RE: Monarch
Chapter 21. Crossroads IV

Kholis had a refreshingly cozy atmosphere. It was the sort of place where everyone seemed to know each other, and news dispersed instantly. Vendors in the mercantile district jeered across the street at competitors good-naturedly, and the smell of baked goods and sizzling meat had my stomach rumbling. Because of its size, we’d been branded the rescuers of the Duke’s son almost instantly and given something of a hero’s welcome: a truly inordinate amount of food was thrust in our direction and Cephur and I had received enough collective hey-there slaps on the back to herniate a disk.

Maya constantly turned as she walked through the town, trying to take in all the sights, pausing at every vendor and inspecting every stall.

She leaned over to whisper to me. "They are just giving things away."

"So you’ll come back and buy more."

Maya put a hand to her mask where her mouth would be. "Oh. They do not realize we are leaving tomorrow."

"What they don’t know can’t hurt them," I winked at her. An older woman held out a gnarled hand to me as we passed. I received the proffered item automatically and looked down, shocked at my good luck. In the palm of my hand was a candied apricot, garnished with a salted pecan. I looked back for the woman, but she had already disappeared into the crowd.

I bit it and almost choked on the perfection. It was the perfect blend of sugar and honey, with just a touch of thyme.

"Elphion take me, that’s good."

"What is it?" Maya asked.

"Ever had candied fruit before?"

"I do not think so."

"Allow me to introduce you to the height of human engineering and achievement." I handed her the other half.

"This?" Maya said doubtfully, holding it up to her mask and inspecting it.

"Trust me." I grinned.

Maya lifted the bottom edge of her mask with one bandaged hand, careful not to show her face, and nibbled the edge of the fruit. She reeled back. "Sweet." She nibbled a little more. "Very sweet." Then she ate the whole thing, salted pecan and all. There was a temporary pause. "My mouth is confused."

"That’s how you know it’s good."

"You have strange tastes."

"Hey, any taste is an acquired taste if you try hard enough."

"If you live by these words, I fear for your stomach."

We bantered for a while. To be honest, it was a relief to talk to her normally again. She hadn’t exactly given me the cold shoulder, but she had been quiet and withdrawn. I’d been afraid that would be permanent. Eventually, we came across a blacksmith, who also happened to be the only blacksmith in town. Cephur pulled the door open. A small bell jingled from within.

"Come on kids, let’s pick out some toys."

I looked around, lost. Embarrassing as it is to admit, every sword I’d carried up to that point put aesthetics over function. Not to an insane degree—I’d never do something as stupid as wielding a gold-dipped sword or a blade that had holes drilled so gems could be socketed—but my pommels had all been gaudy, elegant things, more hip ornaments than true weapons, my blades coated with oils that made them shine brighter.

I didn’t even know what type of blade I preferred. My current sword was somewhere between a saber and a rapier. In my late teens I switched to a rapier, then to a curved sword when those came into vogue about two years before my coronation.

The blacksmith’s selection was unsurprisingly limited: as the only smith in town, I had no doubt that the majority of his work went to outfitting the guardsmen.

"Do you have anything with ascended steel?" I asked mindlessly, running my hand over the various pommels.

"Nope," he answered. The man took a long draw from his pipe and let the breath out slowly. "Just iron and regular steel around these parts."

"You don’t want ascended steel anyway," Cephur pulled a small blade from a barrel, hefted it between his hands, then replaced it, moving on to another. "Any benefit gained in lightness and strength is outweighed by visibility.

"Your friend has a point there, boy." The blacksmith said. I looked at him funny for a moment, then looked away. He might be the only man in Kholis who didn’t know who I was.

Cephur scowled, picking up several small swords and putting them back almost immediately. "Blacksmith, we need somethin’ combat ready. Not a little sword that’s meant to train with other children using other little swords.

"Sounds like you’ve got yourself a problem, then," the blacksmith said. But his eyes slid towards a dust covered barrel closest to the backroom. I approached it, and the man stood to his feet. "Nothing in there you’d be interested in-"

But I had already popped off the lid. Inside were a cluster of short blades. They were smaller than most short swords. In the hands of my father, they would have looked more like a dagger than a sword. I slid one out of the sheath, and stared, perplexed. It was not an attractive weapon. The blade’s metal had a dark base. It almost looked like iron, other than the oily green hue. Its double-edged blade was uniformly thick until it reached the tip, where it quickly tapered into a point. It had a rounded, decorative cross-guard. The spherical pommel came to a tetrahedron pointed end.

