Chapter 46 - “The power”

I awoke alone which surprised me into sitting bolt upright. I scanned around my empty tent and reached out to Glimpse but he was currently devouring every scrap of meat he could find that had been dropped or cast aside at the party last night. I sent him a warning not to get fat but all I got in reply was a mental raspberry.

I shrugged the furs off me and looked around for my new red tunic just as the flap swept aside and Fayala entered the tent wearing it herself. It was an uncanny sight. Like a girlfriend back on Earth wearing one of my t-shirts the morning after.

“Raymond,” she said with a smile as she rushed into my arms, slender legs flashing as she crossed the short distance, and kissed me. She stepped back and pulled the tunic over her head before tumbling me back into the pile of furs.

After an extremely pleasant rematch we lay tangled in our bed, her arms and legs wound around me, and she snorted as she lifted her head from my shoulder. I was wondering if they had tobacco in this world as now would be a good time. Mattresses also went up a notch on my list of tech for the nomads.

“You owe me a few things, Ray,” she whispered in my ear. What tradition had I missed this time? I would be having serious words with Kril about his “throw him in at the deep end and see if he can swim” attitude towards my education in the local norms.

“You want to know about my world?” I asked tentatively, remembering our first conversation.

“Of course! Now you’ve no excuse for keeping such things secret from me! I’m in the right moon-phase and I’m sure Aresk will bless us with a son. No more secrets from the mother of your children!” She kissed my nose and laid her head back down on my shoulder.

“Moon-phase?” I repeated dumbfounded. Family planning apparently involved a fuck-her-and-see approach on Urth.

“Yes. I do want to know about your world but you promised me magic. I appreciate the shake-the-bed-furs kind of magic-” she let out a throaty laugh, “-but I was promised real magic.”

“That wasn’t real enough for you?” She giggled in reply. “I’ve saved some Souls for you from the cull. I remember what I promised.” As our naked bodies were pressed against each other I could simply will the transfer to happen and she would receive the Souls. Another two thousand vanished leaving me with about the same left in reserve. Her body went rigid for a moment then melted back against me.

“What does Focus do?” she asked quietly.

“You can read?” I gasped, raising myself up on an elbow to stare down into her hazel eyes.

“Of course. Most of the noble women are passably competent in Crathan. It’s just the men that refuse to learn. 'It’s effeminate'.” I cursed Kril once again. I’d had a large group of literate people available to me for fucking months and he hadn’t mentioned it.

“What are your starting stats? Don’t pick an affinity just yet! You’ve got enough Souls to unlock three of them and boost your spells a bit if you spend the Souls wisely but they won’t go as far as you’d want! Trust me, I know how frustrating it is!” I babbled excitedly.

“I can do basic arithmetic,” she replied with a laugh. I’d been wishing for a calculator every time I stopped to spend Souls but I wasn’t about to argue as her legs tightened around my own.

Fay ended up picking Ice, Life and Space as her affinities.

“You have to spend enough stat points to go past ten in the physical stats!” I insisted repeatedly. I didn’t want her to be as fragile as a run of the mill mortal. It took some persuasion but she eventually agreed and raised her Strength and Reflexes to twelve, as well as bumping her Health Points to a hundred and twenty. The rest she poured into Mana and Magical Strength after pushing focus to ten.

Body: E Mind: D- Souls F

I could see the status floating over her head in faint red letters and the knowledge she was considerably stronger than even the fittest man filled me with a sense of comfort. If, as she was determined was already the case, she was carrying my child… I needed her safe. Especially as I would have to go away shortly to try and recruit Sulk the smith to our cause.

A throat was cleared outside my tent flap. Apparently the tribe had some sense of announcing themselves but only if a couple was within the tent in question.

“Go see who it is. Come back before you leave for the Jagarnyn?” she whispered as she snuggled deeper into the furs, not coincidentally sliding her breasts down my side. I grunted and kissed her then extricated myself from the entangling limbs that seemed to work to trap me in bed. I threw on my new linen clothes and stepped into the sunlight outside.

“Good job, Mond!” Jandak grinned. He pointed at where the white dress Fayala had worn last night and that she’d spread on our bed, now marked with red in places, was draped over one of my guy ropes. So that was what she’d been doing outside when I woke up… Jandak smirked as I blushed.

“What’s the problem?” I demanded gruffly, unamused by his amusement.

