Blushing, Emlyn steps back a bit and straightens before she leads him into the smithy.
Startled, Lokrag looks up, “You’re back early. We weren’t expecting you for another tenday. What brings you here?”
Looking at the man in King’s Guard leathers standing behind her, Lokrag adds, “What kind of trouble did you get yourself into? Should I call for Master Ember?”
“I’m not in trouble,” Emlyn says, glancing at Atres and blushing again, which makes Lokrag chuckle.
“Ah, I see,” Lokrag says, eyeing Atres.
“I do need to talk to Master Ember, but not just yet,” Emlyn replies, “I wanted to see how you’re coming with the siege bows. I have some more drawings for you, and I need to go poke around our stores to see what we might already have made up.”
“What are you looking for?” Lokrag asks.
“The stoutest bows we have. Long spears with good shafts for poking holes in dragon wings.”
“Let me show you the siege bows,” Lokrag says, “We’ve got two of them working. It took a bit of tinkering to get the first one to fire, but once we did, the second one didn’t take much at all. The next three are almost ready. We’re still working on the other six that you requested. I’ve modified your design slightly to create one that will fit on a horse or a mule, providing a more portable version as you requested. That one is almost ready, too. It’s not quite as powerful as the larger ones, but it’s close.”
Lokrag leads her to an area where the two operational siege bows have been set up, and Atres watches as Emlyn begins inspecting them.
Eyeing Atres, Lokrag says, “I’m Lokrag, the Master Smith for the Temple. I don’t believe that we’ve met.”
“I am Atres,” Atres says, offering Lokrag his hand and forearm in the traditional orcish greeting, “formerly of Clan Valkis, now of the King’s Guard.”
Lokrag hesitates for a moment before accepting the greeting.
“What brings you to our Temple?” Lokrag asks.
“Nia,” Atres says, and looks over at her and smiles.
Before Lokrag can ask anything else, Nia looks up and gestures for the two men to come over.
“I don’t think I’m strong enough to do this, but if we can get another half-turn here,” Emlyn says, tapping on a couple of fittings, “and here, we can roughly double the power.”
“Let us help you,” Atres says, removing his coat. Emlyn watches as Lokrag and Atres grab one of the big forge wrenches and make the adjustment she’s suggested. Lokrag catches Emlyn watching Atres as he strains, muscles bulging to make the adjustment Emlyn’s asked for, and chuckles to himself.
“Let’s see how well that worked,” Emlyn grins.
Grabbing a bolt, she cranks the machine back to cock it, aims it at the timber target, and fires. Running around the target, Emlyn sees a good part of the bolt protruding from the back of the timber and grins widely. Atres wanders over and looks impressed.
“Do you think that will poke a hole in a dragon?” Emlyn asks.
“I think that will do,” Atres nods. Looking at Lokrag, “If you think it will take the strain, another half turn and you’ll need to build a second set of timbers to test fire it,” Emlyn says.
“We’ll see what we can do about that,” Lokrag nods, “Now, what are these new drawings you’ve got?”
Reaching into her pack, Emlyn pulls them out and unrolls them. Atres sees the swords she’s designed for him and grows thoughtful. They’re not only longer but a bit stouter than her daggers, and it appears that her claim that they’ll punch through armor would be correct.
“Your drawings are amazing,” Atres says, looking at the detail and various views she’s sketched out.
“They’re marvelous to work from,” Lokrag agrees, “She puts measurements in them and they’re exact. It saves a lot of work.”
“I’ll need four of these,” Emlyn explains before shifting those drawings aside to show the pole arms she’s got in mind. Lokrag nods, “I think we have something very similar in storage. Let’s go look.”
Lokrag leads her to a storage room full of all manner of pole arms.
“If these will do, I’ll have them packed up and ready for transport,” Lokrag says as he leads her down the racks before stopping in front of a bin full of long, heavy-shafted spears.
Atres watches curiously as Emlyn grabs a spear and starts moving through a series of steps of feints and thrusts with it. She stops after a few and nods, “These will do. Now, can we look at the bows?”
