Chapter 20

Elva, Issa, Bena, Syl, Uud, the Princess and her ladies had been hidden in the cellar and Ardt and Yren had carefully re-laid the tarp on the floor. The tarp was expensive; made from braided, aged leather specially treated with oils and tinctures, it was fairly resistant to fires and extreme heat. Even when it did burn, it didn’t catch fire or produce a flame but rather simply smoldered. Regardless, Ardt and Yren regularly doused it with water when working in the smithy just to be sure. Most smithies used a plain dirt or brick floor so that any sparks or stray molten pieces had nothing to burn. However, a blacksmith made extensive use of wood for the forge and even as braces for certain molds or as handles for axes, picks, hammers and other tools. Any wood was a danger in a smithy and unforeseen fires were a hazard of the trade. While Ardt’s floor was mostly brick, there was a large wood component directly over most of the forge’s storage cellar. Besides, since the house was just off the smithy, Ardt had a vested interest in eliminating or containing all fires.

Once the tarp was relaid and the anvil placed next to the trap door, they sprinkled dirt and metal shavings liberally over the tarp so that it blended in as much as possible with the others. With any luck, no one would even think to look for a cellar below.

Once satisfied they’d concealed the cellar as much as they could, they took their positions. Yren went to the shop proper while Ardt remained in the forge area. Both men were restless.

Yren had an agile mind and simply sitting or standing, waiting to see if someone would come to attack was not in him. Within twenty minutes, the boy had grown bored and edgy. He took some time going around the shop, looking at the different crafted items on display – but he’d made or helped with most of them and the rest just weren’t very interesting. Fine examples of the craft – obviously only the best work was displayed – but the making of them was far more interesting than looking at them after they were made. He let his eyes wander around the shop searching for something – anything – with which to amuse himself in the coming hours but he’d spent most of his life in and around the building. Nothing was new to him so it didn’t really hold his interest. He was sighing in boredom when his eyes fell on the front door. As he took in the wooden beam across the door, he started chewing the inside of his cheek absently.

If an attack came, it was likely to come through the door. There were several entrances, of course, since the house was attached but it was only natural to use the door to the shop to enter the smithy. Besides, the Reds couldn’t know there was a door from the smithy to the housing unit. They might suspect but there was no way they could know for certain. No, the likeliest way to get into the blacksmith shop, if they decided to enter, was through the front door of the shop.

Ardt had barred both the house and smithy doors with long pieces of thick oak but lack of time had resulted in a haphazard job at best; it would be relatively easy to smash the doors in. Yren glanced back at the forge area and frowned. As was customary, the side and most of the back of the forge area was open; the forge generated tremendous heat and in a closed space the heat would become oppressive, if not deadly, very quickly. The anvil and forge, therefore, were open air to the side and most of the back of the structure. It had never been a problem before but now it was a definite liability.

He turned back to the front. Habit, though, if nothing else, should make people come through the front door – or so Yren hoped. It was why he volunteered to be stationed at the front door; while he didn’t consider himself a warrior – and certainly not a knight! – he had more training than his adopted father. It would be better if they came through him first.

His attention back on the door, he absently played with the locking mechanism. He gave a tentative pull to the beams nailed to the door housing and frowned when they gave slightly. Frowning deeper, he locked the door with a satisfying click. Neither barrier was strong enough to withstand a dedicated person trying to enter. Neither would stop a determined intruder. For whatever reason, the Red Guard were definitely determined.

He considered further barricading the door but, really, nothing would physically stop the Reds. Besides, he needed to try thinking like the Red Guard would – Sir Givens taught him to take a critical look at both plans and defenses from the eye of the opposing force. So, if he were the intruder and he came across a barricaded door, it would arouse his curiosity, if nothing else. He could only assume the Red Guard would follow a similar logic.

He considered the door carefully, running his hands up and down the joins where the door and the doorway met. He considered strengthening the locking mechanism – but there wasn’t time to light the forge and make anything metal; there wasn’t any way he could think of to strengthen the lock with wood. The next four ideas – from pounding wooden shims between the door and doorway to nailing the door shut suffered from other problems.

