Chapter 716: Midwife Steel

Ferra’s hammer rusted to powder in the middle of her swing, flaking off the haft in orange sheets. The head crumbled into red dust that ran down her gauntlet like spilled flour onto the ground below.

"Surface smiths always bring such short-lived toys," Dame Elowyn Thrace said, lifting a blade that looked sharper than the air.

The forge-arena sat beneath the Cradle Palace, a ring of dead furnaces around a floor of black glass. Any weapon carried across it began dying, while the whole court watched from galleries with their raised cups.

In the third round of the Blades Courtesy, the household sent Ferra down to face the court’s smith-knight.

"Short-lived, is it?" Ferra snapped, flexing fingers still gritty with her own ruined tool.

’The floor eats iron faster than I can shape it, so I out-work the curse or I lose.’

Elowyn flowed forward in one fluid step, her Un-Forge Edge drawing a pale arc through the drifting dust. Ferra’s shoulder plate softened wherever the arc passed, spilling down her arm in a rattle of grey pebbles.

[Arena law]

[Metal returns to ore]

[Shaped faster than it dies, or lost]

"Ore-Thirst drinks whatever you made, little smith," Elowyn purred, "leaving only what you borrowed."

In the gallery, Juna leaned over the rail with her tail lashing, her fangs bared at the knight. Loccy gripped the rail beside her, very slowly bending the carved bone a little under her white-knuckled fingers.

"Hit her, Ferra, hit her until she apologizes!"

"She loses a sleeve for every ten breaths, I’m betting she loses the other one," Rumi said, hanging off the rail by her elbows.

"You would bet on your own funeral," Nari muttered, hiding her eyes behind both hands.

"Ferra will win," she said firmly, "she is angry in the correct direction."

Ferra barked out a rough laugh that startled the nearest gallery quiet, then pivoted hard on her heel. She slammed both gauntlets into the closest furnace, ramming her hands through coals dead for a thousand years.

Loccy leaned dangerously far over the rail, "Ferra, your hands are in the—"

"They’re supposed to be in there!"

The dead embers woke around her wrists in a crackle of bright orange light, hissing like startled cats. She hauled a molten fistful of the furnace’s belly into the open, pounding it round as it fell.

"Answering Metal!" she shouted, as a hundred blades burst from the black glass in a ring.

The knight’s edge swept through them, turning half the ring back into ore with a sharp hiss. The surviving blades stabbed inward in a ringing storm, buying Ferra a beat to catch her hammer.

"You rebuilt it mid-swing," Elowyn admitted, circling with narrowed eyes, "clever, but a clever cheat is still a cheat."

"It’s called being a smith, lady, you should try it sometime."

Down front, Hajin sat on a bench with his shirt off, a tray of skewers across his knees. He raised a skewer, beaming wide like a boy at a fair while grease ran down his wrist.

"Stop staring at me while I hit something," Ferra barked, her ears burning red.

"I’m supporting you, it’s called morale," he called back, taking a huge bite.

[ashley(mod): He is eating snacks at a duel. This man has no fear.]

[DarkBlade: Shirtless snacks, Ferra’s blush is a full forge fire.]

Elowyn used the distraction to strike low, the Un-Forge Edge sweeping toward Ferra’s knees in a silver line. The new hammerhead went soft in its wake, sagging toward slag as thin smoke curled off the haft.

"Your gauntlet is melting, Ferra, get out of—" Hajin shouted, half off his bench.

"Sit down and eat your food, I know exactly what I’m doing!"

’Too slow again. Shape it quicker than it can rot.’

She dropped the haft entirely, swinging her bare gauntlet in a three-strike combo against the knight’s blade. The first blow flattened the steel, the second folded it, then the third set a bright edge.

"Hammer, fold, quench," Ferra counted through her grin, "now it’s mine to teach."

The sword rang in Elowyn’s grip like a struck bell as she stared down at it, visibly stunned. It looked wider at the shoulder now, with a deeper groove running down the center of the blade.

"You... improved my sword," the knight whispered, turning it toward the torchlight.

"I taught your steel a better shape, it’d do the same on its own if you ever asked."

The Ore-Thirst could not devour any steel that learned to resist it, however hard it tried today. Elowyn’s blade held against the floor’s hunger, so for the first time that day she stepped backward.

"Then let us see what your lesson costs you," Elowyn said, her voice gone low and cold.

Elowyn stamped her heel against the glass, flaring a pale glow outward from her boot in rings. Every scrap of iron in the arena shrieked, sagged, shedding rust across the galleries like red snow.

"The floor has never lost a single lesson, Dame Ferra, not in three thousand years."

"Then it’s about time somebody corrected it... with a hammer," Ferra growled, grinning through the red dust.

Ferra pressed both gauntlets flat against the glass, feeling its hunger gnaw at her knuckles like a thousand small mouths. She hammered the floor itself, pouring heat down through her wrists until the hungry black surface blistered into an anvil.

"Nobody hits the court’s own floor, you reckless girl, it is older than my family," Elowyn gasped.

’Older than her family, yet it still bleeds like any other metal.’

"Midwife Hammer," Ferra said, hauling a fresh head dripping out of the furnace mouth, "now sit down."

The strike landed flat across the knight’s guard, driving her to one knee on the glass.

"Yield, Dame Elowyn, or I’ll teach the rest of your armor some manners too," Ferra panted, leaning her weight on the haft.

"I yield, I will keep this blade for the rest of my life," the knight said.

Silence stretched across the galleries until somebody near the back began to clap, slow and awed. The sound spread along the rows, with even the nobles in coffin-shaped boxes pounding their rails.

[ashley(mod): Ferra just taught a sword how to be better. I am emotional.]

[CringeSlayer91: She out-smithed the curse live, somebody give her a medal.]

"Tomorrow is the Grandmaster," Elowyn added, bowing her head stiffly, "and he is not like us."

"Neither am I, lady."

"That is exactly what worries me, Dame Ferra."

Later, in the cooling dusk under the stands, Ferra sat on a crate scraping soot from her knuckles. Hajin dropped down beside her with both hands hidden behind his back, wearing an enormous, deeply guilty grin.

"Don’t laugh, all right?" he said, then held out a small bent thing on his palm.

It was a small hairpin hammered from scrap, twisted around a lopsided bead of green glass. One tine ran longer than the other, with a fingerprint pressed deep into the soft base.

"You made this," she muttered, turning it over, "badly."

"With my own hands, for the best smith I know."

Ferra took his hand without asking, turning it over in the dusk to find the thumbs wrapped in grubby cloth. Three of his fingertips were blistered pink, shiny with salve that somebody else clearly forced him to put on tonight.

"Every spare hour since the river, Ferra, the first two pins turned into spoons," he admitted, scratching his neck.

"You are the worst, the absolute worst," she whispered, her voice going small.

’The balance is a crime, the temper is wrong, the bead cracks in a month—I’m never taking it out.’

"I hate it," she growled, shoving it into her hair with a trembling hand.

"You’re wearing it."

"Shut up, you’re the worst smith I’ve ever kissed," she said, grabbing his collar to prove it.