Lokrag leaves Emlyn’s test spear out to mark which bin to pack up before heading out to the hallway. A couple of storage rooms further down the hall, and Lokrag tugs another door open. Emlyn moves quickly past the racks of smaller hunting bows, looking for what she’s got in mind.
As she’s headed down the aisle, Atres grows thoughtful.
“Maybe I should take you to the King’s Guard armory and let you poke around there,” Atres muses, “Something there might spark another idea for you. I need to go talk to Argonath and Korek, anyway.”
“I’d love that,” Emlyn nods, “I always like to see what other people have designed.”
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Reaching into a rack, Emlyn pulls out a bow, strings it, and tests the draw on it before handing it to Atres, “See what you think. It’s a bit much for me, at the moment, but I think everyone else would be able to handle it.”
Taking the bow from her, Atres pulls it. “It’s stiff, but I think it would loosen up a bit with use,” Atres says.
“These will do then,” Emlyn nods, “We’ll need to get the fletchers busy making arrows and bolts. Just in case this thing turns out not to be a dragon, we’ll need to have bolts and arrows that have been dipped in silver, gold, and mithril.”
“Hmm… shifters, infernals, and elementals,” Lokrag nods, “I’ll see to it. Is there anything else?”
“Have what we’ll need for hunting a mage or necromancer on stand-by, packed up and ready to go. I don’t think we’ll need it, but it is possible. We should be fairly well prepared, aside from getting the mages to enchant things in case we have to go toe to toe with the beast in his lair,” Emlyn shrugs, “If that ends up being the case, we’ll need all the clerics we can get to keep us in the fight until we can bring him down and all the enchantments the mages can give us against his elemental breath we can get.”
“Duly noted,” Lokrag nods, “Is there anything else you might need?”
“Nothing I can think of at the moment,” Emlyn shrugs, “but there is an old proverb among my people about having preparations you never need instead of needing ones you don’t have. If I think of anything else, I’ll be sure to tell you right away.”
Leaving Lokrag with more work to oversee, Atres and Emlyn go to find Benger. Fishing in her pack, Emlyn pulls out Jessop’s message and hands it to Atres.
“Wait,” Atres says, “This is from one of Duke Arnet’s sons. Why is he writing to you?”
“I asked them to do a bit of gossip gathering for me,” Emlyn shrugs, “We’re friends. They’re out at all the balls, heiress hunting, since they’re the younger sons, so it’s the perfect opportunity for them to see what the rumors and gossip are. The lords that are involved in all this are a lot more likely to talk to them than they would be to me.”
Nodding to himself, Atres folds the letter and hands it back to her.
“It’s all rumor and conjecture,” Emlyn nods, “so I’m not relying on it, but it’s an interesting theory. I know that Robard and Jessop are both putting themselves forward to be Lord Monkford’s replacement, should Monkford be stripped of his title and lands.”
“Does that also explain how you know Abato?” Atres asks.
“Tangentially,” Emlyn nods. “He was the one who delivered this,” Emlyn frowns, waggling the letter, “and nearly ended up, face first, bleeding out in my bath water.”
“Do tell,” Atres says with a smirk. “We’d had our fight with the bandits, and I knew some of them had gotten away. When Benger and I arrived at the inn, there was a group of men present who seemed to fit the general description and appeared to be quite interested in both Benger and me. That made me extra cautious when I went to take my bath, so I shoved a chair to wedge the door shut. When I’m done with my bath, I hear the lock, so I get dressed as quietly as I can and splash the bathwater a bit to make it sound like I’m not done yet. I pull out one of my daggers, ease the chair out and fling the door open to find this jackass fumbling with the lock. I grab him and shove him into the tub. I started to hog-stick him and then go after the others, but decided to question him instead. I had him pinned in the tub with one foot and was ready to stab him with my dagger. I told him that if he so much as twitched wrong, he’d be missing bits he’d rather keep. I didn’t expect it would be that much different than the spring calves. Wisely, he decided to be cooperative and admitted to trying to sneak into my bath to deliver Jessop’s letter. Once I read it, I knew it was really from Jessop.”
“Hrmph,” Atres frowns, “It seems I’ll need to have a chat with him later.”
“Don’t bother,” Emlyn shrugs, “My threats to geld him didn’t seem to faze him much. He tried to get me to help him with his bath, even after that.”
