Hunt of the Bandham (The Bowl of Souls: Book Three) (32 page)

“I suppose that I have been so used to healing people on my own, that I am out of practice when it comes to teamwork,” Coal said with a smile. “By all means, let’s give it a try.”

The patient, having listened to the whole conversation, was now quite nervous about being experimented on. Master Coal assured him that all would be fine and Qyxal put the man to sleep with a quick spell. The two healers worked out a plan for coordinating their magic and were bent over the patient about to start, when Justan had another idea.

“What if you . . . oh, never mind. Sorry to interrupt.”

Master Coal stopped and looked back up at him. “No, don’t worry about it. Go on.”

“Would it maybe be faster if instead of using the magnifying technique, you just had Qyxal go through with fire, killing all the parasites he could and you just followed behind him, healing whatever damage he caused to the patient as it happened?”

“In theory, perhaps,” Qyxal said. “The only difficulty is that burn damage doesn’t heal as easily as cuts or tears. We can stimulate the body to replace the dead tissue, but the newly healed tissue would be very sensitive. He would be in pain for days.”

“Oh,” Justan said, filing that knowledge away.

“Good thinking though, Edge,” Master Coal said. “If there was an emergency and you needed to work fast, that might be your best alternative. You have the ability to think around your problems. That trait will serve you well with your bonded.”

They bent back to their task. It was slow and painstaking work, but the procedure went quite well. Justan tried his best to focus, but after an hour, his mind began to wander. Master Coal noticed his distraction.

“Qyxal, let’s pause a moment,” the wizard said. “Edge, we may be at this for another hour or so and I doubt that you will learn much more by continuing to watch us. Why don’t you spend the rest of your class time studying the physiology of your bonded with your mage sight?”

“But they’re not hurt.”

“In order for you to heal them when they are injured, it is best to know what their bodies are supposed to be like when healthy,” the master said. “While you are at it, practice bringing your elemental magic through the bond with you. But, don’t try any healing yet. It is very possible to hurt your bonded if you don’t know what you’re doing. You will require a lot of practice before you are ready.

“For now, you can try some defensive magic from within them, preparational spells, nothing too fancy. That will at least give you some experience using your magic through the bond. Tomorrow I want you to bring Gwyrtha to my study with you and we will try a few things together. With her permission, of course.”

“Yes sir. Thank you. Good luck with the rest of the procedure.” Justan walked towards the door of the infirmary, but stopped before opening the door. He ran his hand over the rune on his chest and turned back. “Master Coal. What should I do about . . . this?”

Coal knew what he was referring to. “Now that you know you are bonded to it, whatever is residing in that scar is part of your responsibility as the bonding wizard. Maybe it is time you tried in earnest to communicate with it. There is a path to it somewhere within the bond. You’ll find it eventually. You just need to work at it.”

“I will. Thank you again sir, for all your help,” Justan said and walked out the door.

He went to his room in the lodge and laid down on his bed before reaching out to his bonded. Fist was helping the widow Nala fold laundry. She was repairing some pants for Master Coal’s laborers and telling him stories about her youth. Justan decided not to bother the ogre and went to Gwyrtha.

She was helping Samson pull bales of hay from one of the farms up to the stables. She didn’t mind at all if he examined her. He sent his mage sight through the bond into her body and was once again amazed by the way her every cell was imbued with traces of elements so unstable that she should by all rights simply fall apart.

He had asked Master Coal about it and had once again been told that what he wanted to know would be part of another lesson on another day. He struggled for a while trying to figure out how to bring his elemental magic through the bond with him. He was just able to do so successfully when he became distracted by the smell of food. He withdrew into his body and sat up, realizing that people were already eating dinner in the lodge below him.

He had almost forgotten about his meeting with Lenny. Justan gathered his sword drawings and headed to the forge.

Justan could hear the two of them from quite a distance away.

“It won’t work, I tell you!” the half-orc was yelling.

“Dag-blast it, Bettie! I was doin’ this fer decades before you was even born. It’ll work I say!”

Justan stopped in the doorway to the forge and waited a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dimmer light. The tall and fearsome Bettie was glaring at Lenny and shaking a fist at him with such force that it caused the muscles in her sculpted arms to flex quite impressively. Her slightly green-tinted skin gleamed in the forgelight.

“Not like that it won’t, you goblin brain you!” she shouted. “You’ll blow the damn horse up!”

“It’ll work!” Lenny stood a few feet away with his feet planted and arms crossed in firm defiance. A very uncomfortable looking Benjo stood between them holding a beautifully constructed saddle.

Justan cleared his throat and both combatants turned their glares on him. Ignoring their glares, he walked up to Benjo and examined the saddle, his presence diffusing the argument for the moment. It wasn’t hard to pretend to ignore the tension in the air. The saddle was exquisitely crafted.

“This leatherwork is fantastic,” Justan said.

“I made it, Sir Edge,” Benjo said with pride.

“Really?” Justan said. “I am truly impressed.”

Justan was impressed by a lot of what Benjo had done lately. Master Coal had told him that Benjo had confessed what really happened during his time at the Training School. Since then, Benjo acted like a completely different person. No longer carrying the burden of his guilt, the man was quick with a smile and a laugh. He had started sparring with Justan in the evenings and he was really good. It was a shame that he had been kept out of the academy because of Kenn.

“The man’s a natural with the leather, son,” Lenny added. “And he’s a durn quick worker too. All the dag-gum farmers in the area are runnin’ around with harnesses and tool belts that’d fetch a fine price at any decent shop in Dremald.”

