Iron Axe

by Steven Harper

  “It has the same feel,” she explained, and picked up another knife from her seat behind the whirling whetstone. “Did you know your grandmothers, my sister?”

  Aisa shook her head and carefully deboned the salmon. “My father’s parents died before I was born, and I never even learned who my mother’s parents were. She never spoke of them. I only knew that she came from somewhere far away from Irbsa.”

  The quiet, friendly talk continued while they worked and Old Aunt watched, and the scene filled Aisa as sweet liquor filled a jug. She’d had no idea how good simple talk could feel. A bit of the tension lifted from her shoulders. Even the hunger eased.

  Supper was a fascinating and monumental event. How fine a thing it was to cook a rich meal and then sit down to eat it! As a slave, she had always eaten leftovers and crumbs at the smoke-filled hearth. The orcs and trolls, kind as they were, had given her strange food. This was food she could make as she liked and devour until she was full. Even washing up afterward was pleasant, with Kalessa to help and the soft scent of Old Aunt’s pipe.

  Afterward, Old Aunt pointed Aisa to a room with a strange bed in it—a shelf with a big bag of feathers for padding and a smaller bag of feathers for a pillow. Thick quilts were piled atop the entire affair for warmth. A lamp stood beside a pitcher of water and a bowl on a table in the corner for night and morning washing, and one of those incredible glass windows looked out over a moonlit beach, where soft waves lapped at brown sands. The luxury took Aisa’s breath away. Her amazement grew when she discovered that she and Kalessa wouldn’t be sharing the room or the bed—Kalessa had a room of her own.

  “The door latches,” Old Aunt said, “from the inside. Good night now.”

  After she left, it took Aisa a moment to understand what she meant. With trembling fingers, Aisa closed the latch with a solid clunk. Four thick walls stood guard around her, and the only way in was a door that she alone controlled. For the first time in years, Aisa felt completely, totally safe.

  For a moment, she didn’t move. Then she threw her hands wide and spun in a giddy circle. The relief was so powerful she didn’t know what to do with herself. Suddenly her bindings felt too close, too confining. With a little cry of happiness, she unwound the rags from her hands, noticing for the first time that the blood from the elven boy’s wounds had vanished, and flung them into the corner. Then she cast back her hood, tossed aside her dirty dress that smelled of sweat and wyrms, and unwound the scarves from her head and body. These she also cast into the corner, and she stood in the center of the room in her underthings with a feeling of lightness. Night black hair spilled down her back, and she ran her hands through it, feeling it rumple soft beneath her fingers and scratching her itchy scalp. It was a fine thing to wash from the basin and sponge away days of dust and travel, and never once did she have to hurry or worry that Farek with his hard hands or Hamzu with his piercing eye might barge in.

  In a trunk at the foot of the bed, she found fresh new clothes, and a long, soft shift she assumed was for sleeping in. For all these things, Aisa decided she would work for Old Aunt as long as the woman—or whatever she was—would have her, and Hamzu could twist in the wind. As she slid between clean sheets on a delightfully comfortable bed, the butterfly sound of gentle singing wafted under the door. The tune had no words, just a melody soft as rising bread and soothing as a mother’s touch. It sent Aisa into a deep, comfortable sleep.

  In the morning, Aisa woke easily and dressed in the fresh white clothes she found, including a clean white scarf to wrap around her face and a hood to pull over her hair. There were, however, no rags to wrap her hands in. And her clothing from last night had disappeared. Aisa glanced uneasily at her bare hands and at the latched door. Well, it was only Kalessa and Old Aunt out there. No men to stare at her bare skin. Gingerly, feeling oddly naked, she left the sleeping room and found her way to the kitchen. Outside one of the windows, an orange sun was just creeping over the horizon. Old Aunt was just settling onto her stool by the fireplace, which had been banked for the night. Aisa hurried to stir it up and add wood as Kalessa wandered in wearing a new tunic—also white—and buckling on her sword in the absent way Aisa already recognized as automatic to her. Her golden eyes were still heavy with sleep, and her auburn braid was still down for the night. Kalessa was not a morning person.

