Bonus Short Stories
A Fourth Day with Olivia and Ashton
The Emaleid Citadel
A week before the Second Legion would march forth to lay siege to Fort Astora, Ashton and Olivia visited a certain shop together.
“I wonder if it’s ready yet?”
“Hello!” Ashton shouted, struggling to make himself heard over the cacophony that filled the room. He caught the attention of the smith Hans, who, though immersed in his work, put down his hammer all the same.
“Well, I made it just as you told me,” he said resignedly, pointing off to his right. “But don’t you think it’s a bit much—even for you?”
Following his finger, they saw a longspear in the same ebony as Olivia’s armor laying atop a gray plinth.
“Let’s have a look,” Olivia said cheerfully. As Hans looked on with intense interest, she reached for the spear, making an approving noise as she tested its wield. “It’s nice and hefty, isn’t it? This should smash through skulls, no problem.”
Ashton flinched at Olivia’s positively alarming comment, just as a great clang shook the room. He looked around and saw Hans with his mouth hanging open.
“That can’t be,” the smith said. “It took three grown men just to lift the thing...and now with one hand... Here now, miss, how do you keep such strength in those slender arms of yours?”
Spear in hand, Olivia puffed out her chest. “Your training isn’t good enough, that’s why. Anyone could lift this if they only trained properly.”
In perfect unison, Ashton and Hans both shook their heads. The idea that this was a matter of training was, to put it bluntly, laughable.
“That gave me such a shock I thought my heart’d give out, but not you, eh?” Hans turned to Ashton.
“I’m plenty surprised, as well,” he replied. “I’ve just built up a tolerance to her quirks, so it doesn’t look that way.” If he let every surprising thing Olivia did get to him, he’d never have any peace. Hans gave him a sympathetic look.
“It’s a rough hand you’ve been dealt, eh...”
Ashton let out a short laugh. “Indeed...” He then reached for his purse to settle his account. “Now, about payment—”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Huh?”
“Instead,” Hans said, “what do you say to swinging around that spear for me, miss?”
Ashton was thrown by this odd and sudden request. He looked over at Olivia, who shrugged. “I don’t mind,” She said, raising the spear. Now it was Hans’s turn to be flustered.
“Not here!”
“But there’s plenty of room to swing it here.”
“All the same, I beg you not to! There’s a courtyard out back!”
Hans led Ashton and Olivia out to the courtyard, muttering under his breath about how there’d be hell to pay if his workshop were damaged.
“Well, without further ado, let’s see what you can do,” he said.
“Got it.”
Olivia moved like a ballroom dancer, the spear whirling in her hands. Presently, Ashton turned to look at Hans and saw that inexplicably, the man was crying. Olivia seemed to notice too, for she abruptly brought the spear to a stop.
“What are you crying for?” she asked, alarmed. “Did you get hit?”
Hans hastily wiped the tears away. “You showed me something special here. I haven’t felt like that in many a year. Thank you.”
Olivia, apparently unable to follow this, shook her head.
“Are you really sure about the payment?” Ashton asked.
“I just saw something a man’s lucky to see once in a lifetime. It’d be wrong to take any payment after that.”
“Right...” Ashton could only nod equivocally. He decided it had to be explained somehow by the smith’s past as a mercenary of some renown.
“I noticed something, by the way. Nothing major,” Hans said to Olivia. He led them back inside the shop, at which point Hans gestured to the workbench. “Would you mind putting the spear back down?” Olivia dutifully listened and laid down the ebony spear, and Hans took up his hammer and set to work.
“—and there we are. See how it feels.”
Olivia obediently reached for the spear, but no sooner had she picked it up than her expression changed dramatically.
“It sits so much better in my hand!”
“Glad to hear it. I changed the balance a fraction.”
“They don’t call you a master smith for nothing, do they?” Ashton said at length. Something in how Olivia had moved must have stood out to Hans’s eyes.
Hans laughed at the earnest amazement on Ashton’s face. “Just means I never shy away from hard work. Which is to say,” he added in a significant tone, grinning, “don’t you give up either, eh?” With that, he turned to start on another task. Ashton gave a little bow; then he and Olivia left the shop.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login