A snippet for Amand_r (the prompt was 'lame horses')
The boy worked the bellows until his arms ached and the bundle of iron rods in the fire glowed bright orange. Finally the blacksmith gestured at him to stop pumping and used the long pair of tongs to transfer the bundle to the anvil. He showed the boy how to clamp an end of the bundle together and twisted the rods into a braid. Then the blacksmith worked the braid, folding it and hammering it, melding it into a solid billet. When the metal turned ashy gray, too cool to work, he thrust it back in the fire and repeated the process, shaping it to the form of his desire. The last time he thrust it in a barrel of water kept for that purpose. Steam hissed up in a white cloud and when he pulled it out of the water and held it out. Light played across the surface, revealing a pattern like rippling water. The whole time that he worked, the blacksmith said not one word to the boy. That wasn’t unusual. Taciturn, he rarely spoke and never showed interest in anything outside of the forge. The man was a slave, chained to the forge. The boy wondered why, today, he kept looking out, as though he expected someone.
***
From his position on the ridge, Cronos considered the village. Once it had been a Roman outpost on the western frontier. Now you could call it a village, if you wanted to dignify a handful of thatched huts huddling together inside the crumbling ditch and stone walls. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find the place abandoned. Much of the land was empty. He flared his nostrils and snuffed up the intelligence that the wind brought him. Smoke. Manure. Reeking middens. The tang of hot iron. There was a building set apart from the others.
The gates opened and Cronos hunkered into the dry grass, pulling his plaid cloak over his head. A group of villagers came out. He counted ten, seven women and three men, leading an empty ox cart. Harvest was long over. Going to collect firewood. One of the men carried a sword. Cronos smiled at his luck.
When the cart was out of sight, he slipped back into the trees, where his horse was tethered. The horse was a sturdy, dun colored brute that had carried him from London. He untied the pack that was strapped behind the saddle. Opened it, removed a piece of oiled canvas and spread that on the ground. The sword had to go. He unbuckled it and pulled the blade from its sheath. Below the sharkskin hilt, the pattern-welded steel caught the sun like water rippling in a steam. Too good. Almost a king’s sword. It would attract the wrong kind of attention. Reluctantly he re-sheathed it and placed it on the canvas. The short gladius in its worn sheath hanging from his saddle would have to do-as it had for a hundred years.
Still measuring the line between presenting the appearance of a successful warrior and inviting his own murder, he added the set of garnet eagle broaches from his cloak and the enameled case from his belt, two heavy gold armlets on top of it all, and folded into a neat package. He kept the thin ribbon tork discreetly hidden under the patterned tape at the neck of his tunic, and the wide leather belt with its jeweled buckle. Those could easily have been gifts from a grateful patron. As in fact they were. The body of the man who had won them was rotting somewhere by a river in Gaul. Cronos had carried the man’s head with him into Britain as an offering.
He used the curved blade of his francisca to trench out a shallow hole where he deposited the bundle and covered it over with dirt and pine needles. Having replaced the saddle pack, he bent and took hold of the horse’s hoof. With his knife, he pried loose two of the nails that held in on. As it happened, he was going to need a blacksmith.
***
From his position on the ridge, Cronos considered the village. Once it had been a Roman outpost on the western frontier. Now you could call it a village, if you wanted to dignify a handful of thatched huts huddling together inside the crumbling ditch and stone walls. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find the place abandoned. Much of the land was empty. He flared his nostrils and snuffed up the intelligence that the wind brought him. Smoke. Manure. Reeking middens. The tang of hot iron. There was a building set apart from the others.
The gates opened and Cronos hunkered into the dry grass, pulling his plaid cloak over his head. A group of villagers came out. He counted ten, seven women and three men, leading an empty ox cart. Harvest was long over. Going to collect firewood. One of the men carried a sword. Cronos smiled at his luck.
When the cart was out of sight, he slipped back into the trees, where his horse was tethered. The horse was a sturdy, dun colored brute that had carried him from London. He untied the pack that was strapped behind the saddle. Opened it, removed a piece of oiled canvas and spread that on the ground. The sword had to go. He unbuckled it and pulled the blade from its sheath. Below the sharkskin hilt, the pattern-welded steel caught the sun like water rippling in a steam. Too good. Almost a king’s sword. It would attract the wrong kind of attention. Reluctantly he re-sheathed it and placed it on the canvas. The short gladius in its worn sheath hanging from his saddle would have to do-as it had for a hundred years.
Still measuring the line between presenting the appearance of a successful warrior and inviting his own murder, he added the set of garnet eagle broaches from his cloak and the enameled case from his belt, two heavy gold armlets on top of it all, and folded into a neat package. He kept the thin ribbon tork discreetly hidden under the patterned tape at the neck of his tunic, and the wide leather belt with its jeweled buckle. Those could easily have been gifts from a grateful patron. As in fact they were. The body of the man who had won them was rotting somewhere by a river in Gaul. Cronos had carried the man’s head with him into Britain as an offering.
He used the curved blade of his francisca to trench out a shallow hole where he deposited the bundle and covered it over with dirt and pine needles. Having replaced the saddle pack, he bent and took hold of the horse’s hoof. With his knife, he pried loose two of the nails that held in on. As it happened, he was going to need a blacksmith.