Slow Turns The World by Andy Sparrow Read Free Book Online

to huge leather bellows.  There were many crucibles, set upon long handles, left in a tangled pile.
    “I have seen this before and know what is made here,” said Torrin. “When I was young there was another tribe camped near who had the art of metal making.   I saw how they dug for a special rock which they heated upon a fire of coals until it turned to liquid.  They made the shape of a blade in clay and poured the metal in.   I offered them my knife, which was my father's, in barter for a metal blade, and they laughed at me.  For who would choose a blade of bone, be it finely carved or not, when there is a better, sharper edge.”
    “So is that the purpose of this place, to make swords?” asked Nasdal.
    “What tribe would need so many blades?” said Queet.
    “I do not think weapons were made here,” said Valhad. “Do you see this?”
    He held a wooden pole, fixed to one end was a block of wood that was most carefully worked; its edges were rounded and it had been crafted into a precise oblong tablet.
    “Look,” said Valhad as he pushed the wooden block down into the sand and then withdrew it.
    “See the hollow that is left?   That is the shape of the metal that was poured here.  There is no sign of any mould that would make a blade.”
    “Maybe this metal does not make blades,” said Torrin and held up one of the glittering discs he had taken from the dead fingers.
    “Perhaps,” he said, “it is not the shape that matters, but the metal itself…”
    Torrin held what he had taken from the dead man in his open palm.  The others looked to him with puzzled faces, except for Valhad who nodded slowly.    Torrin slipped the coins carefully into a hidden pouch within his belt so that he might show Perrith what had been fought over so savagely.
    The hunters emerged again into the sunlight and walked to the lake.  The water was dark and smelled faintly like the air in the shed.
    “Do not drink from this,” said Torrin, “there is a sickness within it.”
    They entered another wooden building and found a long room that had been used for another purpose; there were tables, benches and sleeping litters strewn with straw and skins, leather tunics lay here and there; a rack upon the wall held several crossbows.  Another smaller shed was piled high with grain and hung with salted meats.  They moved on to the large stone building whose roof had now collapsed and lay smouldering within the soot-charred walls.  Sculpted into the stone above the entrance portal was the triangle within the circle.  Torrin peered within and saw the remains of a finely carved table, half buried by blackened roof timbers.
    Walking on towards the black cave mouths in the valley side, they found more bodies.  These figures were ragged and skeletal; they seemed to have died from wasting or disease, save one which was bound to a post and whose skin was streaked with cruel whip marks.  The dead were of many different tribes, some fair, others dark.  Most were men and full grown, but not all.  The hunters stopped at one tunnel entrance and saw a dark passage leading inwards, propped with timbers.
    They turned to look at settlement with its smoking fire, dead lake, and strewn corpses.  
    “The work that has been done here,” said Torrin,  “must have begun when the sun rose and has continued until now, when darkness nears.  The hardest toil has been by those who were enslaved, starved and beaten.  Overseeing this work has been the Asgal, and before them, I would guess, other tribes that passed and were persuaded.   Within the stone house dwelt those who ordered this way of things.  And they have gone now, for their work is over until the sun rises here again. Perhaps when the time of leaving came and the masters departed, those that were left squabbled and fought.”
    “I have met the Asgal many times,” said Queet, “and never thought them evil.”
    “But,” said Valhad, “when young hunters are offered suits of