visible and impressive, and Khollo had a hand in it. Occasionally, a soldier or servant would stop by, and progress would pause while their request was heard and fulfilled, but it never halted, save for meals.
By the end of the week, Tarrik had completed the two sword blades and was starting on the shaft. He had selected an oak staff from among the various timber discards piled in one corner of the smithy and was shaping it carefully with specialized wood tools. Every so often, he would lift the staff and grip it, twirl it experimentally, then shake his head and carry on.
During this time, Khollo worked with Aaron and Wendell, both of whom took an interest in not only exploiting Khollo’s presence, but also training him in the skills of a smith. Khollo’s duties began to expand until he was wielding the hammer as often as he was holding a piece steady. At night, he would flop down by the forges with a groan, his shoulder and arm muscles burning. By the end of the second week, Khollo noticed that he was slightly bigger in the chest than before and that his shoulders no longer burned. His time as a smith had done what Wilkes could not, added some muscle to his wiry frame.
Sermas and Hern had noticed this as well, and plied him with questions about his work each day, genuinely interested in the life of a smith apprentice. By now, Hern was practicing walking without the aid of his crutches, though he was still somewhat limited in mobility.
In all the
