Doria’s eyebrows twitched.
“Observe?”
“That is correct.”
Silvana took a step into the smithy. Her booted foot came down on the stone dust, but made almost no sound, and her gaze swept over the forge, the anvil, and the tongs hanging on the wall before it ever reached Kang Mujin, then lingered a little longer on the seven failed pieces laid out on the workbench.
“Do you long-eared folk call coming to another man’s forge and peeping an envoy’s duty?”
“I was not ordered to steal any technique.”
“Then what is it you mean to look at?”
“I will confirm whether this human is the man the rumors describe.”
Silvana looked Kang Mujin straight in the eye.
“I have heard that you brought the master smith of Stonebeam to his knees, that you handle molten iron with your bare hands, and that you forged a sword that splits stone.”
Doria snorted.
“All three are wrong.”
“I thought as much.”
“What?”
“The rumors of the short-lived usually grow faster than the truth.”
While Doria tightened his grip on his hammer, Kang Mujin lifted the test piece from the anvil with tongs and returned it to the forge. The iron did not wait while words were exchanged, and its inner temperature was already falling.
“Observe, then.”
Kang Mujin took hold of the bellows handle.
“But if you disturb the work, you will have to leave.”
Silvana’s eyes narrowed, very slightly.
“Do you say the same to an envoy of the Council of Elders?”
“Before the forge, everyone is the same.”
Doria let a laugh escape through his beard.
“That I like. It’s my forge, so the final say is mine. Disturb us and I’ll throw you out myself.”
Silvana looked between the two of them for a moment, then withdrew toward the smithy wall.
“I will abide by the rules.”
When Kang Mujin worked the bellows, air seeped between the layers of charcoal and the flame rose briefly before settling. The edge of the test piece was about to brighten first, so he twisted the tongs and turned its thick spine toward the heart of the fire. The iron’s temperature came through his fingertips more vividly than its color did; the difference between surface and core was still large. Pull it out now and the outside would weld while the inside split.
Doria studied the firelight as well.
“A little more?”
“Ten more breaths of air.”
“Nine will do.”
“The charcoal is new. Ten.”
Doria did not answer. When the tenth blast of air went in, he snatched the tongs and drew out the test piece.
The hammer fell.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Kang Mujin pressed the corners with a small hammer from the opposite side. When Doria bound the grain with great force, he opened a path for the voids left inside to escape, and the grain of the metal, invisible though it was, felt like a current flowing within his hands. Strike too deep and the layers shifted; too weak and impurities remained.
While the two hammers rang in alternation, Silvana said nothing.
When Kang Mujin plunged the test piece into water, steam rose. He drew it out before it had cooled completely, let the residual heat drive off the moisture, then ground the surface with a whetstone. A faint, even pattern emerged.
Doria held it up to the lamp.
“Better than before.”
“There’s an overlap at one place along the edge.”
“Where?”
Kang Mujin traced with the tip of his fingernail a gap finer than a hair. Doria peered at it for a long while, then clicked his tongue.
“Hrmph. You found it again.”
Silvana came away from the wall.
“May I see it?”
Doria did not hold out the test piece.
“Do you know iron?”
“I know at least why arrowheads break.”
“That isn’t enough.”
Kang Mujin took the test piece from Doria’s hand and passed it to Silvana.
“Do not break it. It still has to be recorded.”
Silvana received the scrap of iron in both hands and examined the pattern on its surface and then the two stamps in turn.
“Which of them is yours?”
Kang Mujin pointed to the twice-bent line that formed the head and haft of a hammer, and the short stroke in the middle beneath it that formed an anvil.
“Just as the rumors said. I heard you leave a mark on every object you make.”
“I leave my name on what I answer for.”
“Not to spread your fame?”
“If it breaks, someone has to know who made it badly.”
Silvana’s finger stopped over the stamp. She returned the test piece soon after; her expression was the same as at first, but she looked at Kang Mujin a little longer.
“The Council of Elders is wary of human iron.”
“Is there a reason?”
“Humans fell the trees of the forest to make charcoal, and tear open the earth to draw out ore. Gain more iron and they want wider land. Gain wider land and they seek more iron again.”
Doria snorted through his nose.
“I’ll grant you the nerve, speaking ill of mines in front of a dwarf.”
“Dwarves keep the covenant they made with the mountain. At the very least they know at what depth they would bring it down.”
“And humans don’t?”
“In many cases they knew, and did not stop.”
Silvana went on, speaking toward Kang Mujin.
