Chương 14: Chapter 8: An Empty Coin Pouch

The elf boy sharpening hooks beside The Cataract's stairs looked younger than me and better equipped. His whetstone touched each barb twice, producing the same bright line before he moved to the next, while the small knife at his belt sat in an oiled sheath made to keep river water from the blade. I had killed an Iron reed cat with a timber axe and torn enough value from its hide to pay for the stitches pulling beneath my coat.

He had probably cleaned more fish than I had killed beasts, yet every tool seemed much more intentional than anything I owned. I ate the breakfast that came with the room, twice. The girl serving seemed happy to shovel as much of the porridge as people wanted, she smiled again. I saw more concern in her face for the stitches in my shoulder than I had ever felt before. I was not sure whether to feel seen or exposed. People around me had such a bricolage of equipment.

A ferryman's axe had a narrow head and a hooked poll for catching rope. The trapper beside him used a skinning knife thin enough to bend beneath his thumb, while reinforced stitching crossed both heels of his boots where mine had begun to separate. None of it looked fine enough for a noble's wall. But they all looked maintained, dry, and unlikely to make a difficult job worse. The reed cat had left my shoulder stiff, my ribs scored and my left boot wet whenever I crossed a puddle.

Those were problems I could already feel. The tools created another. Orven had bought them for timber and used them for everything else because adaptability and conservative purchases were what it took to survive on the frontier. I finished the porridge, gathered the axe, and bone-handled knife from upstairs, then left the broken spear beside the bed because carrying all three damaged tools through town would have exposed me more than the innkeepers' daughter ever did.

Merris was cleaning a reed cat claw when I reached his stall. He held the curve towards the grey morning light, scraped a thread of tissue from its base and placed it beside the others in descending order of size. The hide had already disappeared, though a strip of pale belly fur remained caught against the counter.

"You have returned with the expression of a man preparing to get stiches in the other shoulder for a few coin, my boy," he said. He turned the claw between two fingers, finding a spot I had failed to clean.

"Your hide lost twelve iron because the knife dragged. The axe nearly cost whatever value you place on your remaining arm, which I suspect is too little. Go to Harren, and take out intentional gear for the next cat so you have a hide worthy of my stall next time." He winked. It sounded like beratement, but it was meant as comedic. I did not see an ability in comedy arrive to him. Yet.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜ The smiths worked along the southern side of Dunmere where coal smoke could leave towards the river east, and swamp south without choking the food stalls. Hammers struck in overlapping rhythms beneath the awnings, apprentices carried water from the quenching troughs and rain hissed wherever it reached stone beside an open forge. Harren's place stood at the downwind end of the row.

He was broad-backed and dark-bearded, with old burn scars across both forearms and a face that looked more interested in metal once people began speaking. He saw me at the counter, and continued to finish setting the edge on a short spearhead before moving. Only then did he look at the tools in my hands.

"Put them down." I set the axe and knife on the scarred timber. Harren lifted the axe, pinched the haft beneath the head and balanced it across one thick finger. The head dipped towards the left.

"The eye was punched unevenly," he said.

"Someone corrected it with a wedge, then replaced the wedge when the timber shrank. That holds for downward cuts because gravity hides the drift. Turn through a moving animal and the head keeps travelling after your wrist take the mo... mentum." He placed it flat, drew the knife from its sheath and ran his thumb beside the edge.

"This has been sharpened with some... enthusiasm."

"It was Orven's axe, and his knife, and he kept both working for years." Harren looked at the patched grip and the bone handle worn smooth where Orven's fingers had closed around it.

"Orven." He paused for a minute.

"He knew their faults, and he had an ability for repair." He turned the knife sideways so the forge light caught its thickness.

"A skinning blade parts hide from flesh. This wedges them apart. You can learn a gentler hand, but steel this broad is meant for force." This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Orven had never called his axe good. He had corrected each wandering cut with the strength of his wrists, kept the knife sharp enough to compensate for its shape, and taught me to work around failures I had mistaken for ordinary labour.

I had inherited his tools without inheriting the hands that made them sufficient. Harren took three hunting axes from the wall and laid them beside mine. The first had a narrow head, clean cheeks and a haft shaped slightly through the grip. Its balance settled close beneath the head, allowing the edge to turn without pulling my wrist beyond it. The second was broader and heavier, built for splitting bone after the animal stopped moving.