“He what?” Atres asks.
“I told him I’d leave him my soap and my bathwater as a public service, since he already smelled better,” Emlyn explains, “And he asked if I’d mind staying to help him with his bath.”
"Oh, lass,” Atres grins, “You don’t understand what effect you have on a man, do you?”
“My threats weren’t exactly idle,” Emlyn sighs, “I did consider just hog-sticking him. I was quite prepared to do a bit of snipping. But I was also expecting a message from Jessop or Dru, so I didn’t want to kill him if he was one of the duke’s men.”
“You’re too calm about all this,” Atres says, “Will you… Will you tell me why?”
“I suppose I owe you that,” Emlyn says, “You recall when I told you that I have won unwinnable battles.”
Atres nods, so Emlyn goes on, “This is one of those things that you can’t put in a report.”
Atres nods again, agreeing. “Three of my childhood friends and I faced off against an army of almost one hundred thousand, and we won that battle,” Emlyn says, “I know that you won’t believe me, but… Rwy’n tyngu ei fod yn wir.” (I swear it is true). He sees the flash of truth and rocks back, shocked. “Once you do something like that,” Emlyn explains, “it shifts your perspective on what’s serious, what’s alarming.”
“Even that’s not what had you frozen in fear,” Atres asks softly, “is it?”
Emlyn shakes her head, “No, it’s not, but that’s a story for another day.”
“When you’re ready, lass,” Atres says soothingly, “When you’re ready to tell me, I’ll listen.”
Rounding a bend in the path, the pair approaches the barn and finds Benger lounging on a bale of hay.
“Done with Lokrag already?” Benger grins as Emlyn nods.
“There are spears and bows in storage that they won’t have to make up, so that made things go quite a bit faster. The fletchers are going to be busy for a while making arrows and bolts. Two of the siege bows are working now, and we made some tweaks to the first one, which they’ll do with all the others.”
“That’s something, at least,” Benger nods, “I’m still not a fan of this, but that makes it a little better.”
“You too,” Atres says, surprised, “I thought, since you’re both in the same cohort, that you’d be... happier about having Nia along.”
“It seems like Ember should ask her to sit on a cracker and put an olive on her head like one of those fancy snacks at the balls,” Benger grumbles, “I loathe this idea, yet I can see the sense in it, too. I can see her reasons for agreeing to go, as well. None of the rest are going to be very pleased about it either, when they hear about what this dragon is asking for as tribute.”
Atres laughs at Benger’s description of Emlyn being served up as a snack, but quickly grows serious.
Looking at Emlyn, Benger shakes a finger at Emlyn, “You’re going to catch a ton of grief from Garmer, Saris, Urlin, and Madil, plus whatever the others decide to give you, just so you know. None of them is going to like this any better than I do.”
“And I’ll give them the same answer,” Emlyn shrugs, “that I gave you. If it were asking for big blond men, would you sit back in Harito and let me go with the rest of our cohort to face this thing?”
“I need to go clean up and talk to Argonath and Korek,” Atres announces, “I’ll need to trade duty assignments with some of the others. I need to get Nia ensconced at a reputable inn. I think we all need to eat something. We can ask if they’ll let you poke around in our armory to see if anything there gives you any other ideas. There are things in there that I don’t even know what they are. Come with me, and I’ll show you both where I live. If you ever need anything and I’m not on duty, that’s usually where I am so that you can knock on the door.”
Atres leads them a few blocks over to an apartment above a cake shop. The rickety staircase leads up to a solid looking door.
Atres opens the door and grimaces, “It might be a bit of a mess, at the moment, since I packed for the recruiting trip in a hurry. I wasn’t originally going to go, but I swapped with Harcin since his wife was in labor. Let me pick some things up.”
Sweeping through his living area, Atres grabs the assorted clothing and dumps it off in a corner of his bedroom. Reaching into his closet, he grabs some clean clothes and ducks into the bath across the hall. A few minutes later, he appears freshly shaven and in clean clothes.
“Ah, that’s better,” Atres grins at Emlyn, “Now I look like I should be escorting someone so lovely.”
Do you think Emlyn will end up hunting the dragon?