The Wizard's Gambit

by Kylie Betzner

  “Wait a second,” Jared stopped him. “When you first started this story, you said you were stayin’ with some tanner and ’is family.”

  “Correct.”

  “But then you said you were raised by dwarves.”

  “Correct.”

  “And now yer tellin’ me you were brought up by a pack of mangy wolves. Is that right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “So, which is it?”

  “All of them,” Mongrel said, not sure why Jared couldn’t follow. It wasn’t a complicated story. True, his upbringing was a bit . . . unconventional, but surely there were others like Mongrel. Or were there?

  In an attempt to help Jared understand, Mongrel told him how he was abandoned in the woods as an infant, or so he assumed, considering that he was picked up by wolves. It was just as likely the wolves had killed off his entire family, but no sense worrying about that now. He talked in detail how he was nursed to childhood by his wolf mother, alongside her own pups until the dwarves found him. Then he was taken back to the North Mountain, where he spent the next six or seven years in the care of Warhammer and her three children: Battleaxe, Pickaxe, and Littlehammer—all named after their weapons of choice. Jared seemed shocked to learn that they treated Mongrel as more or less a pet than a person.2 Mongrel assured him the dwarves took good care of him, teaching him not only how to walk upright and speak but also how to hold his liquor.

  “The only thing they didn’t teach me is how to put on shoes.” Mongrel laughed. “I never did take to that. Between you and me, shoes are more fun to chew on than to wear.”

  “I’ll ’ave to take yer word for it.” Jared snorted, taking a sip from his mug. He set it down and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “So then you got booted out of the mountain and met Laura, was it?”

  “Laerilas,” Mongrel corrected him. Then he told Jared of the day they met. He had just descended the mountain and had entered the Wandering Woods when he encountered a fair being unlike any he’d ever seen. He skimmed over the part where Laerilas drew his bow and threatened to kill him, choosing instead to labor over his more flattering qualities. He described to Jared a fair creature of unsurpassable beauty and charm with long dark hair and eyes like two silver coins.

  “Would’ve been prettier with a smile,” Mongrel added.

  “There’s the problem, lad. A girl like that sounds way outta yer league.”

  “Girl, nah.” Mongrel laughed. “Laerilas is a guy.”

  Jared shook his head. “Can’t be, not the way you described ’im.”

  “He’s an elf,” said Mongrel. “They all look like girls . . . or like pretty men. I think the term is androgynous. Between you and me, they all look the same, except for minor nuances.”

  “You should have mentioned ’e was an elf earlier,” Jared groused. “Could’ve thrown pointed ears or magical powers somewhere in the description.” He smirked. “Even ’is name sounds girly.”

  “Laerilas is a masculine name,” Mongrel said as though it were matter of fact. “Only masculine names end in las.”

  “Anyway, go on.”

  “Right. So before Laerilas could turn me into a human pincushion, Galaeron stepped in and rescued me.”

  “Did ’e also look like a girl?”

  “Not so much,” said Mongrel. “He was much older than Laerilas. Of course, he’d probably be considered rather feminine by your standards. Ah, but he had a nice smile.” Mongrel smiled fondly at the memory of him. “So enamored was I by their beauty, I followed them east to their city. Plus, they promised me food.”

  “You saw the ’idden city?” Jared leaned forward. “They say no man ’as ever laid eyes on it and lived to describe it.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Mongrel nodded. “It’s really something. The entire city is hidden behind a wall of trees that only they can part using magic. There are flowers and plant life everywhere. There’s even a garden littered in the preserved bodies of albino animals, though I was told never to enter that garden. It’s for the king alone. That’s why he hires a tanner. Otherwise, they don’t hunt animals. They don’t even eat meat. Honestly, that was probably my least favorite part about living with the elves.”

  “Is that why you left?”

  “Nah.” Mongrel took a bite of meat. While he chewed, he reflected on his final days in the elven city and the events that led to his departure. The memory was still bitter, and he didn’t really want to discuss it. So he said, “We all just decided it was time for me to live among my own kind. So they handed me a bow and this jerkin lined in the remnants of the wolf fur—a gift from my host—and sent me on my way. That’s why I came here, hoping to find my own kind and a sense of belonging.”