“You made farming tools for a human village, and you passed a new method to the dwarves. The elders wonder what comes next. Whether you will fell the forest’s trees to add more forges, or go looking for our silver veins.”
“I use only as much as is needed.”
“And who decides what is needed?”
“The one who uses it, and the one who pays for it.”
“The forest cannot state its price.”
Kang Mujin did not argue. In his past life too, a single kiln of good charcoal took a great many trees; mines tore up the ground and forges belched smoke. To make a thing was also to destroy its materials into another shape.
He set the test piece down beside the failures.
“So watch, and judge.”
Silvana did not nod.
“I intend to.”
From that day on she stayed near the smithy. In the morning she watched Kang Mujin sort charcoal; at midday she studied the hands that graded ore alongside Doria; and she was there too when a village farmer came carrying a broken hoe.
The hoe blade had thinned at the tip and split down the middle. Rather than welding on new iron, Kang Mujin folded the worn section back to restore its thickness, then quenched only the very edge, briefly.
The farmer asked.
“Wouldn’t it be better to just make a new one?”
“The haft is sound and the body is still usable.”
“I can pay, you know.”
“There’s no need.”
Kang Mujin left a small stamp beneath the hoe blade. Silvana was silent until the farmer had gone, and only when evening came did she ask.
“You could have charged far more for a new one.”
“Melting down iron that still works is waste.”
“There is no knowing how long you will act that way.”
“I don’t know that either.”
Silvana’s eyes cooled.
“Do you mean you do not trust yourself?”
“People change. Objects remain. So look at what remains.”
Kang Mujin washed the charcoal dust from his hands.
“It lasts longer than words.”
On the third day, Kang Mujin went down with Doria to the stream at the foot of the mountain. He meant to build a new trough to control the temperature of the quenching water, and Silvana followed at a set distance.
The forest lay across the boundary between the dwarves’ mountain paths and elven territory. Beneath thick conifers the sunlight split into thin strands, and Silvana walked without treading the path, choosing her steps among roots and stones. Each time her fingertips brushed a drooping branch, the leaves stirred faintly.
Kang Mujin was surveying a site for the trough when he stopped.
He felt metal.
Beyond the northeastern slope, several arrowheads swayed rapidly, and beside them were the iron plates of armor and a thick chain. The movement was not steady. Each time the heavy metal at the front halted, the lighter rings behind it knocked against one another.
It was a column, dragging something along.
Among them were three arrowheads mixed with silver. Thin and long, the kind elves used.
Silvana raised her head at the same moment and brought her hand to her bow.
“The spirits are uneasy.”
“Northeast.”
“What is there?”
“Six suits of armor. One chain. At least three people being dragged.”
Silvana’s expression hardened.
“How do you know?”
“The iron is moving.”
Kang Mujin hooked the hammer he had brought for the trough onto his belt loop, and Doria drew a small axe.
“Let’s go see.”
Silvana already had an arrow on the string.
“I will go ahead.”
When she ran into the depths of the forest, the sound of her footsteps vanished at once. Her green cloak showed twice between the trees, then blended into the woods without a trace.
Kang Mujin and Doria cut across the slope without losing the movement of the metal. As the distance closed quickly, the chain scraped the ground every four paces, and whenever the column halted, one suit of armor turned to look back.
Soon a path came into view between the trees.
Six armed soldiers with skin as black as if rubbed with ash were hauling three elves along. Horns curving back from their brows and ash-gray armor caught his eye, and the prisoners’ wrists were linked by a single chain. The elf at the very back limped on one leg, and blood ran from the ankle.
The demon at the head yanked the line.
“Keep the pace. If the merchandise is damaged, we get less for it.”
The elf who had fallen clenched their teeth and rose.
Silvana had lowered herself onto a branch above the path. Her left hand, gripping the bow, trembled. It was not from the wind.
Kang Mujin felt the structure of the armor. Lamellar, iron plates laced together with leather cords, so the chest was thick but the armpits and the backs of the knees were bare. Their weapons were four sabers and two spears, all well maintained, the blades even oiled.
These were no simple bandits.
When Silvana loosed the string, the arrow pierced the back of the lead demon’s hand, and the chain’s handle fell to the ground.
“Ambush!”
The demons scattered at once. Two closed in on the prisoners while three raised shields to guard above, and the last drew a horn.
Kang Mujin reached out.
The iron band wrapped around the end of the horn rang as if tugged from inside his hand. When he twisted his senses, the thin band contracted and crushed the horn’s mouthpiece.
