my left hand. In an accident many years ago, I lost my fourth and fifth fingers just below the knuckle. Only two stubs remain.
I just smile and shake my head.
Father waits a moment before suddenly saying, “All of my children are growing up.”
“How do you mean? Of course we are!”
“You won’t understand, Kadmus, until you yourself are a father. It seems that only yesterday I held your brother Gunther in my arms. But look at him now. He’s off by himself, running his own forge in Terrace. And you. I never thought you’d grow to be as big as you are. Taller than me, but just as broad.”
“And Nathaniel is turning sixteen.”
“Don’t remind me. That’s another year to add to my age.” He sticks the long iron bar into the fire and pumps the bellows.
“Don’t worry; you’ll get to hold on to Ethan and Nicholas for another few years. Ethan’s only twelve and Nicholas is half that.” I study the contour of the plow and, finding it to my satisfaction, immerse the long piece of steel in a barrel of cold water. The water boils almost immediately with a loud hiss, and steam puffs to the ceiling in a great cloud. The steel stays there only a few moments, and then I pull it out and examine it to make sure it has not cracked. The steel is flawless.
“Any news on the war?” I ask.
“None that’s new.”
I nod.
There are eight clans, or kingdoms, if you’d like to think of them that way, across the continent. We are members of Gilgal. Each clan specializes in certain industries, and Gilgal happens to be the least noticed. It, or we, I should say, resides along the east and northern sides of the Wolfpack Mountains, and sits just west of the Redwood Forest in the province of Greendale. We don’t bother anybody, and they don’t bother us.
Actually, we are in kind of an unspoken alliance with Mohonri and Herak, two of the most powerful clans. They protect us and we give them food. Fair enough.
Not that there are many threats next to us. The Wolfpack Mountains are scary, but you’d have to be an idiot to go in very far without a good reason. Tygnar is the closest hostile clan, with settlements as close as seven leagues away, but they tend to leave us alone.
I take the metal to the grindstone to polish and sharpen it.
Gilgal is a very industrious clan. We grow food, make things, and even mine a little. I would venture a guess that we are one of the most economically rich clans, but maybe the reason we don’t have much of a military is that everyone is away working.
“I’ll check today while I’m in town,” I say. Even if this isn’t our war yet, I like to keep up with whatever happens.
My father nods and stops hammering for a moment. He looks, eyebrows furrowed, at the ground, turning his head in my direction. “I’m afraid,” he says, “that this war is about to become much more real for us all.” He looks back at his anvil, starts hammering again and states, “But we’ll get through it. No matter how it ends.”
The rest of the morning passes in silence, but for the clanging, grinding, and crackling of our work. After lunch I begin my work on the knife for Nathaniel; it will be a glorious hunting knife worthy of his skill.
Father looks at me and says, “He wants you to go with him, you know.”
“What?”
“Nathaniel will want you to go hunting with him. He looks up to you, Kadmus. They all do.”
“Yeah…”
“You will go, won’t you?”
“Yes, I’ll go. For him.”
“Good. He’ll love it. And he’ll love the opportunity to use the new hunting knife you’re making.”
“Not a word to him.”
“Of course not.”
I remove the steel from its stone mold and have a decent knife-shaped piece of metal on the end of a steel rod. Then, as the afternoon progresses, the knife’s shape is refined between my hammer and anvil.
There’s a knock on the door, and Ethan pokes his head in.
“Kadmus!” he calls. “When are we leaving for Terrace?”
“Tomorrow morning.” My swings don’t stop; I answer without even looking up.
“Right,” he says.
“You have everything ready?” I ask. “It’s only a day’s trip if we’re moving fast.”
“Yes. Mom’s gone through my pack four times already. I just came to make sure you didn’t forget to repair your pack before we left.”