Jack Timber's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Jack Timber walked out of the pines at dawn with a ruined axe. The blade looked like a dog had chewed it. The first cursed pine had eaten the edge and left chips the size of teeth. He set the haft on his shoulder and started down the cart track toward the village. Two trees still stood in the grove. He could not touch either of them with what he carried. The blacksmith's shop sat at the edge of Vetchhollow under a thatched roof gone black with soot. Bats hung from the eaves. Cobwebs bridged the lanterns. Small carved pumpkins grinned from the door beam. Jack had bought his axe head here last spring. He had not been back since he saw the builder's grave behind the woodpile. Flint Grimshaw stood at the anvil, hammering a horseshoe flat for no reason Jack could see. The amber light in his helm brightened when Jack stepped under the arch. Up close, the iron man smelled like a banked fire. "It's dead," Jack said. He laid the axe on the anvil. "Two trees left. I need it sharp by nightfall or the frost beats us." Flint picked up the head between two gauntlet fingers. He turned it. He set it down. "Grinding won't hold," he said. His voice rang inside the helm. "Second pine will chew it worse. You need the edge tempered in something the tree respects." "Meaning what." Flint reached under the bench and brought out a clay jar. Inside, on a bed of damp moss, lay a black flower. The petals had orange veins. The stem carried thorns. Jack had seen the plant only once, growing from the builder's grave. "Midnight bloom," Flint said. "Crushed into the quench water. The pines fear what grew from a dead man." "You kept one." "I kept three." Jack watched him work. Flint heated the axe head until it glowed the color of his eyes. He hammered the chips out, folded the edge, hammered again. He crushed the flower into a bucket of well water. The petals turned the water black. When he plunged the blade in, the bucket screamed. It was a small sound, thin, but Jack knew it. The same sound the first pine had made. Flint lifted the axe out. The edge was clean and dark. He tested it against his own gauntlet and cut a curl of iron off the knuckle. "That will bite," he said. He handed it over. "Only one problem." "Which is." "You used my last bloom that would take the heat. Two trees. One blade. If it chips again, I have nothing left to give you." Jack shouldered the axe. The candle in his skull steadied. He had his edge back. He had one swing at each remaining pine and no second chance. He turned toward the grove.