The Fires of Cerran

Chapter Twenty-five

Against a backdrop of pouring rain, with the evening winds howling and the skies overcast, Ser Ramon of Garth sat awkwardly on an upturned ale casket and waited for the blacksmith to be done with his blades. Watching the man work was quite soothing, but the dripping of the rain against the ground soon interrupted any peace that the man had hoped to find.
 
The furnaces roared as the heavy-set monger threw them thick cut wood to boost the flames, and for a brief moment Ramon could have sworn he had heard a belch come from deep within the wombs of the thing as the smith continued on his way. He half-turned to face Ramon, and furrowed his thick, unkempt brow as he waved the man forward.
 ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’ The man asked, he was slightly hunched, and his stance was awkward as Ramon stood beside him.
 ‘Aye, for sure.’ The Archer returned, looking down at the drawings he had brought the man.
The smith nodded, grunting as he heaved the flag into the fires ahead of him. The heat was outrageous, but Ramon did not step back, he wanted to get used to that kind of heat. He knew all too well that soon this might feel like a light summer breeze. The coals beneath the flames burned white, crackled like frying eggs, splitting to reveal golden rivers of fire dancing about the edge of the miniature crevices.
 
Hours went by, and Ramon sat beside the man as he poked at the ingot as it slowly began to break down. Soon after, with the sun beginning to set and the courtyard now shrouded in a cool dusk air, the hammering began. The ingot held strong even now and sweat poured from the smith’s arms and blackened face as he continued to pound it down. Against the dying light of the day, the last dregs of sunlight being dragged across the upper walls of the forge, and the blade was finally beginning to take shape. Crusts of hot steel began to bend and fall away as the hammer struck, each blow sending a shocking ringing through the heavy air of the place.
 
Another hour or so went by, and Ramon’s eyes still remained totally focused upon the work of the smith. He had watched blades be forged hundreds of times before, both in the West and the East, and each time it seemed both similar and totally unique. It was like watching the birth of a sentient being, a demon from the flames and the ashes, and that terrible ringing of iron on steel erupting like a hellish cry of pain and torment. The hunched-back smith turned again, dipping the blade deep into a large barrel of water and watched as the water hissed and fizzed with every movement of the blade. Pulling it up, he examined it in the light, his small dark eyes examining every inch of it until at last he was satisfied.
He turned the blade in his palm again, feeling the weight and watching the newly arrived moonlight shimmer against its surface. ‘Come, it’s done.’ He said in a triumphant, hoarse voice.
Ramon stirred and held out his hand, taking the blade he looked at it in the moonlight.
 ‘Happy?’ The hunchback asked.
 ‘Aye, very happy. You make fine weapons sir.’ Ramon replied with a smile, though his gaze never left the blade as he held it tall.
The grip had been wrapped in fine tanned leather, a request of Ramon’s after suffering his injury during the Kludde encounter, as well as the pommel being riveted to include an upper guard. Thirty-eight and a half inches of pure steel doubled edged and with a three-inch diameter. The weight was testing the man’s arm for sure and holding it in both he felt the burning in his shoulders come far quicker than any blade he had previously carried. Perhaps it was age? Perhaps he was weakening in his elder years? But a dragon would not care whether he were young or old, if he were fat or fit, if we were fast or slow. No, it would not care for anything like that, and so he resisted the burning in shoulders and let himself smile.
 ‘Most of ‘em get given a name. What ya’ thinkin’?’ Asked the smith from beside the man, already poking at his furnace again.
Ramon chucked a quick glance towards the flames. ‘Hellblaze.’ He replied, the smile still unfaded.
 
In the quiet halls of Ceraborn, Lenren wandered in a lonely walk. Twice he had walked along the same corridor, quickly swivelling on his heels as he approached the doorway to the young Paraninr girl’s room. In the dim light of the evening, as the rain pattered and dripped down the small windows and the last quiet murmurs of servants called along the hallways, he seemed oddly on edge. He turned again, facing the doorway, and sighing heavily before taking the last few steps which brought him within a few inches of the door.
 
