Day 21: Ghost Blacksmith

Hear the hammers ring

Of the blacksmith’s dirge

“What kind of lame song is that?” a voice echoed behind me. I paused in the song and glanced over my shoulder. Dranon had been nothing but argumentative since we’d arrived at the ruins. Now he stood with arms tightly crossed and with his lip jutted out as if about to through a fit. Not something I could discount from experience.

Sighing, I swung around and shook my head at him. “We’re in old Travala.” I wave my hand at the stone walls rising jaggedly about us.

“Yes,” Dranon muttered. “I still don’t know why.”

“To get a weapon before Vaneth can claim all of home.” I blinked at him.

“Yes, but what has that got to do a with a city that hasn’t been inhabited in…” He paused, mouth still gaping open like he hoped the right word would fly into it.

“Generation?” I supplied with only a subtle hint of sarcasm in my voice.

Dranon perked up at the word. “Yeah, generation.” I couldn’t even be surprised he’d missed the sarcasm. “Travala’s been empty for generations.”

“Ah,” I said jutting a finger into the air, “but when it was inhabited it held the most skilled blacksmiths of the kingdom. Of any kingdom.”

Dranon shrugged, hunching his shoulders as if he wished to disappear into them and glanced with misgiving at the city again. “How does a once upon a time help us now?”

I sighed again and turned away from him. “Because we face Vaneth.”

“So?” he asked doggedly.

Raising a hand, I smacked my face and let my hand fall slowly back down. “Because Vaneth is also a product of the past?”

Dranon shrugged again and thrust his hands into his pockets. At least he didn’t look about to have a fit again.

“What do you think you use to fight a ghost if not a ghost blade? And what better ghost blade could there be than one crafted by the smiths of Travala?”
Dranon opened his mouth again to protest further. Raising a hand, I silenced him. “Just don’t. We’re running short on time.”

“Right, which is why we should–”

Turning away from Dranon I started belting out the chorus of the song again. A chorus every tale said if sung with enough resolve could open the path into the ghost forge. I hoped it was just my resolved needed because Dranon started screaming over me.

“Enough!” a voice I didn’t know bellowed rolling with enough force to smother both Dranon and myself.

Blinking, I paused and turned to inspect the road behind us. In what I was certain had been a blank wall moments before stood a doorway. With in the arch a man glowered at us. A man who seemed as much not there as there.

“The forge of Travala,” I whispered. Dranon grabbed my arm and let out a high-pitched piercing shriek.

“Enough!” the man repeated and pointed into the light swirling behind him. “If I show you into the forge, can you please stop bickering.”

Even I couldn’t decipher Dranon’s babble at that, and after a month solid with him I’d gotten good at that. The ghost smith snapped his fingers and the babble cut off abruptly. “Are you coming?” he said staring straight at me.

I shivered beneath the gaze and rushed forward. “Hear the hammers ring in Travala’s forge…”

“Stop or I’ll mute you as well.” The man rubbed his ear when I fail silent. “Did anyone ever tell you that you have the worst singing voice ever.”

I snapped my jaw shut and ducked my head as I rushed past the man. Guess mom had been right when she’d said I had a voice to wake the dead. Still, we’d gotten into the forge. Surely, they’d have the weapon we needed. They’d fought Vaneth when he’d lived.