Elia rose from her perch atop the pile of dead creatures with the unhurried ease of someone waking from a nap. The heap beneath her was a varied one — several nightcrawlers among them, and a number of other things that had no names Ivel knew of. They were winged, with great serrated pincers where their arms should have been, their faces sunken and rotten, mandibles sharp and glistening. Ugly things.
"Are these spawns as well?" Ivel asked.
"Most everything in this forest is," Elia said, dusting herself off. "Their adaptations are relatively weak though — you really only have to worry about their physicality. Raw strength, raw speed, that sort of thing." She glanced at him. "Though you're quick enough that it hardly seemed to matter."
Ivel said nothing, but he knew she was right. His quality had served him well in that regard — though it was a costly thing to rely on. Every time he pushed it, he could feel the essence drain from him like water through a crack.
Elia's eyes drifted to his sword. What remained of it, anyway.
"Carry the nightcrawler into town," she said.
Ivel looked at her. "What for? I already have the claws."
The corner of her mouth curved upward. "You'll see."
They left the forest with no ceremony — Ivel hauling the nightcrawler's towering corpse behind him, its weight dragging twin furrows through the dirt, while Elia walked ahead at a pace that suggested she found the whole thing perfectly ordinary. When they reached the edge of town she guided them along the quieter paths, away from the main roads and the eyes of the villagers, who tended to linger when they saw the two of them together.
She stopped in front of a building Ivel had never entered before. Smoke rose from somewhere above it — from the chimney, presumably, though the sheer volume of it gave him pause.
Is that the chimney? he thought. Or the building?
Elia pushed the door open.
The heat struck him like a physical thing. The interior was dim and vast, lit orange by the glow of a forge that dominated the far wall, and standing before it — hammer in hand, beating rhythmically at a tongue of molten steel — was the largest man Ivel had ever seen. He was broad across the shoulders and thick through the arms in the way that only decades of serious work could produce. His hair had gone mostly grey, with a few darker roots still fighting the losing battle, and the heat of the room had left his brown skin gleaming.
The man turned at the sound of the door.
His face opened into a wide, genuine smile the moment he saw Elia.
"Elia." His voice carried the warmth of someone who had not expected a good thing and received one anyway. "I thought you were still at the battlefront."
"We got back a few weeks ago," she said, smiling back at him. "My sister and I have been staying with our father."
The man looked genuinely delighted. "Oh, wonderful." Then, with affectionate contempt: "And how is that brat Aniya?"
"She's been well."
He nodded, satisfied, and let his gaze drift past Elia to where Ivel stood in the doorway, the nightcrawler's corpse slumped against the frame behind him.
"I presume that is your younger brother."
"It is. I took him on his first hunt." She tilted her head toward the corpse. "He did quite well, as you can see."
The man studied the nightcrawler for a moment with an appraiser's eye. Then he looked back at Ivel with the calm, measured interest of someone who had seen a great many things and was not easily impressed — but was not entirely unimpressed either.
"I presume you didn't come all this way just to visit," he said.
"I brought him for his first proper weapon," Elia said. "Can you do that, Aldrius?"
Aldrius set his hammer down and pressed a hand to his chin in thought. "I suppose I can." He exhaled through his nose. "I seem to have become the family blacksmith for you people."
Elia smiled without apology. "You should be honored. Father only goes to the best."
"Yes, yes." He waved her off, though there was no real irritation in it. He gestured to Ivel. "Come here then, boy."
Ivel stepped forward and stood before the man properly. Up close, Aldrius was even more imposing — the kind of build that wasn't born from any single quality but from a lifetime of honest labor with heavy things.
"Alright," Aldrius said. "What'll it be?"
Ivel considered. "Are you any good with swords?"
Aldrius gave him a look. "I am the best when it comes to that, boy." He said it without arrogance. Simply as a fact. "Any specific requirements?"
"Light," Ivel said after a moment. "Suited for fast combat. Light, but deadly."
Aldrius nodded slowly. "A katana, then." He held out a hand. "The corpse."
Ivel handed the nightcrawler over. Aldrius took its weight without effort and laid it across his workbench, turning it over with practiced hands.
"A spawn nightcrawler." He paused, tilting his head. "And more cooked than most I've seen. What did you do to it?"
"My sword couldn't get through its hide," Ivel said. "So I electrocuted it."
Aldrius looked at the creature's blackened, smoke-darkened body for a moment without expression. Then he turned back to his work, saying nothing further on the subject. He began to carve into the hide with the expertise of someone who had done this a thousand times — peeling it back in clean, deliberate sections until the interior of the creature was exposed.
What lay beneath did not look like flesh. It looked like mist — pale and faintly luminous, shifting slightly even now.
"What's he taking the skin for?" Ivel asked, leaning toward Elia.
"Armor, I'd imagine," she said.
"You'd imagine correctly," Aldrius said without looking up. "A sword is not the only thing that will keep you alive, boy. You'd do well to remember that."
Ivel watched him work for a moment. "Is there anything else you could make? I have an orb."
Aldrius's hands slowed. He looked up with a flicker of interest crossing his otherwise steady expression. "I could put an orb enchantment on the armor."
Ivel blinked. "You're a runemaker as well?"
Aldrius laughed — a deep, full sound that seemed to fit the room. "I am indeed." He returned to his work. "And don't concern yourself with payment. Something tells me I'll be seeing quite a lot of you." He paused. "What's your name, young one?"
"Ivel."
Aldrius went still for just a moment. Then he continued carving.
"Ah," he said. "The one the villagers don't much care for."
He did not elaborate on that. He simply nodded toward the far end of the workbench.
"Leave the orb on the table. Come back in a week — I'll have everything ready."
He set down his tools briefly and reached beneath the bench, producing a sword wrapped loosely in cloth. He held it out to Elia.
"You collected it late," he said, "but it's still yours. Here."
Elia took it with both hands and inclined her head — a rare gesture from her. "Thank you, Aldrius."
The old blacksmith waved them off and turned back to the forge.
Ivel set the orb on the table, and the two of them stepped back out into the open air, the heat of the shop releasing them all at once as the door swung shut behind them.