No. He had a better idea. He removed the two long, wooden braces from their slot in front of the door. Setting them aside, he picked up more spare wood from around the shop, even going so far as to gather some from the forge area. Ardt looked at him curiously, recognizing the intensely thoughtful look on his adopted son’s face.

“What are you up to?” He asked.

Yren looked almost startled, as if he’d forgotten Ardt was there. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I had an idea about the front door. I don’t think it’s going to hold. The beams might have given the Reds a few seconds of difficulty, but it won’t stop them.”

“And you have a way to stop them?” Ardt frowned.

“Not all of them,” Yren admitted. “But maybe the first one or two. I’m going to set a trap on the door.”

“What if we need to get out in a hurry?” Ardt inquired.

Yren’s face drew close in thought, his lips pursed. “I can undo it fairly quickly.”

Ardt shrugged as Yren continued into the shop proper. He was concerned but he agreed with Yren’s assessment; the front door wouldn’t hold. Putting the beams over the doors was only meant to give them advanced warning when the Reds tried to enter. If Yren had a better idea, what was the harm in letting him try it?

Coal was the primary heat source for the forge but wood was used to start it and was essential for the hearth; food cooked with coal tended to taste gritty while food cooked over a wood fire tended to get some light, enjoyable flavor from the wood itself. Yren took what wood he could find and bound it using strips of cloth from old clothing and rags he found in the shop’s rag bin. He quickly worked the wood into a six-feet long by two-foot wide grid, tying the corner with the strips of rag. Once he was certain of its sturdiness, he took six-inch-long metal spikes and carefully drove them down, rotating them carefully through the wood so as not to split it. When they’d been driven in down to their heads, he further tied them in place.

Ardt continued to watch his adopted son work but kept his questions unasked. He could see his son’s attention was focused on his trap and didn’t want to interrupt his thoughts. He’d seen his son similarly when he was working out a new technique on the forge; it was best not to disturb him. His innovations usually resulted in better products. He had to trust him this time, as well.

With Ardt looking on curiously, Yren took two metal hinges and used a file on them, quickly modifying them to swing free through three hundred and sixty degrees. He then attached them to the top frame of the door and attached the grid to the other side of the hinges. Finally, he attached a small ring into the unhinged end of the grid and then placed a small eyed hook into the ceiling. The grid swung up and attached to the hook and Yren weighted the corners of the grid opposite the hinges with some heavy fifty-pound plates from the scale they used to weigh metals. He then tied a small, thin string to the hook and thread it through a loop he drove into the floor before attaching it tautly to the door. When the door opened fully, it would pull the hook from the loop, bringing the grid swinging down onto whomever was unlucky enough to have opened the door. Since the ceiling was a full two feet higher than the upper doorframe, the grid also hung at an upward angle, completely out of sight of the window in the door. Although the string attached to the hook was thin, it could be seen – but was very likely to be over-looked unless someone was specifically searching for it.

After amusing himself with his trap, Yren set himself a few steps back from the windows – close enough he could monitor the road just by moving back and forth but far enough away he wouldn’t be readily seen from the road. If a friend came down the road, he could quickly and easily disarm the trap.

He fell back to boredom quite quickly – but there was literally nothing more for him to do. Finally, sighing at the tediousness, he leaned himself against one of the display tables.

The explosion startled them. Ardt quickly hefted his hammer and ran out the open wall of the forge area. There was a six-foot-wide alley between the smithy and general store next door and Ardt took the alley to the street. Yren, meanwhile, started to undo his trap; it didn’t open as quickly as he’d hoped since he needed to untie the string and his big fingers were having issues. Finally giving up, he reached up to hold the gate and unhook the eyehook instead.

The smithy was to the south of the town hall with the shop front opening to the east. Since they’d seen no one since awakening that morning, the Guard must have chosen to approach from another direction. The angle of the blacksmith shop meant neither Ardt nor Yren had a good angle to see the Town Hall from within the building.

Ardt, seeing Yren fiddling with the door, knocked on the window. It was almost Yren’s undoing. The sound startled the young man and he jumped, accidentally releasing the hook. Only his quick reflexes allowed him to grab the edge of the spiked trap before it came swinging down on him.