The third carried a polished head and new red leather around the haft, yet the join gave a faint click when I tested it. Harren stopped beside the forge.

"Again." I shifted my grip and rocked the head. The movement was too small to see, though I felt the click through my palm.

"The leather hides it."

"The leather decorates it. The apprentice who fitted the head hid it." Harren removed the axe from my hand and placed it beneath the counter. He showed no specific emotions, just a level of satisfaction each time I moved one of his wares across the room. The attentiveness of a man inspecting his own work for the 'enth time.

"The lower rack might be better for you, son of Orven." I had never been called that before. I cannot decide if that is meant as a good, or bad, title to have; although, Orven was generally well-respected in Dunmere for his iron-ranked strength. It was better than him calling me Deserter of Orven, or Man-Who-Led-Orven-To-His-Death. The axes there had been traded in after their owners died, retired, or found enough coin to upgrade.

Handles carried sweat-darkened patches, heads showed old sharpening lines, and several had layer upon layer of repairs. I tested six. One pulled forward too heavily, another vibrated through a crack near the base, and a third looked sound until the iron ring beneath its head shifted against the grain. The seventh was plain enough that I nearly passed it over. Two cuts crossed the head where rust had been ground away, the grip had been wrapped more than once, and the haft showed a dark stain beneath one thumb.

When I lifted it, the weight ran into the centre of my palm and stopped. I turned the edge, shortened the grip and made a slow practice cut towards the floor; the head followed without dragging my shoulder behind it.

"This one." I could hear the certainty in my own voice and liked it before uncertainty followed, "The surface is poor, but the steel seems okay?" Harren took the axe and set its edge against his thumbnail.

"Folded steel from Steinbruck. Old work. The last owner took a spear through the knee and sold everything that required chasing prey." He pointed to a thin dark seam along one cheek.

"That is the join. The softer iron outside takes damage. The steel within holds the edge." I ran my thumb behind the cutting line, careful to avoid the sharpened face. The seam remained almost invisible until I knew where to look. Something in the object had become legible: the old repairs, the honest wear, and the good material surviving beneath both. For the first time since entering the forge, I smiled without needing to hide it from anyone. Harren had already turned towards the knives.

He selected a narrow blade with a plain ash handle and a sheath darkened by oil. It flexed slightly beneath his thumb before returning true.

"Used. Edge has enough steel left for years if you stop sharpening it like the other one. Three copper, ten for the pair." The smile left more slowly than it would have the day before.

"I... have two copper and ninety-four iron."

"I wasn't sure you had a negotiating bone in you, most humans do not," Harren said, not offensively, just a statement of curious surprise. He placed the axe and knife on the counter and slid it toward me. He did not make a sales pitch that the purchase would save my life, improve my work, or prove I had become a hunter. He had named the materials and the price. The rest belonged to me.

"I'll take that old skinning knife and call it square at two copper, ninety-four." I picked up Orven's knife once more. The bone handle fitted my fingers because years had worn it to his hand and mine had learned the shape afterwards. A shallow cut near the guard came from the winter he taught me to dress rabbits without freezing the meat against the snow, while the darker stain below it had survived every cleaning because blood entered bone more faithfully than it left.

"What will you do with it?" I asked. Harren tapped the knife.

"Grind the knife into a marking blade. The bone handle is split beneath the pins, so that goes." I wanted him to lie about keeping it whole. Instead, I removed the square iron token and the blackpine marker from beneath my shirt, felt Orven's three cut lines against my thumb and returned both beneath my clothes. The marker remained against my chest when I placed the knife beside the axe. My hand still took too long to release it. EQUIPMENT PURCHASED You purchased a used hunter's axe and an iron skinning knife.

You traded an old skinning knife for credit. You paid 2 copper and 94 iron pieces. Your Current Coin is now 0 iron pieces. Harren counted the money once, wrapped the new knife and pushed both tools across the counter. The empty pouch frightened me a piece of Orven being ground away into a marking knife. I fastened the knife at my belt, settled the axes into my hand and lifted it until the head sat level. Orven's blackpine marker knocked once against Pell's iron square beneath my shirt.