It was the scraping sound, just as he brought his hand to knock at the wood of the door, that softly floated past him as if carried by some previously unfelt breeze. The man cocked his head, his hand already at the grip of his sword, and listened. His eyes narrowed at the distant sound and he knew too well that it came from within a room just off the side of one of the interconnecting hallways of the place. He tuned his ears further, trying to clear the sound in his mind without moving so much as an inch closer to its origin. It was wood, the sound of a blade upon wood, being driven up and down as if someone were scrawling upon a tree trunk. It was his choice now, whether to move or stay, whether to charge or retreat, though retreat would mean edging towards the room any way in order to get to the nearest stairway. Sweat began to bead on the man’s neck, dripping down his back, just as before. It was always the same feeling; every single account had recounted it as such. A feeling of sickness, of worry and terror beyond any that had been felt before.
  ‘Do not go into the room.’ Said a hushed voice from behind the man, and for a moment he could have yelped in fear as he heard the words brush past his ears.
 ‘Come, quickly.’
 And a moment later he was within the room of the girl, facing the doorway and with his sword drawn in preparation for…anything.
 ‘You’re safe now.’ Said the voice, and slowly he lowered his blade and began to blink again.
 ‘You’ve encountered it before, haven’t you?’ Melran asked, looking towards the door herself.
Looking at the girl, Lenren gave no reply, and she seemed so much different to before. She seemed kind and warm. Her voice was soft, caring.
 ‘What is this? What is happening in this place?’ He asked, though he kept his own voice hushed.
Melran turned and sat on her bed, her feet dangling awkwardly, and her position slouched. She sighed heavily and looked around the dark room.
 ‘I don’t like this place very much.’ She answered a few moments, and it seemed to Lenren that she was close to tears.
 ‘No, at the moment it’s most certainly not the nicest of places.’ He returned, sitting beside the girl. She turned and looked at him, her face was still dirty, but her hair seemed to have been brushed and washed. So strange.
 ‘I never wanted to come here. It was that bastard Lord and the Sister, they forced me here.’ Melran said, her voice cracking as she forced back the tears.
Lenren’s brows furrowed, he looked at the girl for what she was now, just a girl.
 ‘What were you doing in Sera? Why were you there?’ He asked her.
The girl turned to meet his gaze and in the darkness her tears glistened like stars as they fell down her cheeks, leaving clear trails as they muddied with dirt.
 ‘In honesty my Lord, I cannot remember. I remember a boy, Benji. He was my brother… I think.’
Lenren’s eyes narrowed further.  ‘You think?’
 ‘Yes, it’s all mixed up you see. I can’t remember what’s real and what’s not. It’s like everything is all one thing now, all merging. It’s like I can’t think straight.’
 ‘How old was Benji?’ Lenren asked curiously.
‘I can’t remember sir, older than me but not by much.’ The girl replied, coughing as she cried.
 ‘What did he look like?’ He asked.
 ‘Blonde hair… I think, maybe brown.’ Melran answered, shrugging her shoulders. Lenren sighed, scratched his beard and pondered on the sight before him. His fear had subsided, but the uneasy feeling remained deep within him.
 ‘I think it’s trying to find something.’ The girl said after a moment, her hands shaking.
 ‘In the meeting you said that there are spirits within these walls, that they are here because of the Cerran attack.’ Lenren returned quickly. The girl looked at him curiously, her gaze switching between his eyes as she sat wide mouthed and in thought.
 ‘Did I?’ She asked.
 ‘Yes.’ Replied Lenren.
 ‘I can’t remember, its all…all muddled up.’ She said, her words trailing off as she turned to face the door again.
 ‘What is it?’ Lenren asked quickly, his hand going to his blade at an instant.
 ‘It’s gone.’ The girl returned, her voice a whisper and her eyes wide with fear.
 ‘That doesn’t answer my question.’ The Archer replied.
The girl’s frantic eyes betrayed her, and for a moment he thought he saw a glimmer of something within those blood-shot eyes, a glimmer of something else.
 ‘It is a spirit, that I know for sure. But it doesn’t make sense. The voice I mean, I can’t understand it.’ Melran mumbled.
Lenren loosened his grip on the blade and looked about the room, feeling like a small child hiding from some greater threat, and he shivered in the sudden cold.
 ‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’ He returned in a worried tone.
  ‘It’s like it’s warped, like it’s not able to talk as we do.’ She answered. ‘But it’s gone now.’  
 ‘Are you certain?’
The girl nodded, and as Lenren’s hand fell away from the grip of his blade he began to wonder about that night on the stairway.
 ‘Why did it follow me?’ The archer enquired after a moment of silence. The girl’s pale eyes turned to meet his own, and she shook her head solemnly.
 ‘It wasn’t, it doesn’t follow anyone. It was looking, looking for something.’
 ‘This is dark magic, surely something such as this cannot be real.’ Lenren shot back quickly.
 ‘It is all too real sir.’
 Lenren’s hands shook as he thought back to that night, and all too vivid memories began to flood his mind. He tried to force them away, something he was familiar with, but they stayed, and they swarmed him until his eyes began to well and redden. He padded them with his sleeves, his nose sniffling as the girl placed a warm hand on his thigh and showed him a soft, gentle smile.
 ‘It asked for a girl.’ He whispered.
 ‘Me.’ Melran returned, and the man nodded the affirmative.
Lenren fought for words above his sobbing, until at last all he could muster was simply, ‘why?’.
The girl turned to face the misted windows, and the cold seemed to rise again within the room.
 ‘I do not know, but I fear this beast at Cerran is a warning of some kind.’ She replied softly.
 ‘Against Brodon?’ Lenren asked, his sobbing subsiding.
 ‘Yes, but the voices are all messed up. I cannot tell which are talking truths and which are speaking lies.’  
The archer looked down at the girl, her head now resting against his shoulder and her hand still gently on his thigh.
 ‘How many do you hear?’ He asked.
‘I lost count all long time ago. I’ve heard them since I was a child. It never scared me, not until I went to Sera.’
 ‘And why did you go there?’ Lenren probed.
 ‘I had a message…. I think… for Benji.’
‘Benji, he was your brother.’ Lenren returned, his eyes narrowing. The girl’s hand fidgeted on his thigh for a moment. ‘No.’