  “Well, did you find wot you were lookin’ for?”

  “I don’t know yet,” said Mongrel, smiling. “But I’m looking forward to what this new world has in store for me.”

  * * *

  1 The satchel was also made from leather.

  2 They’d even made a bed for him out of the hide of his wolf mother.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Six months later . . .

  Mongrel, master blacksmith, pumped the bellows of his forge until sparks flew. Then he went to his anvil and hammered the iron while it was still hot and malleable. After several more rounds of heating and hammering, the thing was shaping out to be . . . a warped piece of metal. He flung it into the scrap heap along with a dozen or more other ruined projects, most of which were weapons. Hinges, horseshoes, and other such metalworks proved to be of no real challenge for Mongrel, but weapons were a whole other matter. It wasn’t that he lacked the skill to make them—on the contrary, he came into the job with five year’s experience in metalworking thanks to the dwarfs—but crafting weapons just wasn’t something he was comfortable with. Luckily for him he was just the city blacksmith, not the castle blacksmith, or he’d be out of a job. Townsfolk didn’t have much use for swords and tools of torture, thankfully, but kings, he had heard, ordered such things in large quantities.

  Most of the jobs he had lined up were for horseshoes. They didn’t take long to finish, but they didn’t make him much money either. The sword would have earned him a handsome fee had it not wasted so much iron. But it didn’t sit right, not when he didn’t know how it would be used. His own weapons—the axe and the bow—served no purpose other than decoration. They hung on the wall next to the jackalope. He admired them briefly as he stepped away from the forge, heading to the doorway for some much-needed fresh air.

  He then stopped, removed his shirt, and wiped the sweat from his brow. Behind him the forge blazed, hot and sweltering. The autumn air outside was crisp and cool. Just a hint of fresh air made it through the open doorway before it was choked out by the stink of smoke and sulfur.

  And it wasn’t even hot enough. He crossed the forge and worked the bellows a few more times for good measure then resumed work on an order of horseshoes needing filled by the end of the day. It wasn’t the standard order; no, this one came a few weeks ago from the castle itself. Why the castle blacksmith couldn’t make them, he had no idea except it was a tricky order to fill. He had three of them hanging up on the wall awaiting pick up. He only hoped he’d done them right.

  He set to work on the fourth one and hammered until his arms and shoulders were beyond sore, then he hammered some more. He didn’t recall ever feeling this worn down before, not even after a three-day shift in the mines. This was a different kind of tired, one that never went away no matter how many hours he slept, and sleep was a luxury here. Drink, on the other hand, was easy to come by and proved more relaxing than sleep. It was the only thing men made time for in Kingsbury besides work. So was the life of a human, he supposed.

  From Mongrel’s perspective, the life of a human was grossly overcomplicated. There were rules—too many to count—and taxes—too many to pay. And time. What the heck was time? Mongrel could not recall encountering it before. Wolves hunted by day or night, depending on the game. Dwarves spent their
entire lives in the dark, heedless of the moon and sun. One ate when he was hungry, slept when he was tired, and worked when he wasn’t doing either of those other things. The elves rose and retired by the light of the sun; all hours in between were fair game, and there was no rule saying one couldn’t stay up past sunset, it just wasn’t done. In no other kingdom were there such things as seconds, minutes, hours—or tardiness for that matter. They were things the humans invented as a means of torture; Mongrel was sure of it.

  And time was in even shorter supply than money. Mongrel hazarded by the color of the sky creeping in that the time was about noon. Someone would be by shortly to pick up these shoes, probably a servant or one of the castle blacksmith’s many apprentices, no one important. But someone important had ordered them, and if Mongrel remembered anything Jared the Gatekeeper had taught him, it was that you didn’t upset important people—that is, unless you wanted to lose your head.

  He only paused in his work to wipe the sweat from around his eyes; otherwise he hammered as though his life depended on it, which it did.

