The Dragon Hammer (Wulf's Saga Book 1)

by Tony Daniel

  The steel didn’t seem like much. It was spongy looking, and still had rocky pieces in it. Grer told them that this would all come out in the heating and reheating during forging.

  “That’s what all the beating and clanging is for,” he said. “To knock out the impurities, and to find the shape of the blade.”

  It was hard to believe there was enough metal here to make a blade. The ingot was about the size of large marble, or a stone you might use for throwing in a sling. After it cooled, it would easily fit into the palm of Wulf’s hand. Grer picked the ingot up with a pair of tongs.

  The smith noticed Wulf’s and Rainer’s dubious expressions. “Plenty there to make a dagger,” he said, clapping Wulf on the shoulder. “I’ll get started tonight. Maybe two days of work, and then you boys can come for the final quench.” He winked at them. “Then it’ll either shatter into pieces or be the finest blade you’ve ever seen.”

  Wulf put out an arm to help Rainer on the walk back to his quarters. They turned for the door. There was a loud clang. They turned as Grer brought down his hammer and made a second strike on the steel ingot. The smith looked up at them and grinned. His white teeth gleamed in his sooty face.

  “Remember, two days,” he said, and went back to work.

  Why the cold hell is he so happy? Wulf thought.

  And then the truth dawned on him.

  In two days, Grer and Ulla were going to run away together.

  They want to say good-bye. To me.

  Chapter Sixteen:

  The Quench

  The next night was the first complete family meal since Rainer had gotten hurt.

  The table was made of two wide planks, at least three paces long. They had been made from a fir tree that was supposed to be over two thousand years old. It had been lugged over the Greensmoke Mountain passes in Wulf’s great-grandfather’s time. It was made into a feast table for the marriage of Wulf’s grandparents Sturm von Dunstig and Anya Blaurfleuse. Wulf had no doubt that his father meant to use it again as the main table for Ulla and Gunnar’s wedding feast.

  Family meals included the fosterlings, so Rainer, Saeunn, and Ravenelle were there. Also the castle officers who were considered gentry. Koterbaum had a place, as did Duke Otto’s chief advisor, Count Volsung, and, on a special chair with a raised seat, Master Tolas. And, of course, all royal guests were invited to join the meal each evening. This meant Prince Gunnar von Krehennest was there.

  Wulf spent the first part of the meal glancing over at Gunnar, who sat near to Ulla, and wishing he could kill the man. If Gunnar noticed Wulf’s glower, he didn’t show it. He and Duke Otto had a friendly argument over the dock tax at Krehennest.

  When Gunnar gestured with his hands, Wulf noticed the linen bandage on a right fingertip.

  From my bite, Wulf thought. I hope he gets the green rot and dies.

  But that was unlikely this many days after the wound had been made.

  The only indication of tension came when Gunnar looked down to Tolas, who sat near the bottom of table away from the duke. “I heard you will be leaving Raukenrose soon, Master Gnome,” he said. “Is that so?” He gave a small chuckle, as if amused to be speaking to a gnome at all.

  “It is, Prince Gunnar,” Tolas answered evenly. “I will depart just after the upcoming feast. I have been the dear lady Ulla’s tutor since I looked down at her and she looked up at me, and the duke has graciously asked me to remain so that I can see her pass into her womanhood.”

  Ulla blushed, but said nothing.

  “Wish you would stay on for good,” Duke Otto said through a bite of roast buffalo he held up, speared on a knife. “You’re always welcome in the castle.”

  “I’ve lost my position in the university library and on the faculty,” Tolas said. “I would be doing the castle a disservice if I remained. The castle tutor has been part of the university faculty for over two hundred years.”

  Duke Otto nodded. “True, true, and I won’t tell you gold and grays your business,” he said. “It’s a shame. A cursed shame.”

  Wulf heard a sniff next to him. Anya sat beside Wulf. She was almost in tears. Wulf reached out and took her hand. She squeezed his tightly.

  “Where will you go, Master Tolas?” Wulf’s mother asked.

