by Ben Wolf
He knew that wyvern. He’d seen it hundreds of times. Its name was Strife.
The wyvern lowered its wings and its body, bracing its front half on the street’s surface with the knuckles atop its wings, now folded inward.
The knight atop the wyvern wore unique gray armor, specially crafted for him. Long, black hair draped over his shoulders from under his matching helmet. A small, silver wyvern wing was stamped on the left shoulder of his armor.
It was Commander Larcas Brove, the man who’d discharged Aeron from the Govalian Army.
Chapter Three
Aeron swore a slew of profanity and ducked. The sharp motion sent pain shooting up his back, and he jerked upright again to counter it.
On his way up, he bumped the shield with his elbow. It toppled off the anvil and landed hard on his boot.
Fresh agony erupted in his toes, and he hopped around on one foot, cursing the shield, the shop, and everything else he could think of.
“What in the third hell’s going on back there?” Pa called through the ruckus.
“Nothing,” Aeron answered. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
But everything was not fine. Not even close.
Aeron couldn’t face Commander Brove now, not like this. Not as a damned blacksmith—or a blacksmith’s apprentice, more accurately.
Brove had been Aeron’s commander in the army. But Aeron had consistently beaten Brove in training combat, both on the ground and in the air. That success hadn’t endeared Aeron to Brove in the least.
Brove had also personally ensured Aeron’s discharge.
Aeron couldn’t stay. He slipped off his heavy leather apron and padded gloves and draped them over the shield.
Voices sounded from the front—Pa’s voice and the unmistakable timbre of Commander Brove’s severe Urthian accent. They were heading toward Aeron, but the shop’s layout obstructed their line of sight to him. He didn’t have much time.
He left the apron and his hammer behind and hurried out the shop’s back door.
Only when Commander Brove mounted Strife and finally took off did Aeron return to Pa’s blacksmith shop. By then, the cavalry soldiers were trotting down the street and beyond the crest of the hill.
From Aeron’s vantage across the street, he could see Pa pacing inside the shop with a red face and fists clenched. Aeron needed to get back there, and fast.
He hustled over, every step prickling up his back.
Pa noticed him coming and stopped in place. He jammed his fists into his hips and puffed his considerable chest out. Afternoon sunlight glinted off of his mostly bald head, dotted with sweat.
When Aeron closed within normal talking distance, Pa shouted, “Where in the third hell have you been?”
Aeron withstood it all. “I’m right here. You don’t have to shout.”
The skin on Pa’s face tightened around his eyes and mouth. Very calmly, he said, “I beg your pardon, boy, but…” Then he shouted, “Yes I damn well do!”
Aeron grimaced and closed his eyes to quell his inner anxiety. He hadn’t brought any of the purple-striped shrooms along. What I wouldn’t give for a fix right now.
“Where did you go? Why were you gone so long?”
“I really had to piss.”
“Pissing doesn’t take a half-hour, and we’ve got a can in the back for that.”
“It became more than a piss once I got there.” Aeron rubbed his belly. “You know how sometimes you eat something that just churns and swirls and—”
“Enough. I don’t care about your bowel movements.” Pa waved his hand. “Next time you intend to run off, you tell me. Got it? We’ve got more work now than ever. I stand to make plenty of extra coin, even as useless as you are to me.”
“Your confidence in me is ever-inspiring.” Aeron sighed. “What kind of work?”
“You might’ve missed the soldiers who showed up when you were on your walkabout, but they delivered a huge order. A fresh batch of swords, shields, lance heads, and spearheads. Twelve pairs of shackles, both hands and feet, keys for the shackles, a bunch of sets of armor, and plenty more.”
Aeron sighed again at the thought of what all of that would do to his back. After all he’d learned in the Govalian Army, did he really have to resign himself to a life of blacksmithing under his father’s abrasive rule?
“Great,” Aeron said flatly.