The demon blew, but no sound came.
Doria burst out from below the path.
“Swinging chains around, and you fools are wearing iron yourselves!”
His axe bit the rim of a shield and the shock drove one demon back.
Kang Mujin ran straight for the prisoners. A saber-wielding demon blocked his way and swept the blade in sideways, but he stepped back half a pace, slipped the arc, and struck the spine of the blade with his hammer.
Clang!
The shock traveled up through his fingertips. The sword was hard, but it had been quenched too fast, and one line of the grain running from edge to tang had already broken.
When Kang Mujin struck the same spot again, the saber snapped in two.
The instant the demon looked down at the broken sword, Kang Mujin drove his shoulder into its chest and knocked it down. Following straight after, he brought the hammer head down on the side of its helm, and the demon’s body went limp.
A spear came flying from the side.
Kang Mujin pulled the chain. The iron links lying slack on the ground rose like a snake and wound around the shaft, and the spearpoint went wide, a hand’s breadth in front of his flank. He could feel metal but could not move a wooden shaft, so he twisted his body while keeping the chain taut.
As the demon holding the spear lost balance, an arrow lodged in the gap of the armor below its throat.
Silvana set her next arrow, and her hand no longer trembled.
The three remaining demons changed formation. Two held off Doria while one raised a blade toward the prisoners.
“Come closer and I destroy the merchandise!”
Kang Mujin’s steps stopped.
The demon laid the edge against an elf’s throat. Silvana’s string drew taut, but prisoner and enemy overlapped and there was no angle.
“Drop your weapons.”
The demon said.
Kang Mujin set down his hammer, and Doria, grinding his teeth, lowered his axe.
The corner of the demon’s mouth rose.
Kang Mujin felt the inside of the blade. The edge was against the elf’s throat, and in the hilt was set a slender iron core, two finger-joints long.
He steadied his breath once and closed his hand.
The core bent sideways and the hilt burst in the demon’s grip. The moment its fingers spread, Kang Mujin kicked the hammer up from the ground with the top of his foot and caught it.
One step.
The hammer struck the demon’s elbow.
Two steps.
The returning hammer came up under its jaw, and the demon went straight over backward.
When Doria’s axe shoved one shield aside, two of Silvana’s arrows flew in succession. The first pierced the gap in the armor at a thigh, the second the wrist of the hand holding a blade.
The last demon fled.
Kang Mujin did not give chase but reached out toward the chain lying on the ground. The iron links slid across the path and wrapped around the runner’s ankle, and the demon pitched forward.
Doria walked over slowly and struck the back of its head with the flat of his axe.
“I was in the middle of work at my forge. Count yourself lucky.”
The forest fell quiet.
Kang Mujin first gathered away the weapons of the fallen demons. All of them were still breathing, so only after confirming that they were in no state to fight again did he approach the prisoners.
The three elves tried to back away, but the chain pulled and their wrists jerked against one another.
“I’ll find the key.”
When Kang Mujin said so, the elf at the front shook their head.
“They swallowed it. So that we couldn’t escape…”
Kang Mujin took hold of the chain.
Cold, coarse iron. It had been used many times, the insides of the links worn, full of impurities, and the welds were sloppy. Forcing it open would send the shock into their wrists.
He found on each link the place where the grain had broken, pressed it between thumb and forefinger, then pushed the metal slowly apart.
Creak.
As the link opened with a muffled rasp of friction, the elves held their breath.
Kang Mujin freed the three of them from the chain in turn, and last of all examined the injured elf’s ankle. A small fragment of an arrowhead was lodged inside the wound.
When he brought his fingers close, the position of the silver-mixed shard came through clearly.
“This will hurt a little.”
“It already hurts enough.”
The elf answered in a dry voice.
“Then I’ll finish quickly.”
Kang Mujin moved the metal back along the path it had entered. Adjusting the angle an inch at a time so as not to tear the flesh further, he drew the tip of the arrowhead out along with the blood.
Silvana knelt and laid a hand on the wound. When she whispered something in a low elvish, the leaves all around tilted at once, and a pale green light seeped between her fingers as the bleeding stopped.
“These are the Western Ash scouts.”
Silvana’s voice was lower than before.
“They went silent two months ago.”
One of the rescued elves recognized her silver insignia and laid a trembling hand on their chest.
“Envoy. There are others.”
“Where are they?”
“A mine on the border. Not only elves. Humans, beastfolk… there were young ones of the horned and tailed races as well.”
Kang Mujin looked down at the opened chain link.