  “Home to Glockendorf, m’lady,” Tolas answered. “I’ll see my family then travel for a bit. I have a friend among the Greensmoke centaurs I’d like to visit. Remarkable scholar. We write, but I haven’t seen him since we were at college together. Then perhaps to Bear Hall. The earl has a magnificent library, and he’s given me a standing invitation to visit it. He’s got a scrap of a poem called ‘The Conjuring of the Were-beasts’ that I’ve wanted to examine in person since the moment I heard of it.”

  “My old friend Earl Keiler!” shouted the duke, spewing bits of food back onto his plate and into his beard. He didn’t seem to notice, but Duchess Malwin took a napkin and wiped the particles away.

  Wulf noticed that Ravenelle tensed up when Keiler was mentioned. Ravenelle had been afraid of bear people since she was a little girl. It was so bad that it sometimes even gave her nightmares. Keiler in particular frightened her whenever he visited the castle.

  Tolas waited until the duchess had finished cleaning the duke’s beard of crumbs, then answered. “Yes, Your Excellency. I was under Earl Keiler’s command in the Little War, you know.”

  “Indeed? And him a bear man?”

  “Yes, Your Excellency. We got along quite well. I was one of his aides, as a matter of fact. A sort of secretary to the earl.”

  “Extraordinary.”

  Father used to remember Tolas from the war, Wulf thought. Earl Keiler had been the commander of the army, and the duke was constantly in his headquarters during the fighting.

  Another memory his father’s disease had wiped away.

  Ulla suddenly broke her evening of silence. She seemed on the verge of tears. “But how will you make a living after that, Master Tolas? I’m worried about you.”

  “It will be all right, m’lady. I thought I might go into the family trade.”

  “And what is that?” asked Gunnar with a chuckle. “Doll houses?”

  Tolas smiled slightly, and bowed toward the prince. “Not quite, Prince,” he replied. “Bells.”

  “As in ring-a-ting-ting? Little bells?”

  Tolas shrugged. “Little bells, big bells. Any sort you might imagine. Members of the Tolas clan are the best bell-smiths and belltower refurbishers in all of Shenandoah. It is how my siblings and most of my relatives make a living.”

  “Honest work,” said Duke Otto. “May you prosper, Master Tolas.”

  “Thank you, Your Excellency,” Tolas said, and returned to his meal.

  The duke set down his knife and looked to his left at Gunnar. “You don’t have gnomes in Krehennest, do you, Prince?”

  This was one of the moments when Duke Otto’s increasing confusion of mind showed. He knew his history. If he were in his right mind, he would never have brought the subject up with Tolas at the table.

  “No,” said Gunnar. “We got rid of them some time ago.” Gunnar made a slight head bow toward Tolas. “No offense.”

  Tolas did not reply, and he did not return the bow.

  Duke Otto picked up his knife and took another bite of the meat. He chewed a moment, then spoke. “You best have killed every last one of them, Prince,” he said. “I’d hate to have gnomes for my enemy. Nasty fighters.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Duke,” Gunnar said. The prince tried to suppress a smirk, thinking he was in on a joke with the duke, but Wulf saw that his father was serious.

  As usual, Wulf’s brother Adelbert wanted to talk about sailing and the sea with Gunnar.

  “I’ve had more news on the new headmaster at Halbinsel,” said Adelbert to Gunnar.

  Gunnar sighed. “Have you, Lord Adelbert?”

  “Yes, an expansion.”

  Adelbert had attended Halbinsel Academy, the nautical university in Krehennest.
Adelbert had been crazy for the sea since he was a child playing with toy boats. The duke and duchess had sent him to Halbinsel, and he’d graduated two years ago. Adelbert had done a lot of traveling around the Chesapeake Bay, but he had never been out in the Mesantic Ocean. Now that he was back inland, he was afraid he never would.

  “Wolfram has done lots of viking to the south,” Adelbert said. “Is it true he’s planning on adding a school for marines to Halbinsel?”

  Gunnar looked bored with the question. “I’m told he plans to make major changes, but I’m afraid I don’t know much more than that,” the prince replied. “My interest is more to the west.” He winked at Ulla.

  Wulf gritted his teeth in anger.