“So we’re staying late tonight, and we’re coming in early tomorrow, and we’ll maintain that schedule until this job is finished.” Pa added, “And I don’t want to hear any of your griping about it.”
Aeron mock-saluted him. “Yes, sir.”
Pa glared at him. “Get back to work.”
Aeron did, and all the while he wished he’d brought two more shrooms along that morning instead of just one.
More than that, he wished he could find a way to free Wafer and just leave this place once and for all.
A couple of weeks later, Kallie visited Aeron in his room after dinner. Now a nightly tradition, they could talk and get caught up on each others’ lives, a time to make up for all they’d missed over the last sixteen years.
“Aeron, you’ll never believe what I found in Capital Square today.” Kallie stood before him with her hands behind her back.
As much as Aeron loved her, he would’ve rather gone to sleep early. Exhaustion and pain racked his body, and he’d have to be up early again the next morning.
Plus, he needed a shroom and didn’t want Kallie to find out where he kept his stash. Better if she didn’t know, just in case. So the sooner she left, the better.
“What is it, Kallie?” he asked, monotone.
“Don’t sound so excited, big brother.”
“Sorry.” He tried to stretch his back, but doing so sent a sharp spasm up his spine, down his right arm, and into his tingling fingertips. He quickly abandoned the motion. “Long days. I’m beat.”
“Well, I won’t keep you waiting, then.” She produced a piece of parchment from behind her back and handed it to him.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Read it.”
He did. It was an auction notice from the Govalian Army. Apparently, they’d put several old pieces of equipment up for sale.
Wagons, wheelbarrows, and various plundered goods from a recent campaign. Aeron had seen a hundred of these notices throughout his tenure with the army.
But this marked the first time they’d ever offered a wyvern for sale to the public.
Chapter Four
Aeron looked up at Kallie. “Wafer?”
She smiled. “I don’t know who else it could be. Have any other wyvern knights been unceremoniously discharged recently?”
He frowned at her. “No, and thanks for phrasing it so delicately.”
“Then it’s got to be him.”
“They’re auctioning off a living weapon of war? That’s unprecedented.”
“Maybe they figure it’s better to try to get something for him rather than just killing him or trying to force something that can’t work because he’s bonded to you.”
“Maybe.”
Kallie’s smile widened. “Whatever the reason, you’ve got a real chance to get him back, free and clear. Well, not free, but you know what I mean.”
It was a chance, but a small one. Miniscule. Aeron tempered his hopes.
“There’s no way I’ll be able to afford him. I’ve got six gold coins and three silver ones left from my army severance package. Even if I’d been paid my severance in full, he’d still be worth a dozen times that amount. Maybe more.”
Kallie sat next to him on the bed. “I have some coin put away. I’d chip in to help. I know he means a lot to you.”
“He means everything to me. He’s my best friend, and we’re bonded for life.”
“So I’d help you.”
“I can’t let you spend your coin.”
“I want to. I’ve been saving it up for a good reason, and I haven’t found one that’s good enough unti
l now.”
“Yeah, like a dowry for your wedding.”
She snorted. “What wedding? I’m in no rush. Pa and Mum got married young, and now they pretty much hate each other. That’s not something I ever want.”
“What about the many prospects you told me about right after I came home?”
“Oh, I’m not serious about any of them. And they’re not serious about me, either. It’s fun to flirt with them, but none of them are husband material. So a dowry is something I won’t need for a long time. I may never get married, actually. I like being independent, and that way, when Pa dies, I’ll inherit the blacksmith shop.”
Aeron blinked. “What?”
Kallie stared him down. “Well, you didn’t seriously think he’d leave it to you, did you?”
She had a point.
“So let me help you, yeah? I don’t even know that I’ll have enough to make a difference, but we have to try.” Kallie took his hand in hers and squeezed it.
Her hands were rough, like his. She’d put in more than her fair share of days at the blacksmith shop over the last sixteen years.
