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Silas led Vala to the edge of the village. The ping of metal beating metal grew louder as they drew close, the orange hue from the forge cutting through the dull morning light. “Greetings, Sadrick,” Silas said.
Sadrick turned to face them. His leather apron stretched over what could be mistaken as the belly of a pregnant woman, if not for his long, unkempt beard. Hammer in one hand and a short-sword in the other. “Duris, for what do I owe the pleasure?”
Mara looked up at Silas.
Silas hoped that the look he gave back was enough to keep him quiet.
“The boy needs a blade.”
“Ah.” Sadrick looked over Mara. “He’s a skinny one. Funny eyes too.”
“Never mind that. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
Sadrick bowe
d. “My liege.”
“Ha, enough of that.”
Sadrick put the sword on the anvil and walked into his hut. He returned to kneel in front of Mara. “Hand out, boy.”
Mara did so, and Sadrick revealed the gold-handled Vespen blade, just like Silas’s own, and placed it in Mara’s hand.
“Doesn’t he get to pick his own?” Silas said.
“Pick his own? What’s the point? I make them all the same, and they all do the same job.” Sadrick stood and ruffled Mara’s hair. “You’ll grow into it.” Then passed him a leather sheath. “Be careful with that now. You could hurt somebody.”
Mara looked at the blade in the same way he had when he’d held Silas’s.
“You are a good man, Sadrick. I do not believe all that’s said of you.”
“And what’s that then? That I bugger goats? All true.”
Silas laughed.
“Sod off then, Duris. You’ve got a long journey ahead of you.”
“Always a pleasure, Sadrick.”
Sadrick turned back to the forge and stuffed the sword in the coals.
Silas and Mara headed for the Blood Plain.
A thin dusty trail wound through the hip-height sin grass. The red fleshy tips swayed in unison as far as the eye could see. “What do you think?” Silas said.
“About what?”
Silas could still remember the first time he’d been here and how taken back he’d been by the plain’s colour. “You’ve seen sin grass before?”
“No.”
They say those that eat it go mad. But why people would eat something that smells like a dead rat is beyond me.”
Mara shrugged.
Bloody kid.
“Are we going there now… the castle?” Mara said.
