Science, Eternal Life, and a Traveling Circus |1|

Chapter Eight

July 26th, 2815

Alyn woke that morning to a weight dropped on her bony chest. She cringed and coughed and pushed the dull sword off.

"I'm a mornin' person, Master Hughes. Don't you be ruinin' that for me, hear?"

Hughes shrugged apathetically and took a swig of his potion-tainted coffee. The shadows around his eyes were darker than usual. "It's six o'clock. Get up."

Alyn groaned and rubbed her ribs. A bruise was sure to develop. It mattered little, however, for her whole body was sore. The new panging neatly fell into place with what was already there. Her first endeavors in blacksmithing had exhausted her.

"Up. Now."

Alyn lugged herself to her feet. She cracked her back, she cracked her neck.

Master Hughes picked up her sword and thrust it at her. He caught her with a hand to the scruff before she could tumble over. He drove her out of the wagon and followed her out to a dusty dirt street. He stood over her.

"Aw, Master Hughes...," she complained. She pushed herself to her knees and clutched at the hilt of her sword. The leather strips felt uncomfortable, wrapped too thickly and too unevenly, but the wrappings fit her palm well enough. The sword itself weighed lead-heavy on one side, making it awkward to lift. "Why you gotta be so rough, huh?"

"Are you defective?" Hughes asked gruffly. He yanked her up by her jacket collar.

"Am I what?" Alyn stepped twice to find her balance. Hughes held her in place.

"Broken, weird... ah, disabled?" Master Hughes knew West Haven to home a great many disabled orphans. Either she was merely unfortunately clumsy, or there was something wrong with those feet. He was convinced of the latter.

"No," Alyn grumbled. "I'm not."

Alyn rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked away from the blacksmith to take in the rest of the new town. She would describe it as brown. Brown dirt streets, brown buildings, once-white canvases browned over time. Just like how the people in Addinburgh had been gray, the people of Quales were brown. There seemed to be more people here.

"What do you keep falling over for?" Hughes questioned. "Stumbling about, like a drunk?"

"Funny thing, sir, Master Hughes, sir," Alyn replied blandly. "I fall when I get shoved. You fall when you're drunk."

"Hmph."

Hughes got her stumbling forwards again, towards a large painted sign leaned against a post. Though Alyn could not read the sign, she could see what was behind it. Blacksmithing equipment spread around the open area, shaded beneath a large canvas. Steel strips, only a yard high, made do for borders. The shop was set up on the corner of a street, and the buildings on either side of it made up two walls.

Hughes released her collar inside of the open workshop. There were two men banging on metal. One had white skin that appeared brown under filth, the other had brown skin that was painted black with soot.

Master Hughes pointed Alyn towards a station with a piece of equipment that appeared as little more than a heavy, textured donut on a stand. He tossed her a bottle the size of her hand and she stumbled to catch it. "Pour that on the blade's edges to soften them. Sharpen it evenly. I'll be back in an hour."

***

The blacksmith returned a prompt fifty minutes later, carrying coils of rope that ended in iron grappling hooks around his shoulders. He dropped the two thick coils around her scrawny shoulders so that she stumbled foolishly backwards again.