“So how do we come up with the rest?”
“We can ask Mum to help. She won’t admit it outright, but she has a stash of her own.”
Aeron’s eyebrows rose. “I’m surprised no one has seen fit to rob this house yet.”
Kallie chuckled. “Once we have a wyvern sleeping on the roof every night, we’ll be safe forever.”
“He might fit on the roof, but it would never support his weight.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You really think Mum will help?”
“I know she will. I already showed her this, and she said she would,” Kallie replied. “I know you’re tired when you get home, but you should really talk to her more. She misses her boy.”
Hearing Kallie refer to him as a boy didn’t grate on him nearly as much as when Pa said it. “I know. I’ll try to get better at that. You probably don’t remember because of how young you were, but Pa used to call me ‘Mum’s special boy.’ At first it didn’t bother me, but the older I got, the more I hated it.”
Kallie nodded. “It’s not hard to imagine why you left, seeing the way Pa’s treated you since you got back.”
“Yeah. I don’t know what I did to make him hate me so much. I wish I had a father.”
She curled her arm around his shoulders and gave him a faint squeeze, but not enough to tweak his back. It just felt good. Comforting.
“If we could convince Pa to chip in, too, you’d be all set,” Kallie said.
Aeron scoffed. “Maybe we could sell him on the idea that I’d be out of his life again if he helped.”
“He really likes his coin. I don’t think he’d go for it, even with a reason as compelling as that.” Kallie’s lips curled into a grin. “But I’ll ask him. He has a hard time saying no to his little girl.”
“Mum’s special boy and Pa’s little girl. What a pair.”
“What a pair indeed.”
“The auction’s in a week.” Aeron’s heart fluttered, and he smiled. “I’ll save what I have, and whenever Pa decides to start paying me, I’ll save that, too. Maybe with all of it combined, we’ll have a chance.”
Kallie squeezed him again, this time a little too hard, and his back protested.
He grunted, and she backed off.
“Sorry,” she said. “I wish I could hug you like normal.”
“Me too, kid. Me too.”
She kissed his cheek, said goodnight, and then she left. Aeron pulled out his sack of shrooms and spread the opening wide.
Only a handful remained, and most of them were bonus shrooms—not ideal for helping his back. Instead they provided added “bonus” experiences to his trips.
He needed more shrooms to be able to function at work. But how would he save enough coin for the auction in a week and buy enough shrooms to survive?
Aeron sighed. It wasn’t possible. He’d already resigned himself to it. Unless by some miracle Pa intervened, Kallie and Mum wouldn’t have enough coin.
He popped one of his two remaining painkilling shrooms, stuffed the sack under his mattress, and looked into his coin pouch next. It was worse than what he’d told Kallie. He had three silver coins but only five gold, not six.
What did it matter anyway? One gold coin wouldn’t make the difference when a military-trained wyvern would cost hundreds or even thousands.
He shut the pouch and tossed it to the floor. It’s hopeless. I’ll never get him back.
As the shroom’s effects began to kick in, his attitude shifted along with it.
I have to try. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t. And now it could actually happen.
It meant going virtually without shrooms for the whole week—and back pain galore. But if he got Wafer back, none of it would matter. He could tolerate the back pain if he had Wafer.
He had to try, and he would.
The next week dragged by. Aeron helped Pa shoe over two dozen horses, and together they forged twenty new shields and eight swords. Pa also made most of the shackles, along with their complementary keys.
Aeron also caught a glimpse of a much larger skeleton key Pa had crafted. He’d tried to ask about it, but Pa shushed him and told him to mind his own business.
The back pain proved excruciating, but Aeron powered through it, just like he had for close to two months after the accident. After those two months, he’d finally given in and tried the shrooms one of his army comrades kept offering him.
By midweek at the shop, he’d completely run out of shrooms. He’d arranged for Pa to pay him something—anything—in time for the auction, and he’d saved the remnants of his measly severance payment instead of buying more shrooms.