  “But there’s already a land-sea school at Messer’s Cape,” said Adelbert, too interested in the topic to notice Gunnar’s attitude. “Wolfram isn’t going to close it down, is he?”

  “Really, Lord Adelbert, I have no idea,” Gunnar said. “The future of Sandhaven is in cotton, tobacco, and selling slaves for the Romans. It isn’t in dangerous sea journeys.”

  “But you need ships to carry the cotton and tobacco you sell,” Adelbert said. Diplomatic of him to leave out the slave trade, Wulf thought. “And you have to have a navy to protect your ships from those Romans when they decide to take what you’ve got instead of paying for it. The raids go both ways.”

  “The combination of the interests of Sandhaven and Shenandoah will create a great land power. The sea trade is too risky to build an empire on.”

  “An empire?” said the duke, turning toward Gunnar. “What empire?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Gunnar replied with a smile. “But the tie between Ulla and myself will go a long way toward uniting our countries.”

  “That’s certainly the hope,” the duke replied. “No more strife. You’ll cut those huge port tariffs on Shenandoah goods and stop impressing our rivermen into your navy.”

  “From what I’m told, it’s hard for the press gangs to tell a man of the mark from a Sandhavener. And they all claim to be from somewhere else, of course.”

  Surprise. Not. Nobody wants to be forced into years of service on a ship that’s a thousand leagues from home, thought Wulf.

  “I disagree. The accent is pretty prominent,” Adelbert said. “Everybody at Halbinsel could tell I was a foreigner.”

  “Look, I have no opinion on the squabbles of a few sailors. I’m a landlubber and always will be,” said Gunnar. He shrugged. “I don’t even know how to swim.”

  Adelbert looked shocked. “But you’re going to be king of a seagoing nation, Prince. You really should learn how.”

  “I understand most sailors don’t know how to do it.”

  “True, but most officers do. You should learn.”

  “Yes, my father says so, too,” Gunnar replied. “One of these days. I’ve got time.”

  “I’d be happy to give you some lessons.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Maybe we can drown him, Wulf thought. If we can find a way to dump him in the Shenandoah . . .

  Being around Gunnar made him furious, but he knew he couldn’t let the feeling take over. He turned his attention to other people at the table.

  Wulf’s other brother, Otto, was in a deep talk with Count Volsung about building plans for the great West Road, a corduroy trail made from split logs. Its purpose was to connect Shenandoah with the Monongahela River and points west. The duke had started building it just before the Little War.

  After the meal there was a story. His father had called in a skald to tell the tale of Kraki’s Saga. This was the one about Kraki and his twelve warrior brothers. All of them were were-creatures. These were supposed to be the first Kaltemen to cross the Mesantic. They fought and killed many Skraelings, the elder race of men that was already in Freiland. But every time they fought, they had to turn into beasts—into bears, and wolves, and even hawks and ravens. Then, after one huge and long battle, they forgot how to turn back into people. Kraki’s was not one of Wulf’s favorite sagas. It had been written down only a hundred years before, many centuries after Kraki met his doom. Still, Wulf knew the saga pretty well. His favorite part was the bleak final few lines. He had memorized those lines years ago and now mouthed them along with the skald.

  They disappeared into the west.

  They fathered the bear and the wolf tribes.

  They roam the great mountains.

  They can suffer, but they cannot die.

  One day they will learn to be men again.

  When that day comes, they will know death

  And be glad in their hearts.

  Then it was time to settle in. Curfew would ring soon, and the fires must be banked, food stored away, and the castle secured.

  Wulf got up to go, but found an arm draped around his shoulder. It belonged to Prince Gunnar. He was wearing a linen shirt covered with a beaverskin cape, and the metal pin that attached it scraped against Wulf’s ear. Gunnar gave Wulf a quick squeeze, then let him go.

  “So, Lord Wulf, no hard feelings?”

  Wulf shook his head and looked up at the prince. “I think that one day I’ll kill you,” he said.

  Gunnar stood back and stared at Wulf in amazement for a moment, then laughed. “Very well, boy,” he said. “At least we know where we stand.” He leaned over again and spoke into Wulf’s ear in a low voice. “I’ll remember your attitude when I take your sister home with me.”