  “Just in time,” Old Aunt observed as Aisa set the table with cheese, bread, and small beer for breakfast. Old Aunt poked at the fire with her stick. Aisa again thought of Bund and the shaman and even of Hunin’s brother the priest. Did everyone with power brandish a stick to show it? She wondered what it would be like to wield one, be in such a position of power herself.

  “Thank you, sister,” Kalessa said with her mouth full. “You are so quick at setting a table. I’ll fetch the water and more wood, since you have become our food maiden.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Old Aunt said from her stool. Her plate was on the stone hearth. “You have other duties today. In fact …” She leaned back to glance out the window. “… you should finish that bread and draw your sword. Aisa will tend to the washing up.”

  Aisa tensed, and Kalessa was on her feet in a flash, her bronze sword out. “What are you talking about?”

  The kitchen door smashed open. Sunlight slammed into Aisa’s eyes. To Aisa’s utter shock, Hamzu burst into the room. Foam and saliva flecked his lips. His left eye glowed like an angry sun, and its gaze penetrated Aisa’s very soul until she stood naked before a jeering crowd. With a bull’s roar, Hamzu rushed straight at Aisa. Cold terror washed over her and turned her ribs to ice. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think as he thundered toward her, overturning tables and benches along the way.

  Kalessa was already moving. She interposed herself between Aisa and Hamzu, her sword up, and she roared a battle challenge of her own. He slashed at her with his claws—when had he gotten claws?—but she eeled aside. Her sword flicked out and scored his massive chest. Blood flowed. He bellowed thunder again and slashed. His claws raked Kalessa’s off arm, leaving great furrows. Aisa cried out. Kalessa didn’t seem to notice. She stabbed at Hamzu’s heart, but he caught her wrist and twisted. Her sword clattered to the floor and slid away. Without hesitation, Kalessa kicked Hamzu in the groin. He grunted and let her go.

  “She fights dirty,” Old Aunt remarked from the heart. “What a delight.”

  Hamzu bent for a moment from the pain. Foam dripped from his mouth to the floor. Fear gripped Aisa in an iron vise. Her mind couldn’t encompass what she was seeing. She wanted to run, but she was also terrified that Kalessa would be hurt. And Hamzu—what was wrong with Hamzu that he would come here and attack her this way? It made her sick.

  Blood ran freely from Kalessa’s wounds, and from the table she snatched the knife Aisa had used to cut meat. When Hamzu straightened, she leaped straight at him. The knife gleamed in the firelight. With a shout, she plunged it straight into his glowing red eye. Aisa flinched at the sound it made. Hamzu bellowed to shake the windows. He staggered backward, his massive clawed hands over his face. Kalessa dove for her sword, but Hamzu was already stumbling for the door. He lurched into the sunlight beyond and his pain-filled bellowing faded into nothing.

  Aisa stared wildly about the room, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest. Kalessa regained her feet and stood with her sword at the ready until the last of Hamzu’s yells disappeared. Only then did she sheathe her weapon and drop to one of the upright benches. Old Aunt poked calmly at the fire with her stout stick, as if watching children at play. Silence fell over the room. It lay thick and heavy. Outside, a bird called, and then another. At last, with a pang, Aisa noticed the blood running down Kalessa’s arm.

  “You are hurt!” she said.

  “Scratches,” Kalessa said, but winced as Aisa gently probed them. Aisa felt Kalessa’s pain in her own arm, and she got angry all over again at Hamzu, and then she felt confused. That couldn’t possibly have been him, could it? He would never do such a thing, and he certainly co
uld not have found this place.

  “These must be cleaned and bandaged.” Aisa leaped to her feet, glad of something to take her mind off what she had just seen. “I’ll get my—”

  “Everything you need is in the cupboard over there.” Old Aunt pointed with her stick. “And get me some more smoke-leaf for my pipe, while you’re at it. I’m nearly out.”

  Aisa opened the cupboard and found jars and boxes of herbs and distillations, liquors and pastilles, all neatly labeled in both pictures and words. Many she had only heard of but never had the chance to use. A set of tiny knives and needles hung on the door, and a large basket contained ample supplies of thread, sinew, and bandages. She pulled down what she needed and took it back to Kalessa, who bore Aisa’s ministrations stoically, though the liquor she used to clean the wounds must have hurt like fire. Aisa felt awful about causing her new sister more pain, but there was no way around it.