Whether or not it would all be enough, he didn’t know, but he’d made up his mind either way.
The night before the auction, Aeron couldn’t sleep, despite the usual level of physical exhaustion he’d incurred from a long day of work.
The morning of the auction, he was ready to go an hour earlier than Mum and Kallie, so he sat at the kitchen table, waiting for them.
Pa came in, grunted, and sat at the opposite end.
Aeron watched him. Pa was uncharacteristically quiet, and he was avoiding eye contact with Aeron. Normally, Pa didn’t shy away from anything even resembling conflict or personal interaction, but this morning was different. It was… strange.
Aeron had just worked up the nerve to ask about it when Pa spoke.
“Your mum told me what you’re going to try to do today,” Pa said, “and I have to say, I don’t approve. You have a good thing going with me at the shop. Even if you don’t like it, it’s steady pay and steady work.”
Aeron’s heart sank. Pa meant to ban him from the auction right here and now.
But it didn’t matter. I’m going whether he wants me to or not.
“Pa, I’m—”
“I told your mum she was a fool for wanting to help.” Pa still wasn’t making eye contact with him. “Kallie is perhaps an even greater fool. She ought to be saving coin for her dowry, not throwing it away on some stinking beast.”
Aeron bit his tongue. That stinking beast means more to me than you ever did.
“And even if you win the auction, which you won’t, we’ve got nowhere to keep it. We live in the capital, for the gods’ sakes, and we’ve no land to speak of aside from that which lies under our feet and the shop. It’s beyond foolish—it’s reckless to think we could properly board a pony, let alone a beast five times that size.”
“Pa, I don’t ca—”
“Let me finish, Aeron.” Pa’s eyes met Aeron’s, then he looked down again.
“Your whole life, you’ve done nothing but vex me,” Pa continued. “I’ve tried to teach you how to live right, but you’ve only ever thrown it back in my face with disrespect and disdain. Then you fled my home while you were still a child and—”
“I was sixteen,” Aeron cut in.
Pa glowered at him again until Aeron finally had to look away this time.
“And you joined the army instead of running the shop with me.” Pa’s voice wavered. “Worst betrayal I could’ve imagined. I deserved better from my own son.”
Aeron scowled at Pa, livid. Leaving home wasn’t a betrayal for Aeron—it was an act of survival. For Pa to suggest that Aeron had somehow done him wrong showed just how oblivious Pa was to his own demeanor and failures as a father.
It wasn’t Pa who’d deserved better. It was Aeron who’d deserved better.
Aeron had never wanted to smash his Pa’s head into a table so much. And he could’ve done it, too. He had the training. He had the strength. The only thing he didn’t have was a fully functioning back.
“And then, on top of all that, you’re wasting a perfectly good workday on your fool’s errand. Trying to throw away hard-earned coin that, were it not for me giving you a job, you wouldn’t have to begin with.”
A job I never wanted. Aeron folded his arms.
“You’re costing me work hours and production. You’re costing yourself coin you might’ve used to move out of my house and get your own place. You’re raiding your mum’s savings and your sister’s. And you’re wasting my time, too.”
Aeron’s patience burst, and he slammed his palms on the table. “How am I wasting your time? I’m not asking you to come. I don’t harbor any expectations of you, except that you’ll be rude, demeaning, and cruel like you’ve always been.
“You’ve never wanted me. You wanted a son who would carry on your business, who would do whatever you said without question and without delay. You wanted to hammer me into your own image, but I’m not at all like you, and I never will be. I’ll never be anything but a disappointment to you.
“So I don’t care what happens today, Pa. Win or lose, I’m leaving your house, and you can go to hell. Go to all of the hells, for all I care. I said it the first day I came home, and I should’ve stuck with it. Well, I’m saying it now, again, and I mean it. One hundred times, I’d say it. Go. To. Hell. I’m done with you.”
