Don Perrin - Theros Ironfield

Sometime, perhaps, Theros would tell Yuri that. Then Theros thought of Hran and his training. Praise gives a person a swelled head. Better to keep Yuri in line. He’d learn faster.

Arriving at the smithy, Theros was not surprised to find one of Moorgoth’s men loitering about the street in front of the smithy, obviously waiting for the smith to open for business.

Theros gave the man a nod, unlocked the latch, opened the big doors. He went inside and started to heat up the forge. The guardsman stepped inside. He was holding a sword in his hand. Theros, eyeing the weapon, was quick to spot the notched blade.

“Yuri!” Theros bellowed. “Get in here!”

The young man was in the back room, where he slept. He ran into the smithy, looking fearful, as if there were a fire, or-worse-he had forgotten to do something. “What is it, sir? The accounts are in order. I counted them down myself this morning! I-Oh! Hello, sir.” Yuri flushed. He was supposed to watch for customers. “What can we do for you today?”

“Look at this blade!” the guardsman said in disgust. “Can you believe it? Just for hitting a blasted dwarf over the head. Sure, he had on a steel helm, but still! I paid good money for this sword in Flotsam. I expected better. Moorgoth sent me to you. Can you mend it, Master Ironfeld?”

Theros smiled. So Moorgoth was sending his men over here. That was excellent! “Certainly. Put the blade on that table. I’ll have it ready for you tonight.”

“Fine. Moorgoth said to send the bill to him.”

Theros nodded. He’d make it double what he would have charged anyone else.

The guardsman left the forge. Yuri took the sword, placing it on the table. Theros went back to his work, heating up the fire, when he noticed that Yuri was wasting time, staring at the sword.

“In Sargas’s name, what are you doing, boy? Haven’t you ever seen a sword before?”

“Not one like this, sir,” said Yuri. “It’s got funny little marks all over the blade.”

“Bah!” Theros snorted. “That’s the problem, then. Let this be a lesson to you. Engraving a blade is well and good, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, you ruin the blade’s effectiveness. Now get back to those gloves you’re stitching.”

Yuri ran off, giving the sword a last parting glance.

Theros, now curious, left the fire to itself and went over to examine the weapon.

The marks on the blade were, as Yuri had said, curious. Theros had expected them to be Solamnic in nature, for the knights were forever putting family crests, roses, kingfishers and every other heraldic symbol they could find upon their weapons.

But this.… Theros turned the blade this way and that and finally made out what the “marks” were supposed to represent.

Dragons. Dragons twining up and down the blade. Strange-looking dragons with long, snakelike bodies and no wings. And interspersed among the dragons appeared to be letters, although they belonged to no alphabet that Theros knew. Not elven, certainly. Not dwarven either.

Obviously, though, he’d been correct in his assessment. The engraving had marred the integrity of the blade. He thrust the blade into the fire to heat, and began sorting out and preparing the proper tools.

A strange hissing caught his attention.

“Yuri, stop making that fool noise!” Theros shouted.

“Stop what, sir?” Yuri walked in from the back, a half-finished glove in his hand. “I wasn’t doing anything-sir! Blessed Gilean! S-s-sir! L-l-l-look!”

Theros turned. Yuri was stammering and pointing at the forge fire.

Theros couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Dragons, small red dragons that seemed to be made of flame, were crawling off the blade of the sword that now glowed red in the heat of the blazing fire.

Openmouthed, Theros stared. He shut his eyes, rubbed them, looked again. The dragons were still there, more and more of them. Now they were scuttling across the white-hot coals. One of the dragons-a bright, fiery red creature-jumped out of the bed of coals, landed on a wooden bench. The dragon vanished, changing to flame. The bench began to smolder and smoke.

The firepit was filled with tiny dragons now, hundreds and hundreds. They were leaping and dancing and jumping, and everything they touched burst into flame. Yuri was now shrieking at the top of his lungs. At least he had the presence of mind to grab a bucket of water and throw its contents on the flaming bench.

Theros couldn’t move. Sorcery! This was wizard’s work. Theros would have faced the prospect of cold steel in the belly without blanching. The sight of that ensorceled sword left him as weak and shaking as a terrified child.

The fiery little dragons were dashing up the wooden beams that supported the roof. They crawled to the worktable, dropped among the tools. And everything they touched burst into flame-even metal. The only effect the water seemed to have on the flames was to spread them. Yuri might have been pouring oil on them.

Yuri was clutching at Theros, trying to drag him out of the forge. The building filled up rapidly with a particularly toxic, choking smoke.

“Come away, master! Come away! There’s nothing you can do! Give up!”

“By Sargas!” Theros roared, coming to himself. “Never!”

Grabbing hold of a piece of uncut leather, he began beating at the flaming dragons that were running along the hard-packed earthen floor of the smithy. The dragons jumped onto the leather, and it caught fire so fast that the heat of the flames singed all the hair off of Theros’s arm. He dropped the leather, started to try to stamp out the flames with his foot.

“No, master, no!” Yuri was howling.

“More water, you fool!” Theros shoved the boy out of the forge. “Bring more water.”

He stomped on the dragons, and every time his foot hit one, it gave a little squeak and turned cold and black. But there must have been thousands now and he could never hope to put them all out. The smoke was making him cough, burning his eyes. The wooden beams on the ceiling had caught fire now. The heat was forcing Theros back toward the open door.

Still he fought, until one of the dragons jumped on his leg. It burned through his long leather apron in an instant, touched his flesh. The pain was excruciating, far worse than any burn Theros had ever received in his long years of working the forge. It seemed that his flesh was going to burst into flame. The pain was so intense, he felt himself starting to black out.

He staggered out of the burning forge and collapsed upon the ground, clutching his leg and moaning. Looking up, he saw that a crowd had formed around his forge. Most of his neighbors were there, plus many more of the citizens of Sanction, attracted by the billowing black smoke. Among these were several of the maroon-coated men of Moorgoth’s raiders. And standing among those was a black-robed wizard. He stood with his arms folded across his chest, a slight smile on his face.

Not one person sought to help put out the blaze. Not one person grabbed a bucket or shouted for the town guard, or did anything else typical of such emergencies. They all stood in silence, watching the fire, staring at Theros.

Yuri came running up, panting, carrying the bucket of water. He stared, aghast, at the shop-it was engulfed in flames.

“Never mind that now!” Theros shouted. “Pour the water on my leg!” It might help or it might make the flames worse, but Theros was frantic with the pain. He didn’t much care.

Yuri dumped the water on Theros’s burning clothes. The fire went out instantly. Theros lay back on the ground, panting and sweating. The pain of his burned leg made him almost sick, as did the smell of his own charred flesh.

The black-robed wizard walked up to Theros, knelt down to examine the smithy’s injured leg. Theros growled, but he was in too much pain to say anything.