  “I’ll be quick,” she promised, and set her jaw. “Old Aunt, who was that and how did he find this place?”

  “You tell me, dear.” Old Aunt drew idle designs on the hearthstones with her stick. “You brought him here.”

  “I did no such thing!”

  “You are pressing that wound very hard, my sister,” Kalessa said. Her white tunic was a wreck.

  “Sorry.” Aisa let up. “I did not bring Hamzu here. You know that.”

  Old Aunt blew out more pipe smoke. “Child, do you know why you’re here?”

  “No.” Aisa continued to work. The wounds were clean. Kalessa was sitting in a puddle of blood and liquor, but at least the bleeding had slowed.

  “You are here because if the Tree tips with you in your current condition, everything will go as wrong as a cat in a soap kettle. Hamzu there showed it.”

  “I do not understand.” Aisa reached for bandages. “Why do people who have knowledge never speak plainly about it?”

  “Hamzu did, and you found it unpleasant,” Old Aunt shot back.

  “That was unfair.”

  “Was it?” Old Aunt’s voice was kind. “Tell me what happened, then.”

  Aisa started to refuse, but then her brown eyes met Kalessa’s golden ones. Kalessa touched Aisa’s hand in a quiet gesture she hadn’t felt since her mother died. “I would like to hear, too, sister.”

  And so she talked while she wound bandages. Once she got started, it was easier to talk than she thought. She told the entire story, starting at Hamzu losing his splinters at the meeting with the Three, and ending with his betrayal. Kalessa and Old Aunt merely made encouraging noises and listened. When Aisa finished, she felt wrung out, and her eyes were wet.

  “Hmm,” said Old Aunt. “That was a difficult thing for you.”

  “To say the least,” Aisa replied.

  “Does he hate you that much, do you think?”

  “Hate me?”

  “Oh my, yes. To touch you with truth that way, he must despise you very much.”

  Aisa cast about, confused. “No … I don’t think he despises me.”

  “Then why would he do such an awful thing?” Old Aunt said. “I’m not being sarcastic, child. That’s an honest question. If he doesn’t hate you, why would he hurt you so much?”

  “I don’t know,” Aisa said shortly. Lying. Who did this old woman think she was?

  “Kalessa is here for a reason, you know,” Old Aunt said, abruptly changing the subject in the ruined kitchen.

  “Am I?” Kalessa perked up a bit. Her bandage made a neat sleeve around her upper arm.

  “You’re Aisa’s defender. I told you that in this place, illusions come to die. Aisa’s half-troll love—”

  “He’s no such thing!” Aisa protested.

  Old Aunt shrugged. “Half-human love, then. That image of him, the image that you hold, comes here to die, and it will keep coming here until it has no reason to return.”

  “I see. My sister is deceiving herself,” Kalessa said.

  “Indeed.” Old Aunt sucked her pipe, and it made a dry sound. She set it aside. “You, my little orc, have an utter lack of self-deception. Refreshing, really. Since you have no illusions to fight, you can defend Aisa from hers. Until she stops calling them here.”

  “I have no illusions about Hamzu!” Aisa said. “None!”

  Loud footsteps tromped outside. They grew louder.

  “Really? Because it sounds like none is coming closer by the moment, and your champion is wounded.”

  Kalessa got to her feet and hid a wince. “I will defend you, sister. He will not hurt you.”

  Aisa saw the pain Kalessa was trying to hide, and she cursed the fact that she knew nothing of blades and armor. The coming footsteps grew louder, each one a doom.

  “Why would he hurt you if he doesn’t hate you?” Old Aunt repeated softly.

  Aisa licked dry lips. “He wouldn’t. Not on purpose.”

  Outside, the footsteps paused.

  “Then why did he hurt you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The footsteps started again, louder. The cottage floor shook, and dishes rattled in the cupboards. Aisa wanted to curl up into a ball on the floor. Kalessa moved stiffly toward the door.

  “Speak, girl,” Old Aunt said. “He’s coming again.”

  The words spilled out of her. “He … maybe it was a mistake. He didn’t mean to do it, but he still did it, and it hurt me.”