I remembered with great clarity the use Alten had put his pommel to—battering an attacker’s head with it when they pushed too close. It was such a small modification, but in practice, could be incredibly useful.

Cephur let out a low whistle. "Lowhil." He looked over at the blacksmith who was now leaning against his counter, visibly sweating. "You been doing some side work for dwarves, old man? Arming the enemy?"

"Of course not!" The blacksmith snapped, then leaned back, eyebrows pulled together so tightly it gave his forehead half a dozen vertical wrinkles. "Elphion take me, this is why I didn’t put them on display."

"It’s dwarven?" I asked Cephur, confused as to why that would matter. Cephur took the blade from me and weighed it, then took a few measured swings. "Not… exactly. I’ve held a few dwarven lowhil blades. Battle trophies. The weight on this is a bit off, but it’s mighty close. Lowhil’s a great metal. It ain’t pretty so it’s not so popular in human weaponry. You see it in a lot of daggers, though." He seemed to be considering something.

"It’s actually better," The blacksmith jumped in, his tone oddly elevated, "the dwarves are too fascinated with engraving. They think it lends the blades' strength, the simpletons. Too much engraving is what throws off the weight of the blade."

Cephur didn’t look convinced. "By a fraction of a percentile, maybe. Well, why do you have these, old man?"

The blacksmith looked down. "It’s a hobby."

"The swords made from lowhil, almost exactly to dwarven specs, are a hobby?" Cephur asked, in what I was beginning to recognize as his interrogation voice.

"Yes."

"And it’s just these swords. These specifically. You don’t happen to have, say, any elven swords lying around in the back?"

"No." The man’s head actually swung from side to side. "As if I’d be fool enough to work with ochite. My forge doesn’t get nearly hot enough and I’d much rather keep my arms and legs attached."

"But you’d be foolish enough to work with another type of metal. Say, pixie steel."

The blacksmith snorted. "Pixie steel is a myth." A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead into his beard. "They use xescalt, same as the infernals."

Maya had approached, a small dagger held gingerly in her hands. "That is not common knowledge." She said to Cephur. "I do not know what the pixies use, but xescalt is not talked about outside the enclave."

The man was visibly sweating now.

"Alrighty then," Cephur took a few steps to the side towards the back room. "I’m just gonna take a quick look."

"I’m not helping the blasted demis!" The blacksmith finally broke. "I just… appreciate their craftsmanship. My boys work in the mines. They sell me the unmarketable ore at a steep discount. I’m not helping them. I swear it to the elder gods."

"Now that," Cephur broke into a wide grin, "I believe. And with that sentiment I also concur. Tell you what, old man, this being a small town we’ll keep your secret. But let’s see that private stock."

As Maya and I followed him into the back room, I found myself reevaluating the Cephur. He had a gift for pressing people. Making them feel uncomfortable and pressuring them into revealing things they wouldn’t have dreamed of disclosing otherwise, all while maintaining perfect politeness. Come to think of it, maybe it was because he was so exceedingly polite he could push so hard. It might be something worth emulating in the future. I tucked it away for later consideration.

The blacksmith’s forge area held many regular swords I assumed were reserved for the guard’s armories, but on the walls there were quite a few weapons I recognized as classic Demi-human armaments. The man seemed to specifically have a thing for dwarven weaponry, with nearly a half-dozen assorted axes and hammers. He looked nervous. It occurred to me that this was likely the first time he had ever shown off this aspect of his work. Maya went to one side, Cephur the other.

Cephur plucked a small lowhil dagger off the wall, grinning. "Exactly what I was hoping to replace."

I stepped beside him. "Sidearm?"

"Not just that," Cephur said, indicating a diagonal slot near the cross-guard. "This here’s a bonafide dwarven sword breaker."

"Really more of a sword catcher." the blacksmith said. "The sword actually breaking is something of a misnomer."

"Tell that to my last saber," Cephur said ruefully, "It got misnomered to itty bitty pieces."

The blacksmith sniffed. "That speaks more to its craftsmanship than the sword breaker."

I took the dagger from Cephur, hefting it in my hand. It was surprisingly weighty, thicker than most daggers would be. Its design was immediately apparent. It wasn’t the sort of thing you’d actively parry with; that would get you killed. Rather, if a sword was trapped against the ground or your enemy was off-balance, you could effectively grab their sword and create an opening.

