Forged in Fire (3 page)

Katie was such a trooper. She changed the diapers, cleaned the babies, and even took the diapers out into the clearing so they wouldn’t stink up the joint.

I woke up late that first night when the little ones were squalling. Before I could as much as roll over, Katie had her guitar out and was singing a lullaby to the little monsters. Soon enough they went back to sleep. Or, I suppose they had, because her singing put me right out. The next thing I knew it was morning.

As the fourth day dawned, cold and clear, we packed up. The swelling in my leg had gone down quite a bit, mainly due to packing it with snow.

I hobbled out into the clear morning. It was surprisingly cold after the coziness of the cave. I hated that we’d left the troll mother to the coyotes and wolves, but when I got to the clearing, I saw that Katie had spent an amazing amount of time covering the body in stones. The cairn was easily nine by four and at least three feet tall. She’d twisted a wreath of holly and pine and placed it on top of the mound. God I loved that woman.

I turned, catching her watching me, a sheepish look on her face. “I knew you were upset,” she said. “What else could I do?”

I didn’t say anything, just limped over to her and hugged her. I never wanted to let her go again, but the babies needed attention.

Katie made a sled from the big Black Briar shield she found, rigged it with long straps, and settled the babies in it, covering them in sheepskin. We filled our water bottles from the rain barrel, filled Katie’s pack with extra diapers and cooked mutton, and then headed back down the mountain toward Black Briar.

They weren’t expecting us.

We hadn’t told them where we were going. I hadn’t felt the need to explain to Jimmy and the crew how I was working for Nidhogg off and on. Katie wasn’t too happy about it overall, but she was tolerant. She understood the obligation I felt for the whole Qindra debacle. She loved me enough to see how important it was for me to pay my debts.

Jimmy got twisted around the axle anytime something about Nidhogg or Qindra came up. So we just avoided the conversation.

I was conflicted. Jimmy and Katie lost their parents when Katie was just a kid. They’d been mixed up in all this dragons and giants stuff, magic and swords. Jimmy considered himself on the side of good and right. Dragons were on the side of darkness and pain.

Just as no two people are exactly the same, I felt that maybe, just maybe, dragons weren’t all the same either. Now, I’m not stupid. I was under no illusions that they were fluffy bunnies or anything. And I had the scars to prove otherwise. It’s just that Jimmy took his role as clan leader pretty damn seriously. “What wasn’t fer us was aginna us” type of thing.

He had a good heart. He just kept his anger in a tight little ball and nursed it along with his courage and his goodness. A good guy to have in your corner. Not someone you wanted to go up against.

So I didn’t want to mess with it.

We’d trailed the troll for the better part of a day before catching her in that clearing. It had been slow, grueling travel. Even so, I didn’t realize just how far up into the national forest we’d gone. It took a surprisingly long time to get off the mountain and back to Black Briar territory. Travel was getting difficult as the sun went down and the temperature dropped.

Trisha and her squad were on patrol today. Keeping an eye on the wild country that backed up to Black Briar proper. Mostly mountains in the north and east—federal lands. But you never knew who or what was going to come down out of those mountains. Jimmy had an arrangement with the local rangers. Black Briar didn’t hunt or fight on their land (as far as they knew), and we helped out with search and rescue, as well as keeping the local kids from heading into that stretch of the national forest and partying. It was a symbiotic relationship.

They must’ve heard us coming. Trisha stood a little ways away from her squad, out in the open enough to not scare the hell out of hikers or rangers. The rest of the crew was in a defensive position with crossbows, pikes, and hunting rifles. Ever since the battle, where we learned just how badly magic screwed with complex things like electricity and gunpowder, Black Briar made sure to have backups. Enough rifle fire could take down a giant, but only if the gun would actually fire. That’s what the pikes and crossbows were for.

Katie called out to them and they responded with a shout. Soon, we had Trisha and her squad swarming us, offering help.

