Westhaven by Rowan Erlking (best sci fi novels of all time TXT) 📕

You should have been her an hour ago. Those clouds should have been sign enough to come home.” His father the blacksmith was already banging away on a sword near the hearth. The coals looked hot and the steel glowed. 

“Sorry, Dad. I’m here now.” Kemdin took off his wet hat and hung it on the peg next to his leather apron. “Do you want me to pour the arrowheads today?”

His father nodded. “Yes. And don’t forget the gloves. The iron’s really hot today.”

Pulling on his apron, Kemdin grabbed the hide gloves, slipping the enormous hand covers over his child hands. It was awkward, but his father always said it was best he got used to the gloves until he could handle being near the furnace. Usually Kemdin sweated up his own deluge as they worked the iron and steal. The only hammering he was allowed to do was for practice. He was still watching the master’s work at sword making. It would be years yet before he would be allowed to learn that art.

“I already set the molds over there,” his father said. “Don’t rush. Be careful not to spill any. I don’t want you burning yourself while trying to impress me. Ok?”

Kemdin nodded. He had a burn on one of his feet from just that. He had dripped molten metal on his foot that last year trying to help with the cast iron. The deep scar reminded him always to take it easy. His father didn’t need to remind him. The man just said it as his own way of saying he loved him. It was only way his father could as he was a man of few words.

Carrying the hot metal over to where the molds rested, Kemdin picked up the iron hook and attached it to the notch on the bottom of the crucible, pulling it up to tip the contents from the spout side. With the tang of metal in the air, he watched it steam as the molten metal filled each hole cooling into pointed shapes they would have to trim. Making the molds took time also, but Kemdin enjoyed it when the metal was cool and they got to bust the arrowheads out and sharpen each one. He liked seeing the sharp points they made, often making them razor thin so that they cut well. This was a job Kemdin could do alone without his father. But they had to make many, and on dry days they had be careful in case the Sky Children came.

One after the other, he filled the molds until there was no more metal to pour. But by then his father had more ready for him, so Kemdin took the next crucible of molten metal. The shutters rattled as the wind and rain hit the walls. The roof shook, though the doves in the rafters cooed as if to calm the blacksmith and his son with reassurances that nothing could tear off that roof—even a demon dragon. But then dragons never came that far south, just as wary of men as the men were of them.  Kemdin poured more molten iron, counting the empty molds left. They had only two more trays to go. The first ones were probably ready to be broken out and cooled.

The bang, bang, bang of his father hammering and turning the sword echoed like a familiar song. Kemdin knew the tune. They said nothing to one another as they worked, though Kemdin grew tired from heaving the hot metal and wanted to set it down to rest for just a little while. But the rains would not last forever. Even if their village flooded and they could only walk on the board planks from house to house, the blue-eyes would eventually come back.

“Son.” His father dunked the sword into the water barrel, gesturing with his other hand. “I think the rain is letting up. Are the molds filled?”

Kemdin set down the crucible on the stone hearth. “Yes, Dad. All filled.”

Nodding, the smith hung up the sword. “Alright then. Start with the first ones. Break them out and cool them quick. I’ll help you sharpen them as soon as I pour off the rest of this metal.”

“What are you going to use it for?” Kemdin let his father take the crucible. He watched him carry them to another mold.

Grinning, his father said, “An herbalist needs a few cast iron cups for working in. I think this here is just enough iron for two.”

Smirking, Kemdin chuckled. “A witch? Ma’s right. You do favor them over magicians.”

His father laughed slightly, shaking his head. “No, son. Not favor them. I trust them more. Magicians sneer at you when you ask for things. Herbalists don’t.” He then turned with a smile, lifting an eyebrow to his son. “They don’t think themselves above the company.

“Besides, your ma is a little talented in herbal arts too,” he said. “A good woman is. When you get old enough, you should find one like your ma. Herbal art is great cooking.”

Kemdin laughed. His father liked to brag about their mother, but he was right. Their mother was a great cook that knew her herbs better than some witches. She always knew a cure for upset stomach and burns. Some people in the village even thought she was a witch, but then she always said that any good woman knows herbal magic[1].

The wind blew open a shutter. Kemdin dropped one mold and ran to close it as the rain dumped in. He heard another shutter bang open as he was sliding the latch to hold the one still, or so he thought at first until he heard shouts and turned around. It was the door. And it wasn’t the wind.

His father backed up as three blue-eyes followed by a brown-eyed one marched into the room. All of them wore their strange plain colored suits of pressed linen, each one a drab green of Sky Children military. Their collars were buttoned high to their necks, and none of them looked speckled with rain though it still poured outside in the street. One of the three blue-eyes lifted his magic iron stick and pointed it at Kemdin’s father.

“You’ve been helping them, Smithy,” the blue-eye said.