  The footsteps paused again, just outside the open door. A shadow fell across the threshold, big and black and heavy. Kalessa tensed, her sword ready. Sweat trickled around Aisa’s hairline and ran down her cheek.

  “It hurts most when someone you love betrays you, doesn’t it?” Old Aunt said.

  The shadow leaned forward.

  “Yes,” Aisa whispered in a tiny voice. That one word pulled the secret out of her like a baby bloody from the womb and laid it on the table for all to see. She squinched her eyes closed, waiting for the inevitable blow to come—either a physical blow or a blow of painful words. But none came. She opened her eyes and saw only Old Aunt nodding at the hearth and Kalessa reaching forward to embrace her, the sword in its sheath.

  “I am glad my sister has a love,” she said into Aisa’s ear. “Everyone should be in love. Warriors fight better when they love together, and lovers love better when they war together. I hope you find Olar and Grick’s own happiness with him.”

  The tension drained away, and Aisa felt strangely light. They hadn’t judged her or said a single cruel word. She might float away, up the chimney and into the sky to Valorhame itself.

  The shadow at the door paused, then slipped away without another sound. Kalessa let out a burst of breath.

  “Well,” Old Aunt said, drawing on the hearth again. “He betrayed you, no question, and it was cruel. But he didn’t intend to do it, and you still love him. Can you forgive him?”

  Aisa blew her nose on a spare bandage. “I hope so. I think so. Is this enough?”

  “For today, yes. And now it is time for daily work. You haven’t brought me any smoke-leaf, my kitchen must be put aright, and the feather beds haven’t been touched. Work, girl! Work, work, work!”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Aisa spent days and days cleaning and cooking and sweeping and hauling. And when that daily work was done, she dragged each of a dozen heavy feather beds to the door and beat them until white feathers flew. Kalessa, meanwhile, rested her arm and sharpened metal and, once the bandages came off, helped lift what Aisa could not. Although the work was the same as the slave labor she had done for Frida and Farek, it was also nothing like it. Here, she woke up every morning in a room she could latch, she dressed in fresh clothes and scarves (though she still left her hands bare), she ate fine meals, and she enjoyed simple conversation with her sister and Old Aunt. Often, when she spoke, it was about Hamzu, of how they had met, and of his dreams, and how he had saved her life and of how she secretly hoped they could find a life together. It would be difficult—a human and a half-blood Stane, but when had life ever been easy f
or either of them?

  One day, Aisa asked Old Aunt, “Isn’t everyone at the tribe worried about us?” Strange that it had never occurred to her to think of this before. And she had forgotten all about the Iron Axe.

  “Worried?” Old Aunt poked at the fire with her stick. When Aisa looked closely at it, she saw intricate carvings on the smoke-blackened surface, and the carvings seemed to writhe. The stick fascinated her, and she wondered where Old Aunt had gotten it.

  “We’ve been here for days and days,” Aisa reminded her. “They’ll think we’ve disappeared.”

  “I wouldn’t concern myself over it, dear. You have other problems to think about.”

  Aisa, who was scrubbing a tabletop, stopped. “Like what?”

  The kitchen door slammed open. Farek stormed into the room. Aisa’s blood chilled and her bowels ran with ice.

  “I’ve found you, little slut!” He was taller than she remembered, and fatter. With every step, he grew bigger and fatter until the floor creaked beneath his bulk. Spittle drooled from his pudgy lips, and his sausage fingers reached forward, ready to press her under his body and suffocate her. Aisa’s every muscle was paralyzed with fear. Suddenly she was back in the stable, with the smell of goat shit and the sound of cows lowing around her, and Farek was shoving her down and pushing aside her clothes and grunting in her ear and filling her with cold and ice. He was trapping her again, ready to take her to the floor.

  And then Kalessa was there. She slammed into fat Farek from the side. He made an “oof” sound and went down. Kalessa went with him. They rolled across the floor, crashing into tables and overturning benches. Kalessa flailed at Farek with a fury, kicking and punching in a whirlwind fury, but Farek’s impossible bulk seemed only to absorb the blows. He laughed and pawed at Kalessa as they fought. Somehow he managed to roll on top of her, and his heavy weight pressed her down. Kalessa gasped for air. Aisa’s own breath strangled in her throat, and still she couldn’t move.