There was a lot of chatter and surprise over the troll babies. Trisha thought they were as cute as could be. Nancy didn’t have much to say, and Benny and Gary just looked confused. All of them had been in that battle, knew the truth of the world. Still, troll babies were not something you saw every day.

We rested with them for a bit and then got the babies cleaned up, fed, and back on the sled once more. They escorted us toward the big house, where Jimmy and Deidre lived.

I was flagging fast.

Jimmy was Katie’s older brother and the seneschal, or leader, of Black Briar. Deidre was Jimmy’s wife, a retired software designer who’d struck it rich in the late nineties. Together they’d raised Katie after Katie and Jimmy’s parents disappeared on a trip to Iceland.

Publicly, Black Briar was a mercenary house in the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group of people whom the world thought played war games fueled by overactive imaginations. Even in that crowd, very few people knew about the dragons, giants, and assorted mythological creatures that haunted our world. Up until a very short time ago, I’d been blissfully unaware, and it boggled my mind to find out just how much this group knew.

When we got back to the farm, things switched into high gear. Trisha insisted that they get us all the way up into the big house, where Deidre took over. She set the base crew to getting us unpacked and cleaned up.

After I’d had a long, hot shower, Deidre redressed my wound. Katie had done a good job, but I’d be needing some antibiotics.

Katie called Melanie—our doctor friend and Katie’s old lover—who sent a script up to the pharmacy in town. She said she’d swing by our place after her shift to check in on me. I was beginning to like that girl, in spite of her and Katie’s past.

Nathan’s crew went out on patrol, and Trisha’s group hung back at the house, anxious to hear our story. The great room had a large couch and enough chairs to hold most of us. Katie and I gladly took the couch, so I could keep my leg elevated. Trisha’s crew stayed in the kitchen, drinking coffee, but Trisha sat in a chair next to Deidre. The troll babies lay on a blanket on the floor.

Jimmy made a production of adding logs to the embers in the big fireplace, deliberately not looking at the babies. Once everyone was settled, we told the full story of going out on Nidhogg’s orders, tracking the troll, killing her, and then finding the babies.

“Nidhogg’s orders?” Jimmy asked, his face purple with anger. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“Paying a debt,” I said. “I’d expect you to understand that. Qindra is trapped in the house out in Chumstick, keeping the nasties locked inside that dome with her. I owe her, Jim. You know about obligation.”

“You should’ve talked to me first,” he said, his anger barely in check. “How dare you?”

“This is why we didn’t tell you,” Katie said, her own anger rising to the fore. They were definitely related. “You keep things from me all the time. Have done for years. I’m a grown-up, Jim. I don’t need your permission.”

He looked at Deidre, who kept an impassive face. This was not a new topic.

“Damn shame about that troll mother,” Deidre said, shaking her head. “She was just protecting her babies.”

Smooth subject change.

“Screw ’em,” Jimmy barked. “Trolls are bad news. Better dead than haunting our backyard.”

Katie got up, walked over, and picked Frick up off the ground. He was mewling and fussing. He had a clean diaper and wouldn’t need feeding for a while yet, so I figured he was reacting to all the anger in the room. She set Frick down in Trisha’s lap, then grabbed Frack and gave him to Deidre.

“Nature beats nurture,” Jimmy spat, but Deidre wasn’t hearing any of it.

“We will NOT kill these babies,” she said to many head nods. “There’s been enough killing here.”

“That was not our fault,” Jimmy growled.

Katie got up and paced across to the fireplace. I hadn’t moved, letting the family bicker. “When the farm was attacked, things changed here, Jim,” I said, breaking into the flow. “We can’t be like them.”

“You should’ve thought about that before you killed their mother,” he said.

Katie whirled. “We know, Jim. Believe me. You know what she said to us, as she was bleeding her heart blood out onto the packed snow? She begged Sarah for mercy. Not for herself, but for her babies.”

