Fred Ironheart's Arc

Chapter 7 of 9

Garrick came the next morning. The scarred old dragon slayer walked into the forge like he owned it, which by contract he did. He looked at the dark ore beside the anvil and smiled. "So you'll make my sword after all," he said. "Good. Forge it well. When it's done, I take it." He did not shout. He did not need to. Every blade Fred made was his to claim. Fred set his hammer on the anvil. He could refuse. But refusing broke the bond, and breaking the bond cost him the smithy. He nodded slow. "I'll forge it," he said. "You'll have your blade." Garrick clapped the ore once and left. Fred stared at the metal. If he made the great sword, Garrick would seize it before any hero touched it. His freedom clause would die on the anvil. Alexander came in from the tanning shed, hands still dark with hide-oil. The ogre had a broken tusk and an old scar across his left eye. He had come to Fred to repay a debt, and he watched Fred now the way a student watches a worried teacher. "You look beat," Alexander said. "You won the metal. Why the long face?" "Garrick takes whatever great sword I make," Fred said. "He'll wait for it. He'll grab it warm off the anvil." He turned the ore in his hand. Then he stopped. An idea moved through him, small and sharp. "He watches for a sword," Fred said. "A big one. A hero's blade." He set the ore down. "So I won't make him one. Not first." He pulled a single red gemstone from the pouch. It flashed in the forge light. He worked through the day. He made Garrick a plain great sword from common steel, dull and heavy. That would satisfy the old man's greed and his eyes. But from a scrap of the rare metal, Fred forged something else. A dagger. Short. Fine. Balanced for a real hand. He set the single red stone in the hilt and cooled it in the trough. He wrapped the dagger in oilcloth and pressed it into Alexander's broad palm. "Hold this," Fred said. "Tell no one. Not Marcus. Not Garrick. Keep it in the tanning shed under the hides." Alexander weighed the blade like a secret. "Why me?" "Because nobody searches an apprentice's hide pile," Fred said. "When a hero comes hunting dragons, this arms him. Garrick claims my swords. This is a dagger, and Garrick never asked for daggers." Alexander closed his fingers around the cloth. "Then it's hid," he said. He carried it out to the shed and buried it deep beneath the raw hides. Fred looked at the plain steel sword cooling on his bench. Garrick would take that one and think he'd won. The real key to Fred's freedom now sat hidden under a pile of skins, waiting for a hero and a dragon.