Theron Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 6 of 5

Theron reached the forge cave before the soldiers could close in. The ore lay smelted. The blade sat cooling on the stone rim of the forge-well, its edge bright. He unwrapped the frost-thread and spread the scroll beside it. Now came the last step. Bind the silk into the steel, and the blade would answer only his hand. One mistake would burn the thread to nothing. He had no second bundle. He read the scroll by firelight. Half the lines had faded to gray smears. He could make out the first binding: wet the thread, lay it along the hot blade, speak the rune. But the next instructions broke apart. One word might be "cold" or "fold." He could not tell. If he guessed wrong, the silk would curl and die. He sat back. Two days of climbing, a debt paid in blood, all of it rode on words he could not read. He knew one man who could. Deep in the ice, past the frost-lined walls of an old tomb, lived a wizard who handled rare things for a living. Theron had passed the tomb once on his way down. He left the blade and ran. The tomb door stood under hanging ice, its runes faint. Inside, a bent old man ground powder in a bowl. Vials hung at his belt. He did not look up. "You tracked snow onto my floor," the wizard said. "Speak fast. The soldiers on the ice will find you soon." "Icridge Eldrick." Theron held out the scroll. "I can't read it. The binding for frost-thread. One wrong move ruins my only silk." The wizard took the scroll. His eyes moved along the faded lines. He grunted. "Fold, not cold. You wet the thread, lay it flat, then fold it once at the hilt before the rune. Miss the fold and the heat eats it." He tapped a blurred mark. "This says work quick. The steel must still glow." Theron breathed. "How do I pay you?" "You don't." The old man pressed the scroll back into his hands. "I've no love for the one you mean to kill. Now go, before the forge cools." Theron ran back. The blade still held a faint glow. He wet the frost-thread and laid it along the steel. It hissed. He folded it once at the hilt, exactly as the wizard said, and spoke the rune. The silk sank into the metal. Frost patterns spread across the blade like growing ice. The steel drank the thread and held. He lifted it. The hilt warmed only to his grip. He had made the blade at last. Then he heard boots on the ice above the cave. Many of them. The soldiers had found the torchlight's source. The blade was forged, but untested, and they stood between him and the only way out.