  Ravenelle stepped up beside him as the prince stalked away. “Good thinking, von Dunstig. Push him into being horrible to your sister.”

  “It’s really hard not to bash his teeth in,” Wulf said, staring after Gunnar.

  “Yeah,” Ravenelle replied. “But actually doing it—that’s the hard part.”

  “At least he didn’t sneak into my head and steal my thoughts,” Wulf said. Ravenelle scowled and punched him hard in the shoulder.

  “Sorry,” Wulf said. “I didn’t mean it. Not like that.”

  “You’re right,” Ravenelle replied. “He should pay.”

  Heat, beat. Heat, beat.

  Repeat.

  The making of the new dagger seemed to go on endlessly as Grer shaped the blade on his anvil. This was the final stage, Wulf knew. Grer had been at it for more than three night watches, a length of time that stretched from the evening before into early this morning. It could take up to half a day to shape a blade, and even longer to hone and polish it after it was quenched and ready to take an edge.

  The hammer strikes were not hard, not any longer. Grer held the dagger by its metal tang—the part of the dagger that would have a handle wrapped around it—and worked the blade one more time with small, precise taps of his hammer.

  It was looking to be a thing of beauty. Of course, it wouldn’t take on its finished form until polishing. And there was always the chance that in the quench after the final big heating, the steel would shatter. Grer used a quenching liquid made from whale oil imported from Nantuket. This oil was flammable, and when he withdrew a piece from the quenching barrel, the oil on its surface was on fire. Seeing a flaming sword or dagger was something nobody forgot. Grer usually put the flame out by thrusting the weapon into a bin of sand. Sometimes, though, he let the oil burn out on its own, especially when Wulf, Rainer, or the other boys were watching.

  “Once more into the fire and then we’re done,” Grer said. Wulf’s and Rainer’s ears were still ringing from the clang of steel on steel, and neither of them heard the creak of the shop door opening, or the jingle of the iron triangle announcing that somebody was coming in.

  Ravenelle stepped through the door and looked around to see who might be in the smith’s shop. She spotted Wulf and Rainer and nodded with a sly smile. Next through the door was Saeunn. Ulla was behind her.

  When Ulla spotted Grer, a smile spread over her face. It was a smile Wulf had thought he might never see again on his sister’s face after their horrible dinner two nights ago.

  Grer put down his ha
mmer on the anvil. The two came together and embraced.

  “They haven’t seen each other for over a week,” Ravenelle said to Wulf.

  “They haven’t?” He’d figured they’d continued sneaking out each night to meet. “But how did this get arranged, then?”

  “How did what get arranged?” Ravenelle asked.

  “The elopement, of course.”

  “What elopement are you talking about, von Dunstig?” Ravenelle said. She sounded totally innocent of any knowledge of such a thing.

  “You mean—I thought for sure they were going to go off together. I thought—” Had he just been imagining it? Was the idea that Grer and Ulla would be married a delusion he’d made up in his own mind because he hated the alternative so much?

  Ravenelle punched him in the arm. “Of course they’re running away together,” Ravenelle said. “It’s incredibly romantic.”

  Ulla and Grer kissed. Wulf felt a huge sense of relief inside.

  Ulla is going to be happy.

  Then there was a low whistle, a human whistle, nearby.

  “Well, well,” said a voice from the smith shop doorway. “What a little pack of Shenandoah weasels we have here.”

  It was Prince Gunnar. Beside him was Hlafnest von Blau. With a dark smile and a shake of his head, Gunnar entered the shop. Hlafnest followed and closed the door behind them. “Latch it,” Gunnar said to Hlafnest. “Nobody’s getting away this time.”

  “You must stop this, Gunnar,” Ulla said. “You can’t have me. You have to see that.”

  “Oh, I’ll never have you. It’s the other I’ll take now,” Gunnar said. He turned and caught Wulf in his gaze. “What’s the little one’s name? Anya?”

  Wulf felt a hot rush of anger boil up. “Leave Anya alone,” he growled. “She’s eight years old.”

  “And yet your father will offer her to me, and gratefully, after he finds out about this,” Gunnar said.

  “He’d never do that.”