  A crowd gathered just outside the smithy. Townsfolk, mostly middle-aged women, were watching him through the doorway.

  This didn’t surprise him. They’d been watching him since his first day on the job. It turned out, all the townsfolk believed that silly nonsense about blacksmiths and destiny and were eagerly awaiting for Mongrel’s to be revealed. He could only image their excitement when he came out of the woods six months ago, cloaked in pelts and mystery. They swore his backstory would come into play one of these days and he’d be the greatest hero ever to emerge from the city’s dregs. Unfortunately, he had thus far failed to provide them the anticipated amount of excitement they so eagerly craved, leaving them little to discuss in social circles.

  At first it startled him the way they shadowed him, but now they were as much a part of the background as say the clouds or the lampposts. Present but noninterfering, they were afraid to interact with him in fear of manipulating some apparent plot or breaking some imaginary third wall. He pretended not to see or hear them and went about his work as if they were not there, struggling and persevering under the watchful eye of the townsfolk.

  Even now as he stood at the anvil, he pretended not to see them, though he could hear them quite well as they gabbed like a flock of hens from the sidewalk.

  “Wot’s goin’ on?” asked a young woman, coming late to the gathering. In her arms, she carried a basket of laundry, though it was probably not going to be washed anytime soon. “Did I miss anythin’?”

  “Well, it seems ’e’s ’avin’ a flashback,” the eldest of the women, whom Mongrel called Head Hen, spoke with a great deal of certainty. It was probably the only explanation she could think of as to why he was staring so hard at his work.

  “An interestin’ one?”

  “Hmm.” She narrowed her eyes. “From the looks o’ it, I’d say it’s of a serious matter concernin’ ’is troubled past.”

  “Troubled past?”

  “Oh, aye.” She nodded sagely. “Seems ‘e’s got some dark secrets.”

  “Is he revealin’ any?”

  “Well, ’e ’asn’t revealed much, but I’d say ’e’s reflectin’ on ’is time in the wilds.” Head Hen continued with rising confidence, “And I’d dare to wager by the manner o’ which ’e’s ’ammerin’ ’e’s not thinkin’ on ’appy times.”

  “Wot’s ’e thinkin’ o’ then?”

  Dinner. Mongrel laughed inwardly. And a cold bath.

  “Most likely ’is banishment from the elven kingdom,” Head Hen concluded, crossing her arms authoritatively. “It ’aunts ’im to this day. You can tell. I’d imagine ’e’s pretty tired of bouncin’ from one place to another. Prolly fears it’ll ’appen again.”

  That was only half of the truth.

  “Banished?” The youngest gasped. “Wot for?”

  “For dirty deeds, I’d imagine.”

  Now they were just being silly. But Mongrel saw no sense in correcting them. He figured one day they’d get it right, and if they didn’t, it was of no consequence.

  “Dirty deeds, you say?” The youngest considered it. “I thought ’e was an innocent wanderer.”

  “It’s uncertain at this point, but ’e’s been ’intin’ at it,” said Head Hen. As always, she had the final say on the matter. “You really need to join our sewin’ circle if you want to be caught up to speed.”

  The young woman lowered her head to hide her reddening cheeks. “It’s just me ’usband doesn’t like me watchin’ ’im so much on the account ’e works without a shirt.”

  “But lookin’ at ’im’s ’alf the fun!”

  The women broke out into laughter.

  Mongrel fumbled the hammer, nearly dropping it on his foot. He rubbed the back of his neck where it grew hot. How he wished they wouldn’t say things like that.

  “You see that! That’s a sure sign o’ guilt, that is,” squawked Head Hen, and the other women mumbled in agreement.

  Mongrel was grateful when some peddlers pushed their merchandise in front of the smithy.

  “Darn advertisements,” the women grumbled, though they all knew this was coming. Many of the salesmen had caught on to their routine and interrupted once or twice an hour to push their wares before a captive audience.

  “Wart remover.” A man held up a sample before them. “Only two half pennies if you order one now.”

  “I’ll ’ave one,” said a woman from the back of the group. She raised her hand to get the salesman’s attention.