“Klip wants a word before we leave for Jagarnit. He’s been bleating to see you since he woke up. Be grateful we put him off this long. Saying no to a smith isn’t natural for us,” Jandak replied as he slung an arm over my shoulder and led me over to the prisoners. The sounds and smells of the camp washed over me. Despite the celebration last night the bustle and efficiency had already resumed.

“So how was she? Ripe fruit I’ll bet!” he chuckled.

“I’ll ask Kos how I should answer that question,” I replied and he jerked his arm away.

“That’s just cold. His strength stat is higher than mine! As soon as they become king they all turn into pricks!” He laughed to take away the sting of his words and I couldn’t help but join in as we stumbled into the area set aside for my “prisoners”.

“You! What the fuck was that metal!” rang out, cutting through the noise of the barebones smithy and the other work going on around us. A brief silence descended. “Did I tell you to stop hammering you bloody layabouts!” Klip spun and snarled at his apprentices who had frozen as their master harangued the new king. The smell of the forge and molten metal filled the air here, giving it an acrid tang that kept most of the tribe away.

“It’s called adjuntium. It isn’t common.” I was getting good at understating things. “I might be able to get you some ingots but I’m not sure you could work them. I mean no disrespect,” I added as his face darkened, “It’s just that I don’t even know what ore they come from.”

Klip strode forward and held up a small lump of orange metal.

“It sliced through this effortlessly! This is fucking good bronze! Forge Master Badenyk couldn’t make a better alloy!” He threw the end of the dagger I’d cut off yesterday at me but Jandak’s hand blurred out to snatch it from the air. Jandak glowered at the smith while he tossed the gleaming piece of metal up and down in one hand.

“Apologies. I forget myself sometimes. You must get me some of that metal!” Klip insisted.

“It isn’t cheap,” I hedged.

“I’ll serve your filthy nomads for the rest of my days for a hide-ingot of the stuff!” Klip snapped.

“What the hell is a hide-ingot?” I asked in confusion.

“About yay thick and about yay square, with curving edges like a hide stretched out to dry.” He had pinched a finger and thumb to perhaps an inch wide then spread his hands about a metre apart to give me the dimension. If that was the same as the ingots I could buy in the ever-cursed Shop… It was the same shape as the images attached to the option for the ingots in the Shop. Maybe it wasn’t such a rip off? That was a lot of arrowheads from one purchase.

I bought two ingots of bronze from the Shop on instinct and spent the mana to retrieve my acquisitions from my dimensional pocket. Two lumps of metre square bronze appeared as if by magic in my hands. For three hundred Souls and factoring the value of bronze to my tribesmen… that wasn’t such an awful price as I’d first thought.

“Well that’s not so bad after all,” I muttered and Klip snatched one of them from me and laid it down. He began tapping and scratching at it with a wedge of bronze that appeared in his hand without me catching where it came from.

“This is the finest bronze I’ve ever… How much of this can you provide?” His voice was full of command and Jandak stepped forward slightly. “My king,” he added hurriedly. I couldn’t quite see Jandak's face but I assumed the glare had been enough to remind the arrogant crafter of where the real power lay.

It suddenly struck me that I was indeed “the power” now. At least in this place and among these people. Warriors raised a fist in salute at me as they passed and the women nodded their heads. Bowing and scraping was alien to my savage and independent-minded people but those small shows of deference that I’d largely ignored this morning were more significant than I’d realised.

“It isn’t cheap and you cannot buy it with salt or trade goods. When we get to the northlands you’ll understand about the iron,” I replied.

“I know about fucking iron… lord. The grey metal that turns red. It’s more brittle than this bronze!” Klip answered.

“Pure iron is brittle but it has two major advantages over bronze: You don’t need to find tin and copper to make it useful and by mixing in a little carbon you get steel and steel, my friend, is the kind of thing that will make Velkit love you.” For a moment there was a sensation of a hammer striking an anvil all around me, similar but different to Aresk’s aura. Oh great. More bloody god-friends.

“I hear you, Forge-Maker!” Klip called to the sky. “You aren’t a lying savage, are you?” He didn't give me a chance to speak before he continued. “I’ll journey north with you, lord. What do you want me to do with this metal?” he asked, pointing to the ingot resting against his legs and the one I still held casually in one hand.