“What was that?” Yren asked as he strode through the door. Neither of the two men could see anything different about the town save for a dissipating cloud of dust surrounding the hall. There didn’t appear to be any damage to the hall itself; at least, not that they could see. They fully realized there were three walls out of their sight and that it was far too dark yet to get a good look.

“I don’t know,” Ardt replied. He turned to his son. “We should get back, we don’t want to be seen.

Ardt made his way back to the forge and a voice from below called up to him. “What news?”

“I expect it’s begun,” Ardt said gravely. “I couldn’t actually make out anything but there’s a cloud of dust surrounding the town hall.”

Yren, frowning, looked over at Ardt from inside the shop. Ardt could see the look of worry on his adopted son’s face and nodded in recognition. Teran was there.

“She’ll be okay, son,” Ardt called, nodding to the young man. He walked over to Yren and placed a companionable hand on his shoulder.

“I feel so helpless!” Yren spat. “I know it’s not appropriate, but I honestly wish they’d come here. I’ll take the danger if it keeps all of you safe.” His face fell. “If I thought it had any kind of chance of keeping them from anyone else, I’d run down there and attack them directly.”

“It won’t, Yren,” Ardt spoke softly. “It would just be throwing your life away. You just have to trust Teran knows what she’s doing.”

“I have no doubt of it,” Yren swallowed. “I just – I can’t help – I can’t help her.”

“No,” Ardt agreed. “You can’t.” He nodded towards the store. “You can honor her, though, by making sure you keep the rest of our family safe.”

Yren nodded and went back to the storefront. His boredom was gone, replaced with worry about the woman he loved.

It was not long after the explosion when Yren’s sharp eyes made out movement coming down a small alleyway across the street from the smithy. None of the town buildings were set to share common walls, something he’d commented on once when delivering some barrel rings to Goodman Clerin and his wife. Clerin had explained it was a fire safety issue; if buildings shared a wall, a fire to one building would quickly spread to the other. Instead, each building in the town was separated by anywhere from a few inches to a few feet. This made quite a network of alleys and breezeways around the town.

And now, there was movement coming from somewhere he didn’t expect.

He watched a moment and saw at least two people sneaking down the street. They crept in the shadows keeping as much cover between them and the Town Hall as they could. He couldn’t tell where they were going but as he slowly slid his two blades from their sheath, the metal spoke softly in his mind. They were coming to the smithy; they were coming to him.

He moved quickly to the back doorway, his mind settling into readiness. “They come,” he hissed to Ardt. “At least two.”

Ardt nodded and took a firmer grip on his hammer; the hammer wasn’t one of Yren’s – it was plain and functional, missing all of the artistry Yren used when plying his craft. It wasn’t one of his own craftings, either; he wasn’t sure where Sir Givens had acquired it. Still, it was a good weapon made all of steel in a single, long piece. Ardt notched the heavy war-hammer on his shoulder.

Watching for but a moment, Yren nodded once back to the man and moved further into the shop, standing still against the inner wall. He let the points of his swords dip to the ground, striving to pull the shadows around him; striving to look as much as he possibly could like a showpiece of the shop. He never noticed the slight shimmer, like heat rising off metal, which slowly surrounded him. He never noticed the sun’s light, slowly burning through the reds, yellows and oranges of a new dawn, become ever-so-slightly darker as it reached him. He never noticed the slight chill which overtook him.

Ardt saw, though. One moment Yren was standing against the wall and the next he’d slowly faded from sight. Ardt blinked and took his right hand off the massive hammer to run it over his eyes. He looked and still couldn’t see his son.

Magic. It had to be magic. He could feel his blood freeze. The two Yren had seen approaching the shop, were they magi? Had they so easily dispatched his son? He could feel the rage rising through him even as his heart fell into his stomach. Yren couldn’t be gone; he just couldn’t.

Shifting the hammer on his shoulder, Ardt started towards the front of the shop. He couldn’t bring his son back – but he’d make the two that took the young man pay dearly. He paused at the back door; he’d wait for them to come through – then he’d kill them. Painfully.