Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy) by Hilari Bell Read Free Book Online Page B

water.
    Everywhere around her the bushes, the grass, and even the spiny plants were shedding old leaves and putting on new growth. Some sprouted buds that would soon be in bloom. She had learned when she lived with the Suud last year that winter, the time of the rains, was the desert’s time of growth. It was in the summer, whenthe sun struck down, that plants went dormant. Now everything hummed with returning life. Soraya couldn’t help but sense it, and she too rejoiced.
    By the time she reached the mine, she had calmed down enough to greet the workers with genuine good cheer.
    When Soraya finally convinced Maok that the peddler might be able to use his gift to create swords as good as those the Hrum used, and that he would teach the Suud smithcraft into the bargain, men who wanted to learn the secrets of making stone into iron had come from all the tribes in the desert. Soraya knew how valuable the ability to work metal would be to the Suud; that was one of the reasons she’d been willing to reveal the secret of their magic to the treacherous peddler. That and the knowledge that if he showed any sign of betraying their secret she could kill him.
    But having watched him teaching his apprentices the craft he loved, she didn’t believe he would give them away. The peddler was the one person whose emotions she always allowed herself to sense—Ahriman, djinn of lies, could take “magical ethics” where he was concerned! Yet sensing his emotions was allowing her to know him. To know for a fact that he had been as surprised, and even more appalled than she was by the sight of the slaves chained to the siege towers. That was why she hadn’t killed him.
    She still hated him—she could never give that up, nor did she want to—but she could endure him long enough to make full use ofhim before she allowed Jiaan to avenge their father’s death.
    It was because she refused to take orders from the traitor that she had gotten involved in mining the ore. The peddler was in charge at the forge whenever metal was being worked, and he kept a close eye on the smelter as well. But he paid no heed to how the ore was gathered, once he had taught the Suud to identify the iron-bearing rocks.
    The men who had come to be trained as smiths all took their turns at digging, and other members of the tribe helped out too. Soraya recognized Abab and several of the others. It was hard, unpleasant work, swinging a pick in the confines of the narrow canyon where they had found the best vein of ore—though Soraya thought “vein” was a ridiculous word for the huge band of rock streaking across the canyon wall. Rock dust covered the Suud’s white skin, and small rocks bounced off the thick cloths they had wrapped around their heads to provide a bit of protection. But no one shirked the work. Even the tribe’s children were there, carrying baskets of ore off to the smelter, and the children’s presence made any task light.
    In the beginning, Soraya had thought to supervise the digging, but there was little to supervise, and she found that there was nothing quite as boring as sitting and watching others work. She had tried swinging one of the miner’s picks, which the peddler had ordered shipped down to the desert along with the bellows, the anvil, and the load of “soft” iron bars he hoped would mix with theSuud’s ore to produce something like the Hrum’s famous watersteel. She was strong enough to swing the pick—after a summer spent working as a servant in the Hrum’s camp, she should be—but she couldn’t swing it as long or as strongly as the men did.
    Now she no longer bothered with a pick but went straight to the baskets, filling them with bits of shattered ore and passing them to the children, making sure none of them took too heavy a load. Proud Walking clan was excited to be the tribe that had brought the secrets of metal to their people, and the children were eager to be a part of it.
    Dust sifted into her hair. The rock