Aram sighed unhappily as, stripped to the waist, his muscular body hammered and hammered at the bit of hot platemail taking shape on the anvil. He had already pressed his master's trade-mark into the hot metal, and he knew that this piece would be sold as "another spectacular Brom Sheifson original."
It made Aram's teeth grind to remember that the horny old dwarf was probably somewhere in the Kettle right now, sleeping off a night of drink and revelry that would have been bad news for anyone without his inhuman constitution.
What Aram wouldn't give to have his own workshop, his own trade, his own fame as a smith, his own chance to get drunk and have a woman every once in a while! Why, he was in one of the most notoriously free-spirited cities in the world, as far as sex went, yet he hadn't been with a woman since his old master's wife, long ago.
However, even as he grumbled, his strong, meaty hands were sure and swift, the hammer they held skillfully beating the armor on the anvil into its proper shape, according to their patron's specifications. Aram's natural talent and years of training were apparent in it even to the untrained observer.
Just as he finished, and doused the hot metal into the large trough of water to cool, Aram heard the jingle of the shop door's bell. Sighing, he walked out of the back of the shop, where the tools and materials of his trade were, and into the front, where a desk and a few comfortable chairs helped to serve as a reception area for customers.
The woman he saw took his breath away. She was tall, nearly as tall as him, and well-built, with strong, muscular flesh. Her face was strikingly beautiful, with heroic features, a head of fire-red hair tied into a long braid that stretched to her butt, and a single, piercing green eye, the other covered by an eyepatch behind which he could make out a scar that split her eyebrow and extended over her cheekbone.
Her armor seemed only to have been half-made for protection. It certainly flattered her impressive figure, her broad hips, fine butt, and eye-catching bustline, clinging nearly skin-tight to her muscular form, with a broad red cape falling down her back next to her hair. Aram took the opportunity to eye her a little, knowing that a woman so dressed in THIS city probably wouldn't mind. As he did, he caught the emblem of a noble house he did not recognize worked into the metallic covering over her navel, and realized that this woman was likely a wealthy prospective patron.
"Welcome to Brom Sheifson's smithy," said Aram, standing behind the desk so as to hide his raging erection. Gods, but he felt pent-up after so long a period of forced abstinence. "The master is out at the moment, but I would be more than willing to help you with anything you might need, and take a message if you'd rather I didn't."
The woman looked at him for a moment, and smiled. "Very to the point," she said in a rich, throaty voice, a slight accent lingering over her vowels. "I appreciate that." She turned and bent over, giving him a chance to ogle her well-sculped ass behind the close-fit plates of her armor, before producing a sheathed sword from a satchel on the ground beside her.
The woman extended it to Aram, who took it and removed it from its sheathe immediately, testing the balance, weight, and trade-mark, before running his eyes over the runic inscription. It was a beautiful piece, true, with gemstones worked into the hilt and the metal worked into flowing lines along the magic runes on the blade, but...
"The blade's a few inches too long," he told her, "so it's all out of balance with the hilt, and the runes aren't in alignment. They're... working against one another, so..."
Aram studied it again, then his eyes went wide. His master had never let him touch their runic stamps, but he knew enough of the alphabet to identify pieces for passing adventurers and mercenaries for coin, and he could tell that this weapon had been meant to be vorpal. Vorpal weapons were renowned for their incredible keenness and ability to cut through nearly any substance. If it had been meant to be vorpal...
"This isn't one of my- of my master's pieces," he corrected himself hastily. The woman's warm smile told him that her single eye saw more than her silence let on. "I don't... I mean, he hasn't had the ability to make a vorpal weapon since-" He inspected the trade-mark, and scowled. "Since Armando Scarpeti stole his inscription for it five years ago. You purchased this from Scarpeti?"
"No," she told him, one hand on her broad hip, the other on his desk, as she leaned over to examine it herself. Were it not for her all-covering armor, Aram could have seen down her top from that position. As it was, he instead noticed the scar on her hand where she had removed her gauntlet to trace the metal. She had been stabbed through the palm, at some point.
"I ordered a servant of mine to come here. He is a... simple fellow, and was mislead," the woman told him, her face quirking into a frown. Aram knew what she meant. There was little lost love between him and his master, but both of them despised Scarpeti as an inferior smith who hired prostitutes to lure customers away from other shops to his, where his smooth-talking tricked them into paying exorbitant fees for his labor.
The gilt-work on the handle and blade-lines was nice though. Probably done by one of his apprentices, reflected Aram, examining it.
"At any rate," the statuesque beauty told him, straightening up and pulling her armored glove back on. "is it salvageable?"
Aram looked it over, examining the blade, the runes, the hilt. He stared for a minute, thinking, the weapon occupying his full attention. "Perhaps," he murmured, "if I grind away a little of the edge on the whole weapon to spare the inlay, add a little to the handle, and shave the runes into position... Yes. Yes, I think it is."
The noblewoman smiled. "Wonderful," she said. "How much to start at once?" She made no mention of the fact that Brom Sheifson hadn't even been mentioned.
"No extra," he told her, excited to work on such a lovely piece. "I've got no other work at the moment."
"Good," she purred, and, as he turned to re-enter the back of the shop, he realized she was following him. Aram stopped, and turned to watch her, seeing her slip through the curtain that separated the reception area from the forge. The heat should have made her uncomfortable in her heavy armor, but she seemed unconcerned. "Forgive me," she told Aram, "but I would like to see the work for myself." She looked his muscular form over, taking in his incredible height and chiseled jaw, and smiled sultrily. Her bright red tongue flicked across her dark red lips.
[Contains writer's and editor's notes] |