  “That’s two half pennies plus shipping and handling,” he told her.

  “Shippin’ and ’andlin’?”

  “Right. For me to walk over there, it’s going to cost you.”

  “That’s a load of crock, that is,” the woman complained. “You call that customer service, but I call that exploitation!”

  “Shush! Someone’s comin’!” One of the women turned and silenced her complaints.

  The salesmen quickly cleared the way so the women could watch unhindered as a patron entered the smithy. He was an elderly gentleman with short gray hair, a well-trimmed beard, and the most interesting scar down the left side of his face, the type of jagged, gnarly scar that reminded others this was an adventurous and dangerous person with interesting stories to tell. The quality of his clothes and his level of hygiene told them he was a wealthy man. He was not Mongrel’s usual clientele.

  Mongrel set aside his hammer as the man stepped through the doorway, setting off the bell above the door. The ringing was a friendly greeting to the customer and a warning for Mongrel to watch where he was going with the hot poker.

  With one sweep of his forearm, Mongrel cleared his forehead of sweat and grime. He always tried to make a good first impression, which was next to impossible in a place like this.

  “Afternoon, sir,” he said, smiling. “Mongrel’s my name. How can I help you?”

  “Mongrel, eh?” The man smirked, having a look around. He admired some of Mongrel’s finished work and scoffed at others. The jackalope caught him off guard. He eyed it wearily as he crossed the forge to the anvil where Mongrel worked.

  Already, the heat of the furnace was dampening the man’s head in sweat. He didn’t seem to mind though. Mongrel could tell at a glance this was a man who, despite his fine attire, was not shy of hard work.

  “Interesting artwork,” the man said, gesturing to the mount. “Wasn’t aware you could be a member of two guilds at once.”

  “Oh, that?” Mongrel rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just a little personal effect. You know, keep the place cheery.”

  “Indeed.” He turned his one good eye on Mongrel. The effect was unnerving to say the least. “I’ve come for my order. Have you finished it?”

  “The sword?” Mongrel chewed his bottom lip. He sure hoped not.

  “No, lad, the special shoes.”

  Mongrel could have breathed a sigh of relief if only he thought they were right.

&nb
sp; “Just finished the last one,” he said, moving it from the anvil with the tongs to cool it in water. Steam hissed as the heat and coldness combined.

  Once cool, he offered it to the man for inspection.

  Outside, the townsfolk jabbered.

  “’Oo’s that? Is ’e important?”

  “Are you daft?” Head Hen squawked. “That’s Walder, the late king’s only living relative. ’E’s practically the king!”

  Hearing that brought fresh sweat to Mongrel’s brow. He had not expected the king’s own brother to come for the shoes in person. If he had, he would have kept his shirt on.

  “’Ow do you know that’s the king’s brother?” the woman pressed.

  “Well, the family crest on ’is cloak is a tip-off,” said Head Hen. “That and the scar. Got that fightin’ off a pair o’ ogres they say.”

  “I ’eard ’e was grazed by an elvish arrow.”

  “Never mind all that. Wot’s an important figure like ’im doin’ on the streets so lightly guarded?” asked one of the women. Only two men stood guard outside the door. “And wot business ’as ’e with the smith?”

  “Dunno, but it’s got to be important!”

  Mongrel stood quietly while Walder inspected the horseshoe, turning it over and over in his hands to catch even the smallest of flaws.

  “Are they to your liking, sir?” Mongrel pushed back his sweat-soaked hair with his fingers. Damp curls fell right back into place, sticking on his forehead.

  “Good tread,” said Walder approvingly. “That’ll come in handy for off-road travel.”

  “They’re solid as stone, sir,” he said. “And I made them extra wide. Should have good traction, I’d imagine.”

  “Are they durable?”

  “Yes, sir.” Mongrel nodded. “Passed every quality test.”

  “Did you run them against weapons: arrows, axes, spears?”

  “They held up against the hammer, sir,” Mongrel answered truthfully. Where was he taking this horse, he wondered.

  “And they’ll last?”

  “Good for over one thousand miles or your money back.”