Sword of Destiny

And he did grow to love the work. It suited his curious side and it fanned the child in him. He had spent all of his youth playing the adult; hiding from the bullies and hiding from his family. Here though, he was his father’s son. Here he was a young smith hoping to inherit a great trade. Here he found happiness. Genuine happiness.

And he found purpose too. He rarely even read Delfin’s book, and he hoped it could last. By the Father of Paths, he hoped it would last.

His brothers refused to work Mandari steel. They considered it a terribly poor substitute, and he quickly learned that it was. The Mandari did not have easy access to the great iron ore supplies of the Gorfinian Black Mountains, nor the Dead Sentinels even further into the desolate North. They would not even have much access to that immaculate steel imported from the southern continent, though no doubt they caught some. No. The Mandari were mineral poor, and as a consequence, their steel blooms – being formed of iron dust at best – were patchy and sub-standard. Yet somehow, they made the finest weapons in the known world. How?

It was something his brothers had no time for. They were too busy rushing through trade, drinking, whoring, and every now and then visiting their wives. They helped their father when he insisted, but it was always begrudging. They would not learn, and so the Mandari ways stayed without their grasp.

But he was hungry where his brothers weren’t, and he absorbed the lessons like a sponge. Each meticulous stage was a miracle, because what the Mandari did with the steel was incredible. Beauty from a beastly mass of ore. There was magic in the act.

First the char-poor steel was worked through an unrelenting process. It took an age to bash that piece of metal until it was near enough a quarter of its original size, but it was essential, because with the heating and hammering, impurities were ejected and faults were closed up. The steel was made strong and complete, the heart of a weapon, and because this was char-poor, the steel was remarkably flexible.

And then the real work began.

The other two steel compounds, char-rich and char-neutral, were heated and layered, bashed also, but folded over one another. Then they were reheated and forge-welded into a single piece of gleaming steel, and the folding created an impossible balance between deadly hardness, but subtle flexibility. And then, because the folding was done in perpendicular layers, the toughness of the resulting steel was – according to his father at least – unrivalled.

In this exercise he was ignorant, but he hungered for the knowledge, and that was what differentiated him. He drank the knowledge and digested it in his sleep. The whole process consumed him.

After ten days and nights, and from an eye-watering volume of base metal, they had forged a single edged sabre of exceptional quality. And looking back, it had been manufactured from materials that should not have been usable. That was astonishing. And with each passing day, his brothers’ smirks slid into something else entirely. He liked to think it was jealousy, and in fact, he had adopted a smirk himself which he often wore when his father stood beside him. He enjoyed wearing his pride. It was still a novel experience.

This was one of those moments. It was late evening, the smithy was illuminated by torches, and a cold wind brought bumps to his skin. His brothers were staring upon what he’d forged, and his father spoke with a mischievous quality.

“Go fetch some rusty old steel, will you Joss.”

Oh the gift! Oh the bloody gift. He walked right across the forge-room and picked up a bland looking broadsword that Jeb had only recently finished. “Will this do?”

His father – father! – was smiling broadly but did not speak. Not yet. Brother Jeb, by contrast, glowered. This was an entirely new sort of hatred.

His father winked. “Aye. That will just about serve.”

His brother’s eyes lit up like a spitting furnace, but he had the immunity of his father. Not that he feared Jeb in any case.

His father nudged the sword in his hands so that it was horizontal, and he squeezed the thing tight, bracing himself. And then his father slashed down with the new forged Mandari steel. It bit deeply into the wide weapon and left a mighty gash in the body of the blade. Jeb would need to re-work it, and he laughed. His father smiled too.

“Still think this is sub-standard steel?”

Oh the joy. Oh the humanity! Was this the crest of a wave? He left the forge-room, but Jeb caught him on his way out.

“I’ll get you for this.”

But he didn’t care. In that moment, he was invincible. In that moment, and perhaps forever. He would sleep well that night.

His whimpering prayers morphed into a screaming whimper, and all went dark around him. No, it had not been light. But he’d been able to see his attackers, and now he couldn’t. Moisture saturated his brow, sweat turning his clothes clingy. But his clothes were still on.

Including his trousers. His arse relaxed.

He was in bed. The scant bed-sheet was heaped limply on the floor. It was the middle of the night, and all was dark around him. His breathing was loud in the silence.

What was that? A dream. A nightmare. It had all seemed so real. The Farmyard Friends were all over him; punishing him. His breathing raced and he smothered it with a deep lungful through the nose. Slowly his breathing settled into a steady rhythm but his hands were crushing the rough canvas sheet that covered the straw of his bedding. This was most peculiar. And scary. Peculiar and scary.

