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He shook his head at his own whimsy and strode off purposefully down one of the long aisles of the Armoury towards the great mound of weapons. The mysterious appearance of Ethriss’s black sword had unsettled him more than he was prepared to admit. Had he not known this place intimately for some twenty years? A blade like that could not have lain hidden from him. And yet…?

Thus, since his return to the Castle with Tirilen, he had haunted the Armoury, trying to view it with a newer eye and carrying with him a vague compulsion that there was something he should be doing. He had little doubt that the metal was speaking to him but he did not seem to be able to hear it clearly.

His subsequent discovery of the small black blades that became Gavor’s fighting spurs unsettled him even further, and the vague compulsion became almost an obsession. Repeatedly now, he cast his eye over the great mound of weapons, wondering what other mysteries it was concealing from him. But everything seemed to be as it had been since he first followed the strange tall outlander into this stronghold twenty or so years ago and stood open-mouthed amid the harvest-field rows of points and edges glittering in a bright summer sun.

Reaching the mound, he stood there once again on an uneasy vigil, all too aware that the familiarity around him still persisted in declaiming itself changed.

‘Loman?’

The voice behind him drew his mind from its rev-erie, and air into his lungs, in one heart-jolting blow. He spun round, eyes wide, his mind encompassing uncountable numbers of alternatives and his body incapable of facing any of them.

Gulda raised an eyebrow at this sudden flurry.

Loman finally succeeded in gaining control of his jaw and raised his hand to point in the direction of the distant entrance.

‘Memsa,’ he demanded. ‘How did you get in here? Through the columns… ’

Gulda brought her stick up and placed the end of it against the smith’s stomach. ‘I’m looking for Ethriss’s bow, young Loman, where is it?’

Loman continued pointing for a moment and then lowered his hand resignedly. So far, Gulda had met questions about her knowledge of Anderras Darion by simply ignoring them. A prod from the stick focused his attention again. Better head for safer ground.

‘The bows are over there,’ he said brusquely, point-ing now to a nearby rack. Gulda clicked her tongue impatiently, and levering Loman to one side with her stick walked in the opposite direction.

‘Don’t clench your fists at me, young man,’ she said as she passed. Loman felt a rumbling growl forming inside him and quickly cleared his throat.

Gulda was muttering to herself. ‘Now let me… so long ago.’ Her hand came to her chin pensively and the great nose twitched as if scenting out quarry. Then she did a brief mime, head bowed, eyes closed and face earnest. Her hands pointed forward, as if marking out some earlier entry she had once made into the Armoury, then they flicked hither and thither, tracing her old route; sometimes decisively, followed by a flick of confirmation; and sometimes hesitantly, followed by a palmy wave to expunge the error. Finally she arrived.

‘That’s it,’ she said, opening her eyes. ‘I’ll swear to it.’ And off she went, Loman trudging behind suspi-ciously. Eventually they stopped in front of one of the ornately painted wall carvings that decorated those walls of the Armoury that contained no weapon racks.

‘Yes,’ she said, nodding triumphantly. ‘Here it is.’

Loman looked at the picture and then at her. ‘It was a picture of the bow you were looking for, was it?’ he asked uncertainly, looking at the vivid battle scene portrayed in front of him. A faint smile lit up Gulda’s face and she shook her head.

‘No, Loman,’ she said. ‘I wanted this.’ And reaching her hand forward into the strange perspective of the carving, she took hold of a black bow held by one of the distant figures, and lifted it out reverently.

Loman was well used to the complexity and distor-tion of distance inherent in all Orthlundyn carving but, in spite of himself he found his mouth dropping open. Before he could recover himself fully, Gulda placed the now man-sized bow gently in his hands.

‘Hawklan tells me you’ve turned into a passable smith, young Loman, for all your earlier ways.’ She eyed him significantly. ‘What do you make of that?’ But Loman made no reply. As with the sword, the first touch of the bow had plunged him into another world, and his whole body seemed to be straining to ring out praises for the incredible artifact he was holding, even though such praises could not begin to measure its worth. After a timeless moment, he returned the bow to Gulda.

‘It’s beyond words,’ he said in a hoarse whisper. ‘Like the sword. Made by the same hand and in the same manner.’ He closed his eyes and swayed slightly. Gulda watched him closely. ‘I can’t handle work like that too much, it’s too… daunting.’

Gulda seemed satisfied. ‘There’s some hope for you then,’ she grunted. ‘And for the Orthlundyn.’

Loman recovered himself. ‘I’ve never seen a metal bow before,’ he said. ‘The bows in here are all of wood.’

‘Could you make one?’ Gulda asked.

Loman was grateful for the commonplace question. It kept his mind from soaring uncontrollably after the perfection he had just held. ‘Not like that,’ he said hastily.

‘Of course not,’ came an unusually sympathetic reply. ‘But could you make a metal bow?’

Loman pursed his lips. ‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘I’ve never thought about it.’

‘Well think about it now,’ said Gulda. ‘And quickly. I want to see what you can do.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘But start with some arrows. I’ve no idea where Ethriss’s arrows are, if there were any left, and Hawklan can’t go wandering off with a bow and no arrows.’

‘Hawklan?’ said Loman in surprise. ‘What does Hawklan want with a bow? He’s never handled one in his life.’

‘In the last twenty years you mean,’ said Gulda bluntly. Loman nodded unhappily. That was true of course. Hawklan had never handled a sword either, but Isloman had told him how he had used it against the Mandrocs. And he himself would not soon forget how Hawklan had laid out the two High Guards so effort-lessly when they had burst into Jaldaric’s tent. Hawklan was an enigma. Loman looked intently at Gulda. So was she.

‘I’m no weapons maker,’ he said suddenly.

Gulda brandished the bow. ‘Neither was the maker of this,’ she said fiercely. ‘But circumstances gave him no choice, and he learned. As you will.’

Her tone brooked no argument but, in any case, the idea intrigued the craftsman in Loman sufficiently to overcome any qualms he might have about the matter. After all, he had seen men killed with rocks and branches and all manner of innocuous articles seized casually in the heat of battle, just as he had seen works of great beauty engraved on the shafts and blades of swords and axes. And hadn’t he seen appalling accidents occur with innocent farm implements that he had made? He knew well enough that the word weapon was vested in an object by the use to which it was put, not by the intention of its maker.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But I can’t make anything wor-thy of that bow.’

‘Make what you can, Loman,’ Gulda replied. ‘It will be truer than most, and the bow won’t spurn it.’

On their way out of the Armoury, they passed the great mound again. Gulda cast a baleful eye over it. ‘And you can start tidying that lot up,’ she said, jerking her thumb towards it. ‘You’re going to need them.’

Loman looked aghast at the towering pile.

Gulda forestalled his protest. ‘They’re no good in here and there’s precious little point in training people to fight if they’ve nothing to fight with, is there?’

* * * *

Hawklan said little about how the Orthlundyn should be prepared and trained.

‘They’re your people, Loman,’ he said. ‘And you and your friends know more about practical fighting than I do. With that, and the Library and Gulda, there’s nothing I can add.’ But he nodded approvingly as he saw Loman supervising the removal of the weapons from the Armoury, and his very presence seemed to sustain their efforts.