Jack Whyte - The Skystone

"They're all iron, but they're all different. The first is what we call wrought iron. It's pure iron — recently smelted and unworked — soft, as you saw, and malleable. The second one's been heated and beaten a couple of times. The third has been in the fire and under the hammer more often. And the sword blade's been heated in an air-fed, charcoal forge and beaten into shape, then edged, then re-heated and quenched in water while it was red hot. It's the hardest of all. That sword will be worn by one of the garrison soldiers, when it's finished. Now watch." I picked up the sword blade and used its point to gouge marks in the three bars. As before, the resistance varied from bar to bar. Then I used the bars to try to make an impression on the iron of the sword blade. None of them even scratched it.

"Now do you see my point?"

"I think so." He still looked bemused. I picked up the sword blade again.

"This metal, this blade, is the hardest iron I can make, Commander, and I don't know anyone who can do better. In all the world, to the best of my knowledge, you'll find no harder iron. Except in the sword of Theodosius, and in this." I picked up the skystone knife with my right hand and laid the sword blade between us with my left.

"Hold that end firmly. Don't let it move." I then bent over the blade, bracing my fist and the end of the skystone knife against my shoulder, and dragged its point down the length of the sword blade. It cut deeply, even curling a shaving of iron. I straightened and held the knife's point out for Britannicus to inspect.

"Look. Not a trace of damage."

"Good God!" He took the knife and gazed at it as I continued talking.

"That's not iron, but until I know what it is, I'll call it iron. And here's the theory you wanted to hear about: I know that high heat smelts iron from the ore-bearing rock. Once we have the pure iron, higher degrees of heat, and variations in the way we apply the heat and treat the iron, produce harder iron. And iron's the hardest metal we know. Every other metal is softer, easier to melt, and easier to work with. I think the amount of heat we can generate and apply has much to do with the hardness of the metal. The fires we work with today, fuelled by charcoal and heated by bellows, are the hottest smiths have ever worked with." I took the knife from his hand. "Grandfather Varrus had to work harder than he ever had before to smelt this, whatever it is. And I never saw the skystone. Maybe it wasn't even the ore-bearing rock we know. Perhaps, if I had seen the stone, I would be able to recognize others like it, who knows?

But this I do know: there's a secret here, in this metal, that's waiting to be discovered. If I could find the secret of whatever it is that makes this... iron — I have to call it iron — so different, so far superior to the iron we know, then men would call me a magician when they saw the blades I could produce. And I would be, too.... Magic, after all, is no more than the product of knowledge others don't share."

Britannicus was shaking his head in amazement, his shoulders slumped in dejection.

"Publius, " he said, "I believe every word you have said. But where on earth can we find another skystone, and how will we recognize it?" I stood up and began to throw the pieces of iron back into the box.

"There's the pity of it, Commander. I think I have as much chance of finding another skystone as I do of finding a wife at my age."

We had little more to say to each other that night, and Britannicus left shortly after that, walking straight and tall in the light of a full moon, promising to visit me again in the near future. Depressed and dissatisfied, I made my way to bed, where I intended to remain shamelessly until midday.

It was not to be. I had barely climbed into bed when I heard an approaching clash of hooves outside, preternaturally loud in the silent night. Even before they had clattered to a halt outside my house I was out of bed, filled with a sense of impending disaster.

It was Plautus, unkempt, dishevelled and out of uniform.

"Is Britannicus still here?"

"No. Why?" I was still pulling on my clothes, my sword belt in my left hand. I had snatched it up without conscious volition.

"When did he leave?"

"About five minutes ago. What's wrong?"

"Which way did he go? One of my men tipped me. There's a plot. They knew he was here and they're out to get him."

"Damnation! Which way did you come?"

"Direct, but I didn't pass him. But he could have taken the other street at the fork back there."

"Go back and check it, Plautus. I'll go the other way." I didn't have to ask who "they" were. I cursed myself for not noticing which way Caius had gone. Either direction, right or left from my gate, would have led him eventually back to the fort. We split up, Plautus, mounted, to the left and myself, on foot, to the right.

I had developed a technique of running that allowed me to make the most of my bad leg. I progressed in a series of bounds, launching myself off my good limb and using the bent one merely as a balancing point. It worked well and allowed me to cover ground quickly in short bursts. On this occasion, however, the sustained effort and my anxiety tired me quickly. Darkened tenements hemmed me in on either side before I had run two hundred paces, and as I turned one corner a frightened cat leaped, hissing, from my path, the suddenness of it almost causing me to fall. I stopped and listened, but I could hear nothing except the pounding of my heart and the rasping of my breath. I stood there for the space of twenty heartbeats, forcing myself to calm down before I ran on, cursing the fact that every street in this town sloped upwards towards the fort on the hilltop.

I passed one junction where two streets crossed, glancing left and right as I ran through the intersection. The pale light of the full moon allowed me to see that both streets were empty of life. I had gone about halfway up the next length of increasingly steep street when somebody tried to kill me.

My lopsided style of running saved me. The increasing gradient and my growing fatigue had me progressing by this time in a bobbing, dipping series of lurches. As I hunched into one lurch, the tip of a sword blade hissed by my head, slicing into the lobe of my right ear. My instincts and training took over immediately, and without thought I allowed my bad leg to collapse under me. Rolling forward and away from my assailant, I maintained my momentum and drew my own sword as I rolled. I whipped the blade up in front of my face just in time to counter another swinging slash that almost disarmed me. I turned it aside desperately and managed to unbalance the black-cloaked figure that loomed above me. Then, spinning myself on my rump and putting all my weight into my lunge, I slashed at the one glimpse I had of a bare knee and felt the edge of my blade bite deep, grating on bone. I realized at the same instant that this might be Caius Britannicus, treating me as a potential attacker. It was not Britannicus, and I knew that as he fell, cursing me in a high-pitched whine of agony. We grappled together there on the edge of the cobbled street. I was glad of my smith's muscles as I forced his arms down and slipped the point of my sword into the soft flesh beneath his chin, ramming it quickly upwards through his skull so that he died suddenly, his frantic liveliness turning to dead weight in a moment of spastic shuddering.

I regained my feet and freed my sword, shaking like an old man with the palsy and fighting hard to get fresh air into my lungs. There was no one else in the street —just myself and my dead attacker. And then I heard the ring of iron and the sounds of a struggle coming from an alleyway I had run past before being attacked. Ignoring the corpse on the ground, I ran towards the sounds and saw a knot of fighting men about halfway down the alley.