The memory of my battle with Barion came back to me—specifically the moment he ran me through with his rapier. I’d done something similar with my own body. I was lucky Maya was there, of course, but if the weapon Barion used was anything other than edgeless, I may not have even made it back to the cellar for her to heal me. A shudder went through me at the thought, looking at the dagger in my hands. Yes. This was a much better alternative.

"I like it." I decided. "The sword too. What do you think?" I asked Cephur.

"I think they’re both practical. They won’t draw attention—most people will mistake them for iron at a distance, and you get a sword that’s only slightly weaker than ascended steel. Plus, I want one of those sword breakers," Cephur emphasized the word stubbornly, "for myself. We should both get one. One, they’re awesome. Two, you’ve been needing a good backup weapon for a while now."

I thought about the number of times up to this point my sword had been knocked away from me. He was right about that.

"We’ll take them." But the blacksmith was no longer beside us. He had moved over to Maya, who held a black staff.

"I’ve never seen so much xescalt used in a weapon before," Maya said in awe, holding the wooden staff gingerly. It was smaller than the crude staff we had made her, only about three feet long. On closer inspection, it wasn’t just wood. There were long segments of reflective dark metal in the bow. The closest analogue I could think to compare it to was a blackened bronze.

"Aye. My pride and joy, that one was. The infernal swords are notoriously difficult to get right," the blacksmith mused, "It was too much to justify making a mold for one. So, I made this instead. It’s not so different from military staves, only instead of a core of steel, I used xescalt. And that’s not even the best part." He took the staff from her, held it in the middle, and twisted. It came apart, forming two smaller batons.

"Amazing. Heretical, but amazing. The sort of weapon my family would never be able to afford." Maya said. Her statement seemed to confuse the blacksmith. "Well, yes. Xescalt is notoriously expensive and many would not pay much for a weapon that would be associated with demi-humans. Not sure about heretical though." He peered at her then, considering her mask, her bandaged arms.

"We’ll take it." I said quickly. "That and the dwarven sword and two of the sword catchers."

The blacksmith blinked. "I can’t sell these things, young master. They’re more art than weapons. And what would people say?"

"Cairn, no," Maya hissed.

"I beg to differ," Cephur said, "they’re fine weapons, blacksmith. Though I’m not sure I can justify paying what you’ll probably be asking for a sidearm." Cephur said, flipping the sword-breaker between his hands experimentally.

"Well, I can," I insisted. The blacksmith’s face looked pained. But you can never underestimate the effectiveness of greed. I held up my purse slowly and clinked it, the sound of the heavy rods within it shifting together. He looked at all of us and sighed.

With a bit of haggling and a promise to leave him unnamed, we left the smith one golden rod lighter. It was not an insignificant price to be sure, but the weapons clearly meant something to the man, and my mother had instilled in me early to never underpay for art.

There was a lightness to my step. Acquiring new items was always something of a palliative for me. No matter the situation or monetary value of the item in question, striking a bargain and leaving with something new always elevated my mood. Maya, however, lagged behind us for the rest of the afternoon, silent and unsociable. A part of me sagged at that. I had thought she was warming back up to me, finally, but that was apparently temporary.

It took a few more hours. We made sure the horses were being properly cared for and prepped to leave. My wardrobe was finally refreshed, and the clothes were serviceable. A step up from Barion’s robes, though significantly less glamorous than my usual attire. I bought a dark cloak not unlike Cephur’s.

The best purchase by far, however, were a pair of boots from a cobbler. I slipped them on, and my eyes nearly rolled back into my head.

Padding. They had padding.

Whoever the monster was that decided nobles should only wear delicate, thin-soled shoes deserved to be taken outside and bludgeoned with a giant stick. I laced the boots, then stood and rocked back and forth in them experimentally. A small moan escaped my lips. It was like standing on clouds. I would never take them off. Never.

Since I was clearly making the cobbler uncomfortable, I paid the man, and we headed back to the duke’s mansion. The shopping had taken longer than expected. I unloaded my new purchases on the floor and splayed out on the bed, delighting in the luxury of the mattress.

There was a knock at my door.

I opened it to replace Maya. She stood there awkwardly with the staff held loosely in one hand, her tail wrapped around her wrist. Her jaw was set.

"We need to talk," she said.