trust him.”
“What’s made you agree with me at last?”
“He told me the story of his life. I can see Illyra in ten days-after the new
moon and after she’s cleansed. We’ll leave for the north the next morning, with
the silver and the ore if we don’t have swords.”
Thrusher was not one to say ‘I told you so’ more than once. He got his cloak and
went over the outer wall without anyone but Walegrin knowing he was gone.
5
The metal-master organized his courtyard foundry with military precision. Within
six days of the successful tempering, another ten blades had been forged.
Walegrin marked the progress in his mind: so many days until he could visit
Illyra, plus one more before the swords were finished; yet another to meet with
the men Thrusher was culling out of the city and then they could be gone.
He watched Balustrus carefully; and though the metal-master gave no overt sign
of betrayal, Walegrin became anxious. Strangers came more frequently and the
cripple made journeys to places not even Thrusher could find. When questioned,
Balustrus spoke of the Lizerene who tended Jubal and the bribes he needed to
pay.
On the morning of the eighth day, a rainy morning when the men had been glad to
sleep past dawn, Walegrin finished his planning. He was at the point of rousing
Thrusher when he heard sound where there should have been silence beyond the
wall.
He roused Thrusher anyway and the two men crept silently toward the sound.
Walegrin drew his sword, the first Enlibar sword to be forged in five hundred
years.
“You’ve got the money and the message?” they heard Balustrus say.