“I’m not really from around here,” I answered his first question before continuing. “Same as I asked for before: stirrups. We’ll use iron for arrowheads, spear and knives when the time comes. I want all my riders to have saddles and stirrups by the time I return from the Jagarnyn. Can you do it?” I asked. He nodded furiously.

“I’ll need to train some more apprentices. Perhaps some of your nomads might be worthy… I’ll look at any who wish to offer themselves to Veltik. You’ll be away for how long?” He belatedly realised he’d forgotten to ask the determinative question. I glanced at Jandak and raised an eyebrow.

“Perhaps a week and a half,” he said with a toothy smile. “Assuming the negotiations go smoothly.”

“That’s too little time…” Klip muttered unhappily.

“We won’t move the main camp north until the hides from the cull are cured. I’m told it will be three weeks or so. Is that long enough?” I asked, cutting the suddenly cooperative smith a little slack.

“Yes lord! And to help with your negotiations… King Mond, please swear on your honour to return this to me?” he asked as he tugged at a leather cord around his neck and produced an exquisitely cut rectangle of bronze.

“What is it?” I asked as he passed it to me. I turned it over and couldn’t make out what the markings were meant to represent but it must have taken a lot of work from whoever cut the dense, angular lines into the metal.

“The mark of my profession, damn fool… uh, lord. This is my Journeyman's token. Any smith north of Settal will recognise the marks showing I’m a student of Master Badenyk. A prodigy of a student, if I might say so! Master Badenyk always spoke highly of me. If this Sulk is truly a smith he’ll understand when he sees it.” I tucked the trinket into one of my belt pouches and patted it happily.

“Thank you Klip. I’ll leave you to your work. Here,” I passed him the other ingot and he sagged under the weight as he tried to take it with just one hand. “Consider these ingots a retainer?” He nodded and dragged them towards his forge, barking orders at his minions as he pulled them along behind him.

“Well that was surprisingly easy. The old bastard has been throwing his weight around all morning,” muttered Jandak as we walked away.

“The tribe won’t argue with a smith?” I asked.

“Mostly. Smiths are always a bit mad and bickering with them isn’t worth the trouble but they’re also useful and it doesn’t do to slit your ponies throat while you're riding it.”

“A lovely turn of phrase,” I muttered. “Anything else or can I go back to my wife?” I asked.

“You need to go back to pack, not plant another spear! Kril’s already organising a warband to head to Jagarnit! You’ve got until noon,” Jandak replied and I cursed.

“Packing won’t take long. Who’s coming with us?” I was really starting to appreciate the dimensional pocket spell.

“The Fangs and Kril plus twenty horse archers and ten chariots. With spare mounts and whatnot. We’re planning to travel fast. The main delay to getting back to your warm bed is going to be winning over Sulk,” Jandak said with a smile.

He left me outside my yurt as he set off whistling to make his own arrangements with Haylin. I took a deep breath and stepped into the gloom within.

“Fayala,” I began as I took a step towards her. She was wearing a long dress of bright red felt and while I regretted that she had gotten dressed she still took my breath away. A disc of ice a metre and a half in diameter appeared in front of me, halting me in place.

“Raymond?” she said in an acid tone as she arched a prefect eyebrow at me, peering over her magic shield.

“Fay?” I tried experimentally. Her face dissolved into a broad smile and the shield vanished as she moved over and pulled me into an embrace.

“Better, husband. In public, I’m Fayala and you are King Mond. Under the felt we are just Ray and Fay,” she whispered into my ear.

“I like the sound of that,” I pulled back and gave her an uncertain look.

“How long will you be away, love?” she asked. A shiver ran down my spine as she used that word.

“A week, maybe two?” I replied expecting an outburst.

“Hmm. Not long enough to know for sure.” She kissed me lightly. “You’ll be travelling light. Take a good tunic to impress the Jagarnyn, but otherwise just take food and weapons.” She pulled out a set of clothes similar to the formal wear I’d worn last night from one of my chests.

“They’re a fractious tribe but Sulk is married to Kayla, She’s a niece of the Hetip patriarch and a distant cousin of mine. She had dreams of being a proper brood mare but Sulk has no weight to his spear, if you take my meaning. She’s a little bitter but has made the best of it. Tell her we’re wed and give her this note, it might help. Win her over and Sulk will do whatever she tells him to. Hurry back to me?” She finished with a slight quaver in her voice as she passed me a bundle of clothes.