Jimmy looked down at the floor. Deidre held Frack tighter against her chest and blinked back tears.

“Let me take them,” Trisha said quietly. “Please?”

Jimmy looked up at her and Katie turned, dropping to her knees at Trisha’s feet. “Are you sure, Trisha?”

“I’ve got nobody,” Trisha started, her voice cracking. “Since Bob and Chloe died.” She took a deep breath, the tears streaming down her face. “Chloe was my best friend … and Bob.” She sighed. “Bob and I had gone out a couple of times, ya know? We’d talked about kids, if we’d be good parents. Now I’ve got nobody.”

Jimmy turned away, a sour look on his face.

“We’ll take ’em out in the barracks,” Trisha said. “Me and my squad can look after ’em. It takes a village and all that.” She looked around, hopeful.

“Seems reasonable,” Deidre said, looking over at Jimmy. “What do you think, Jim?”

“What happens when they get big? You took more than a few down, Sarah. How big do they get?”

I glanced at the babies. “Pretty big. Would be nice to have that kind of power on our side the next time we get in a tussle.”

Jimmy barked out a laugh. “You think they’d be on our side?”

“I’d say they could make a choice when they’re older,” Deidre said. “But we should give them a chance to make that decision.”

Most of the heads in the room nodded. Gary seemed hesitant. He was waiting for Jimmy to make up his mind. Nancy was with Trisha, though, as was Benny.

“They killed our friends,” he argued.

“Not these babies,” Trisha said. “No more than all us poor humans are responsible when one of our own goes off and starts a war. We can teach ’em. Show them how to be good, decent.”

“Your mother would not allow these babies to be killed,” Deidre said, her voice as low and menacing as I’ve ever heard it.

“What happens when they go out on patrol?” Jimmy asked, throwing his hands into the air.

Deidre looked up at him. The battle was won, I could see it in her face. “I can babysit them, and the others will chip in, especially if
you
ask.”

Jimmy harrumphed and crossed his arms, building a wall between him and the rest of the room.

“I take that as a yes,” Katie said, smiling.

“Awesome,” Trisha said, standing and handing Frick back to Katie. “We’ll need all kinds of supplies. Diapers, wipes, food. Oh, god. What do they eat?”

Katie laughed. “Slow down, Trisha. They eat meat, raw is preferable, apparently. We didn’t try any fruits or vegetables, since we didn’t have any with us.”

“And they like to be sung to,” I piped up. “Especially when they’re going to sleep.”

Katie smiled at me and I let the warmth flood through me. I loved the connection we had, the looks and knowing glances. She was something special.

Three

W
hile everyone said their good-byes,
I
hobbled into the kitchen and took out my cell phone. All the stuff about the babies and their mother begging me for mercy had me missing my own mother. I punched in the house number, well aware that Da may be home, but I had to take the chance. It rang a few times, then went to the machine. I clicked the phone off before it got to the beep.

“One of these days, someone is going to answer,” Katie said from the doorway. “Then what are you going to do?”

I slid the phone in my pocket and shrugged. She walked over, wrapped her arms around me, and pulled me tight to her. “Might be easier to reach out to them than to carry around all this guilt.”

“Probably,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. “But not something I’ll deal with today.”

My parents would freak if they could see me now. Not the haircut, or the way I dressed. Not even the fact that I was a blacksmith. They would totally and utterly come unglued if they knew about Katie. Knew what I was.

I took a deep breath, smelling her, letting my heart settle a bit.

I didn’t fit into their cookie-cutter world of a wrathful god and his intolerant flock.

Katie smiled at me, knowing full well how I was feeling. “We’re almost done here,” she said, stepping back.

“Good. I’m wiped out.”

She kissed me quickly and dashed back into the living room. Trisha and Deidre were in full-on baby mode, and Jimmy was grumping down the hall, muttering under his breath.

“Be good, Jim,” I called to him.