Chapter 114
The forge-fire roars white. On the great anvil, the pieces of Ivar laid out in order like a puzzle: splintered stock, cracked barrel, the engraved fragment with the bear and the little hat. Malm with the long tongs. Kompis with the hammer. The crew in a ring around them.
hammer raised, swallowing hard.
at the forge-door at the edge of the summit, whistling his three-note tune softly, watching the path down the mountain.
not looking away from the fire.
The crew moves: Vigolas, Smurjan, Rougeina, Kali and Drekk run down to the first switchback with weapons up. Glöd plants himself in the big iron forge-door, hammer in hand. Mingus stays by Kompis's leg.
Malm reaches into the white fire with the tongs and lifts out Ivar's spark, a bright gold mote spitting and crackling.
Malm lays the spark on the pieces. It sinks into the cracked barrel like water into sand, and the whole heap of pieces glows.
Kompis brings the hammer down. CLANG.
the crack in the barrel closing a finger's width.
The Melters hit the first switchback with cauldrons of black oil on poles and gauntlets dripping. Vigolas lightning, Smurjan Triple Pulse, Rougeina dropping from sparks. They hold. Barely.
walking up the path through the chaos, calm, the black pistol in his hand.
CLANG.
The stock knits, wood grain flowing together.
CLANG.
tears running into his beard, hammer still rising and falling.
The Melters tip their cauldrons. A river of black oil pours down the mountain in reverse, up the path, pushed by Melters with long poles. It flows past the crew's line, too wide to stop, too slick to fight, straight toward the summit forge-door.
at the iron door, seeing the black wave coming, fifteen years old, hammer in his hands.
Glöd slams the iron forge-door shut and throws his whole body against it from the outside, on the oil's side, so the door holds and the forge behind it stays clean.
The black oil hits him and the door. It pours over him, up to his knees, his waist. He doesn't move. He keeps whistling.
inside, hearing the whistling through the iron door, not knowing. Striking.
hearing the whistling too. And understanding. His coal-eye goes dark for one beat. His hands on the tongs don't waver.
Kompis raises the hammer one more time, everything he has in his arms.
CLANG. The steel flashes: white, then gold.
On the great anvil, in a burst of gold light that throws the whole summit into day, IVAR: the old hunting rifle, reforged. The barrel is now gold-veined steel, the cracks healed into shining seams like a mended bowl. The stock is dark and whole, and the engraving along the barrel is now three pictures: the bear, the little hat, and, new, burned into the steel by the last strike, a dog. Out of the rifle, solid as a man, rises the ghost of a grey-moustached old hunter with his arms folded, furious.
And Kompis, hammer dropped, is hugging a rifle and a ghost at the same time, sobbing and laughing.
gruff, awkward, patting Kompis on the back with one huge ghostly hand.
The great iron forge-door groans. Then bursts inward. A wave of black oil slops across the threshold and stops just short of the anvil, spent.
Beyond it, on the path, the Melters are retreating down the mountain, beaten back by Vigolas and Smurjan, the oil drained away. In the doorway, on the black-slicked stone, lies a boy, fifteen, his hammer still in his hand. Not moving. Not whistling.
walking slowly to the door. Kneeling in the oil beside Glöd. One huge, soot-black hand on the boy's chest. The coal-eye dims.
padding over, lying down beside the boy who loved him, chin on Glöd's arm, whining softly.
Faint, a new splinter, a tiny warm light settling in among the hundreds. He keeps every soul he can.
The crew standing in silence around the doorway. Kompis holding Ivar. And Malm, kneeling over the apprentice, begins to hum: not a hunter's song, not a sailor's. A cheerful three-note tune.
(He doesn't stop.)