Kemdin took a step forward, looking about the room. He saw one of his father’s fire pokers getting hot near the coals. Even demons feared fire. And they weren’t Goles, so they weren’t faster than humans. He could get to it.

“Stay back, Son!” His father called to him. He then looked at the brown-eyed Sky Child. “What do you want?”

Despite his brown-eyes Sky Child in charge had cold look on his face. Without blue eyes his dark island skin somehow seemed darker. An islander. People always said blue-eyes were from the islands, demons from across the sea. He didn’t have the face of a man of Maldos. Those dark men were like the walking night with only white teeth and whites of eyes around blackness in their irises. This one was in between a Maldos man and man of the Eastern Provenance. With his brown eyes, he almost looked human.

“You dare address me as if we are equals?” the brown-eyed Sky Child said. His voice had a haughty grate to it that made Kemdin twitch. “You are supplying weapons to those raiders that continue to attack the progress of the railroad.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about!” the blacksmith shouted back. “I’m just a local blacksmith. I make cookware. Pans. Shod for horses.”

Kemdin could hear the Sky Child laugh in the back of his throat. It was unfriendly, as were his dark earthy eyes that scanned the room.

“You lie, human. That over there looks like a sword.” The brown-eyed sky child walked across the room to the new one his father had just been crafting. The demon lifted it off the hook, tilting it and nodding as he glanced back at the blacksmith. “And a fine one too. Were you planning to etch it?”

Both father and son froze.

One of the blue-eyes walked to the trays of arrowheads Kemdin had not yet broken out. He picked it up and twisted the mold, shaking out both sand and the cooling metal projectiles onto the floor.

Looking up, he nodded to the brown-eyed Sky Child. “It is as you suspected, General.”

Tucking the sword into his belt, the brown-eyed Sky Child glanced around the room as Kemdin had, perhaps looking for other weapons to unearth. His eyes fell on the boy. The corner of his mouth turned up. The demon nodded to the blue-eye who had turned out the arrowheads.

Immediately the blue-eye grabbed Kemdin and shoved him to the floor.

Kemdin howled, kicking and screaming to get away. His eyes focused on that demon’s bare hands. He was sure the blue-eye would suck him dry like Ton Farmer. He would be demon food.

But his father howled more. “No! No! Not my son! Please! Anything! I’ll do anything!”

The brown-eyed Sky Child strolled to the hearth as if he had all day to torture them. He picked up the hot iron poker then carried it in his gloved fingers as if he had come prepared to deal with hot metal. Lifting it, he sauntered over to where the blue-eye restrained Kemdin as the seven-year-old boy sweated large drops, the boy’s eyes on the poker as well as up the demon’s arm at the blue-eye’s bare hands.

Lowering the hot tip towards Kemdin’s chest, the brown-eyed Sky Child said, “Tell us where they are hiding out, or I will burn this boy’s chest right through with your own iron.”

Sweat covered the Smithy’s face as he looked with horror from poker to his son’s chest. “Please! Don’t! I don’t know where they are hiding!”

The Sky Child rested the tip against Kemdin’s front. The heat hovering over it alone burned a hole in his shirt and seared into his skin. Kemdin howled, pulling away into the ground as if it could swallow him up to put out the pain.

“No! Son! No! I really don’t know!” His father’s screams echoed against the walls as the rain continued to beat down. “I swear! They buy from us from across the lake!”

The brown-eyed Sky Child lifted the iron so that it was only an inch from Kemdin’s chest. “Across the lake? And where do you hide the weapons you sell them?”

“They bought them already.” The smith panted hard, his stare fixed on his son whose eyes had rolled back in his head, though Kembin was still breathing.

The Sky Child pressed the poker against Kemdin again. The boy’s screams filled the smithy.

“No! It’s the truth! I was making new ones now! I don’t have any others!” His father screamed.

“When are they coming again?” the Sky Child asked, his confident voice deepening with menace.

Shuddering, the smithy shook his head. “The new moon. They pick the day.”

Removing his poker from the boy’s skin, the brown-eyed Sky Child walked over to the smith, his father. “You had better not be lying to me.”

He then nodded to one of the blue-eyes who immediately touched the smithy’s face. A flicker of sparks crossed the demon’s glowing eyes, and he nodded back to the brown-eyed Sky Child.

“It’s the truth. He hides his weapons in a deep hole under the hearth. He has to put out the fire to get to them. But it’s empty. These are all new.” The blue-eye stood up. “Do we stay to the new moon?”

The brown-eye shook his head.

“No. No need. They won’t be acquiring weapons this time around.” He turned to the smithy and bent over to look him in the eye. “You, human, are going to pass on a message for me. Those who defy the Sky Lord will regret ever being born.”

The demon turned, looking at Kemdin with a smirk, then started back, lifting the poker.

“No! Please! Not my son!” The smithy sobbed, writhing in the grasps of the blue-eyes that held him, trying his hardest to break away. “Don’t!