“Has she forgiven you yet?”
Cameron winced at the question. “Mostly, I think. It’s hard to know what I’m being forgiven for, though. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“She feels like you kept an awful secret from her, Cam,” Thordin said as he suppressed a sigh. “Bloodlines that trace to Seamus and to Leinth? Especially when she thought that Leinth was the enemy? I wouldn’t be able to blame her for being upset.”
“And I don’t blame her for being upset,” Cameron said, turning his face aside to shield his eyes from the worst of a stinging gust of wind, “but I don’t understand why she blames me for it.”
“Who else is there for her to blame?” Thordin asked. “She can’t blame Seamus because he’s dead, she can’t really blame Leinth because she’s not here, I think she’s angry at Phelan, too, for not saying anything—”
“And you?”
Thordin snorted. “How was I to know anything? I was, for all intents and purposes, dead when your many times over great grandfather was born of their loins.” He shivered in the wind as they trudged up the hill toward the dark heat of Matt’s forge. The storms that had plagued them for three days hadn’t shown much sign of letting up, but the weather had eased enough that they could move short distances away from the main tents—up to the forge, to the makeshift smokehouse, even to the edge of the ravine in some places. Marin and Kellin had been out once or twice in the blinding snow and cutting wind to check on the wardings that they’d set; Thom had gone out to check the walls and the watchtower, though they didn’t dare post anyone in the tower with the weather the way it was.
If anyone wanted to attack us, now would be the time to do it because we’d be caught completely unaware.
Thordin grimaced. Of course, they’d have to brave this weather to get to us, which means it would be someone that’s likely got as big of a bone to pick with me as they would anyone else here.
That was the problem with being what he was—enemies both new and old had your number and the old ones had a very, very long time to nurse a grudge.
Another gust sent Cameron stumbling into him and almost toppled them both. The wind moaned like a thing alive, something hungry and mean.
“Hellfire,” Thordin breathed as he straightened, grasping Cameron by the shoulder of his jacket. “Move faster, my friend. Let’s get under cover before the next blast hits.”
“Next blast? Next blast of what?”
“Snow and ice,” Thordin said, guts twisting. It was as if he could feel something’s eyes on him—something malevolent and as hungry as the wind sounded. “Another wave of the worst part of these storms. Better to be in that damned forge with Matt than elsewhere.”
Cameron shuddered and nodded. “Right. You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” Thordin muttered, squinting toward the steel-colored sky.
Something was out there. He could feel it, and he didn’t like it one bit.
Dear Gods, Goddesses and all other levels of deification, cut these people some slack. Even the metal in a Katana that has been folded and beaten out an unimaginable number of times gets rest periods in the forge before being yanked back by the hellish hands of the blacksmith to be beaten again. This is not the forging of mankind to a new level of survival that is going on; this is a testing to destruction that will send perfectly good material to the scrap heap. Some not even fit for melting down to be recast.