Layer upon layer of dark red stains remained on the inside. They were not marks freshly made, which meant the same chain had bound the wrists of many people.
Silvana supported the prisoner’s shoulder.
“How many?”
“I don’t know. There were people down in the shafts as well. They made us dig iron even at night. Those who collapsed never came back out.”
Wind passed between the trees.
Kang Mujin examined the armor of the captured demons. Inside the breastplates was stamped the same crest, three lines of chain descending beneath a horned tower, and the weapons even bore numbers.
This was a force that received supplies and moved under orders.
Slave hunting was not the crime of a few. Someone was planning it, distributing equipment, managing the transport routes.
Kang Mujin picked up one of the demons’ sabers. The broken cross-section showed coarse grain; the iron was strong, but the handling had been hasty. Marks of time cut short in order to make many.
Silvana looked at him.
“You did not ask the reason.”
“What reason?”
“Why these people had to be saved.”
Kang Mujin set the saber down.
“Because they were bound.”
“They were not even humans like you.”
“Iron chains do not choose by race.”
The fingers gripping Silvana’s bow slowly unbent. She said nothing for a while, then turned toward her rescued kin.
“They must be taken to the road of the Council of Elders. They need treatment, and their testimony is needed.”
“Then go.”
“Come with us as well.”
Kang Mujin looked at Silvana.
“Is the observation over?”
“No. But I now have reason enough to report what I have observed.”
She spoke still in that formal voice. It was not a face from which wariness of humans had vanished, yet unlike when she had first stood at the smithy’s threshold, her body no longer stood between Kang Mujin and the rescued.
“I will present you to the Council of Elders. Not every elder will agree with my judgment.”
“That’s fine.”
“Nor will our distrust of humans disappear all at once.”
“There’s no need for it to.”
Silvana listened quietly to that.
“Do you not want trust?”
“Trust isn’t something you receive by asking for it.”
Kang Mujin picked up the opened chain link and put it in the pouch at his waist.
“You forge it and stack it up.”
Doria cut in as he bound the fallen demons together.
“That takes longer than iron. Long-eared folks’ stubbornness can’t even be quenched.”
Silvana looked at Doria but did not fire back. Instead the corner of her lips moved, very faintly, though Kang Mujin could not be sure whether it had been a smile.
They helped the wounded back to the dwarven village, and the captured demons were shut in a separate stone chamber. Doria declared that he would suffer no interference before his forge, made and handed over only the knives and tongs needed for the treatment, and shut the door.
When the night had grown deep, Silvana came to the smithy.
Kang Mujin was grinding the cut face of the chain link, and black powder fell over the whetstone.
Silvana spread an old leather map on the workbench. A red line was drawn between the eastern forest and the border ranges.
“I compared my kin’s testimony.”
She pointed at one spot on the map.
“The mine the hunting party was heading for is most likely here.”
Kang Mujin looked down at the map. It was two days from the forest; following the mountain roads it would take three, but cutting across the valley he could reach it in a day and a half.
“And the guards?”
“Twenty confirmed. In truth there will be more. There is no knowing how many are inside the shafts.”
Silvana did not lift her finger.
“If I report to the Council of Elders, a deliberation will open. Time is needed to decide whether to send scouts or to first harden the forest’s defenses.”
“How long will it take?”
“A fortnight at the earliest.”
Kang Mujin stopped grinding. The stains inside the chain link showed under the firelight.
In a fortnight, iron could be heated and cooled dozens of times. The bodies of people trapped in the shafts would not hold out that long.
“Show me the way.”
Silvana’s gaze rested on his hands.
“Do you mean to go alone?”
From within the smithy came Doria’s gruff voice.
“Who said anything about alone?”
The door opened to reveal Doria with a traveling hammer and a small set of forge tools slung on his back.
“If it’s a mine, there’ll be iron. I won’t stand for shoddy digging.”
Kang Mujin set the hammer down beside the chain link.
Silvana looked between the two of them, then after a moment traced a line along the valley road on the map with her finger.
“This route can avoid the demons’ outposts.”
“Will you guide us?”
“I am an envoy of the Council of Elders. The safety of my kin must come before all else.”
She folded the map and put it inside her coat.
“Which is why I will go with you.”
The charcoal in the forge collapsed and a small spark leapt up.
Kang Mujin gathered the tongs, the hammer, and the short knife from the wall in turn, and last of all pushed the opened chain link deep into his pocket.
Before dawn came, the three of them set out for the mine.
Join the discussion