“Thank you, sir,” Benjo said, smiling at the praise.

“Ehh! He’s okay,” Bettie said. “Maybe in a few years he could even catch up and be almost as good as me. He’s already more creative with the trim.”

“Oh I could never, Bettie.” Benjo was blushing now. “You are a master.”

“So if this is Benjo’s work, what were the two of you arguing about then?” Justan asked.

“Dwarf’s in to killing horses,” Bettie replied.

“Yeah, and the half-orc’s as ignorant as a full-orc!” Lenny snapped, then said to Justan, “I want to improve on her magic saddles by workin’ some rune metal in, but she don’t think it’ll work.”

“It won’t!” she barked.

“She makes magic saddles?

Lenny sighed. “Yeah, she’s stubborner than a mule, but son, the lady makes saddles that can sing.”

“Darn right,” she agreed.

“But how?”

“Yer Master Coal magics-up the leather fer her and she can use runes to shape the magic, kind of like I do with steel. Now, the magic ain’t as strong as with metal, but she can make a saddle that’ll make yer horse run faster or last longer, or even make yer arse warm in the winter time.”

“I can make one that’ll do all three,” she said.

“Can you make a leather coat or vest to do the same for a person?” Justan asked, thinking of the possibilities.

“Can and have,” she said and pointed to her leather apron. Justan switched to mage sight and saw that the apron glowed with a faint green hue. “This piece here helps protect me from the forges heat.”

“Not that she needs it,” Benjo said. “It’d take more than a forge to melt Bettie.”

“Darn right!” she agreed.

“Woman won’t tell me who taught her to use the runes this way, but I aim to figure it out,” Lenny murmured. The dwarf looked lost in thought “It’s got to be a dwarven technique from some other family . . .”

Bettie laughed in response to the dwarf’s confusion, and started back to work. She pulled two hot metal bars out of the forge and brought them over to an anvil, then started working the glowing metal with a familiar hammer.

“Lenny, you let her use Buster?” Justan asked in surprise. He couldn’t imagine the dwarf allowing another smith to touch his family heirloom. He must really like the woman.

“Huh?” The dwarf looked back at Bettie and shrugged. “It’s part of our deal.”

“If you don’t hold up your end, I’m keeping him!” she promised.

“No you ain’t!” He sighed. “I promised her I’d make her another one like him. Well, maybe not exactly the same, my grandpappy was the best, but somethin’ close.”

Justan looked at him, both eyebrows raised. “You can do that?”

“Yeah. I can with the new-.” The dwarf paused and excitement ripped the contemplative look from his face. “Hell, son! That’s what I called you in here for anyways! C’mere!”

Lenny ran over to the corner of the forge and opened the door to Bettie’s storage area. He dragged two enormous bulging sacks from inside. Justan recognized them as the sacks that Lenny and Qyxal had pilfered from the giant’s cave. The dwarf stood there grinning. “Well, son? You ready to see what’s inside?”

“Uh, sure!” He had almost forgotten about the dwarf’s loot. He didn’t have the time to wonder about it during the escape from Charz’s territory and his mind had been occupied with other things since waking up at Master Coal’s.

The dwarf opened the sacks and Justan leaned over to look inside. They were full of shards and chunks of metal and it took him a moment to realize that they were actually pieces of broken weapons. He cocked his head and furrowed his brow in puzzlement.

“Lenny . . . I think these might be the wrong sacks.”

“Naw. Look at ‘em with yer wizard’s eyes,” Lenny said. Justan switched to his mage sight again and his jaw dropped. The dwarf saw his expression and chuckled. “That there cave was loaded with decent loot. But these are dag-gum priceless!”

“Is this possible?” Each piece of metal shone with elemental energy. “I thought magical weapons could not be broken.”

“Nothin’s completely unbreakable, son,” Lenny explained. “’Specially when a garl-friggin’ rock giant is beatin’ a magicked wall with ‘em. Qyxal reckons the beast’d been collectin’ magic weapons from the folks it beat and was tryin’ to bust up the wall so’s it could break whatever magic’s been holdin’ it there. Buster was the only one it hadn’t broke yet.”

“But . . . what can you do with a couple bags of broken magical weapons? They can’t be reforged, can they?”

“Nope!” Bettie yelled. She was dipping the two, now flattened, metal rods into a quench bucket. Plumes of steam rose as the water hissed around the hot metal. “Dwarf’s got less brains than a cow’s left cheek, he does! Won’t listen to me!”

Lenny chuckled. “She’s right about one thing. They can’t be reforged. Once a magicked weapon’s been finished, it won’t melt down, least not without a fire hotter than hell’s blaze itself. Even if’n you could get it hot enough, it’d break the magic and they’d blow up in yer face.

“But what the lady don’t know is I got a way around that.” The dwarf held up a palm-sized leather pouch. “Just came in today. I figgered we’d be here a while so I sent a courier out the day after we got here.”

“So that’s what you’ve been so blasted happy about all day,” Bettie grumbled. She put the hammer down and walked over with her hand outstretched. “Lemme see that.”

Lenny ignored her.

“With one tiny scoop of this, I can melt even magicked metal down to its basic state and start from scratch. The best thing is, son, these weapons are pure and clean magicked steel. I’d have to refine three wagonloads of ore to get this much pure metal. Why I could make ten Busters with what’s in them two sacks.”