It had been three months since the raiders had come. Three months since they swept down from their hidden camp in the foothills and slaughtered every living thing on Tefrin Farm.
Well, almost every living thing.
The girl had hidden beneath the lid of the barn’s rain barrel, the spring drought that had proven such a blight on the land finally making itself useful. Unfortunately, there had not been enough rain barrels for her father. Or her mother. Or her brothers.
The blacksmith, Ahron, had found her clutching the hand of her slain mother the next afternoon as he drove his little mule cart up the dirt road that led to the farm. In the bed of the cart was the plowshare that the girl’s father has commissioned for a harvest that now would never come.
But that had been three months ago…
Now, the girl burst into the smithey, tears of anger and embarrassment streaming down her gaunt cheeks. The dusty wind that had blown constantly through the village all summer had knotted her hair into a wild tangle of dark curls that reminded Ahron of a limp tumbleweed.
Slamming the door shut behind her, the girl sank to the floor, her back to the stout oak planks. She had, on her face, an expression of acute discontent. Seeing this, Ahron set down the steel rod he had just begun to heat in the furnace and untied his long braided beard from the leather thong that kept it up and away from the fire. Briefly, he rinsed his hands in the large copper bowl next to the forge and walked over to the crying girl before taking a seat on the stone floor in front of her.
“He said no?” the dwarf asked gently.
The girl, struggling to suck in air between furious sobs, nodded sharply. Just once.
“They all laughed,” she said when she got her breathing under control, flushing again at the memory.
Ahron sighed and gathered the girl up in a great hug that smelled of sweat and sulfur before gently guiding her to a chair near the anvil. Then, he walked back to the furnace and filled the kettle that sat atop the great stone mantle, placing it atop the scorching coals and boiling the water almost instantly. Mixing it with tea in a somewhat battered pewter cup, he began to walk to the girl. As he did, he hesitated for just a second before turning back and adding a generous spoonful of honey to the cup. Returning to the now silent girl, he placed the steaming cup into her hands.
“Drink it, lass. It’ll take away the shame’s sting as surely as it takes away a mouthful of ash.”
The girl nodded and sipped at the tea, her eyes cast down as the smith returned to heating his iron bar. This was the third time the girl had come to the forge in tears. The third time she had been refused.
The first was barely two weeks after Ahron had found her sitting among the dead. Two weeks after he had taken pity on her and brought her back to the forge. She had marched up the hill and into the manor house that had been built on the ruins of the old abbey overlooking the town. Sir Varec’s butler had told Ahron, over a pint, that she had asked, no… demanded that the old knight give her a sword and enough instruction on its use to “hunt down those murderous bastards”.
The kindly old knight had, as gently as possible, told the girl that he sympathized with her but he was far too old to lift a sword these days, and far too weak to instruct anyone in the art of battle.
The second time the girl was refused was when she ambushed Orvin as he led his horse through the town’s gate, a great elk tied to the sled that trailed the mount. The butcher had told Ahron, as he made sausages, that the girl had followed the hunter into the butcher’s yard and begged him to teach her how to kill a man with a bow.
“I do not kill men,” Orvin had responded. “And I do not have the time nor the will to take on an apprentice this season. Grain is in short supply and I cannot have you spooking the prey. We will need meat if we are to survive the winter.”
With that, the hunter had untied the elk and led his horse back into the forest beyond the western farms.
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