And the worst of it was that he didn’t know why he should be scared. Why now? How many years of his life had been scarred by that history? And yet he’d been released from that humiliation for three years now. He was free of the horrors of the Friends, but he’d never had a nightmare until now. Not one. Something hot coursed through him, and he recognised it. It was the inner-anger that drove him; a fear of loss.

And then it made some sense. He’d never had these emotions before because he’d never had to fear loss before. Now he did, and this strange fact was haunting his dreams.

But what did he really have to lose? Only Delfin’s precious volume had brought the protective streak out in him before, but that text was safe beneath his bed. He lay back down, breath settling. He found himself inspecting the darkness in the room. Damn it, he was now entirely awake. Sleep would not be coming soon. The midnight shadows were heavy indeed, but something wasn’t in keeping. All was not dark. He got out of bed and headed for the light.

He tiptoed from the room, towards the forge-room, and then it struck him. He shivered. But more than that, his skin crawled with understanding. He did now have something to lose. This was entirely new.

His father was in the forge-room, on his own. He was just sat there under the dancing light of a single candle. The orange glow invaded the corners of the room, and strange shadows stalked the walls of the smithy. He snuck into the room, nerves tingling, but wherever he looked, there was only familiarity. There was nothing to be afraid of. He breathed out heavily.

“Pa.”

His father jolted, and it was only when he stepped into the light that the older man dropped his shoulders. He had disturbed his father from something, and it was quickly clear. He understood. The blade lay before his father, reflecting the candle-light with awesome majesty. The dance of the metal was almost overwhelming. The patterns were astonishing.

He found himself drawn to the steel, like a moth to a candle. If he loved her before, then now he was obsessed. He lusted after that thing.

“Beautiful isn’t she.” He could only nod in response to his father. “I was wondering whether I could take her for myself.”

“You can’t! Can you?” His words were edged with poorly concealed hope. But no. His father wanted the blade for himself. There was a natural order to things, and he was still bottom of the pile.

“No Son, I can’t. I could try to repay the cost, but the only thing I have that is valuable enough is this bloody weapon. It will be heartache to give her away.”

The King was coming tomorrow, and such was his obsession for the blade that his stomach dropped. He wanted to hand that weapon over as little as his father did; maybe less. His hands balled and his father raised his eyebrows. They were sat side by side, father and son. An impossibly gentle hand was placed over his tensed fist.

“What’s wrong, Joss? Why are you up?”

By the Father, this was terrifying. He was frightened of a life where he had a father, and also of a life where he had purpose. It was the life he was never destined to have, but now he had it. He looked at the blade before him and smiled. This lump of Mandari steel had turned his life around, and now it was leaving him. Just like Bulge.

You couldn’t beat a mandahoi, but maybe he didn’t need to. He had another purpose now, didn’t he? He was his father’s hand.

“Come on, Son. What is it?”

The nightmare grew in him and he swallowed down hard. He would have to share the memory. It would consume him otherwise. And besides, his father needed to know. His father was as responsible as anyone.

“You know I’ve been bullied all my life.”

His father gulped, his throat almost grating. “I’m sorry, Son. Brin told me he had seen some things. Said he couldn’t help you.”

The rage flared like a furnace. “Help me? He was part of the gang.”

There was only silence. The shadows still danced the perimeter.

“I have failed you, Son. I’m sorry. I never should have let your mother name you.” To his credit, he sounded embarrassed.

All fifteen years of his life were forcing their way inexplicably into his head, every damned painful moment of it. He was on the cusp of something normal, and so his past consumed him. It devoured him and he needed it gone. He may have even loved his father these last few days, but he still hated him certainly. He hated him with a passion born of suffering. The man had to know.

“Do you know what they did to me, father?”

Tears screamed for release, but he gulped them down. Not yet. There would be time for that when he was allowed his childhood. But here, he was still the bullied. Here he must be strong, because his father was wilting.

“I’m sorry. Of course I know what they did. You came home covered in bruises.” There may have been a reflective glint on his cheek. “And I will repay them everything they did to you.”

The memories of the violations surfaced, and tears started rolling. Resistance was failing. His whole body tensed at the memory, and he pulled away from his father. Intimacy would forever be his worst enemy.

“No Father, you won’t. There’s no way you can inflict that punishment.” His father seemed incensed. It was as if he suddenly recognised a great debt that needed paying.

“I will, Son. There is no punishment that I will not repay a thousand times over! What could they possibly have done that you consider untouchable?”

It was all but over. He would not last much longer. He had to say it, and then he had to go.

“They used me like a woman, Father. They used me like the woman that my name dictates.”

Never before had his father stared at him like that. It was torture and satisfaction rolled into one. He got up and walked to his room. When he had finished pummelling the wall, his fist was bloodied. He only slept when the tears of his childhood had dried up.