Chapter 8: The Forge of Ashvale
The Threadway breathed around them like a lung made of smoke and light, its walls flickering with strands that pulsed violet and blue, each filament alive with a rhythm Elias could feel in his teeth and bones.
The sound not quite sound, more like a pressure in the chest, a warning that every step took them deeper into something that had no love for trespassers. And yet Lysera moved ahead with the certainty of a guide who had long ago traded fear for knowledge.
Her hand brushing the threads to keep the path steady while Hale followed with the weight of command.
Elvi gliding like a shadow at his flank, and Rook padding at Elias's side, silver eyes wide, ears twitching to every change in the unseen song.
Elias felt the hum twist at times, low notes that dragged at his ribs, sharp ones that stabbed like needles behind his eyes, his Resonance Sense straining against the weave, telling him that the Loom was restless. That the battle yesterday had torn more than men apart, it had unsettled the fabric itself.
Leaving jagged places where the song of the world broke and reformed, and walking through them now was like stepping across cracked ice that might hold or might split.
"Eyes forward," Lysera said, her voice a thread of calm woven into the hum, "do not answer if it whispers."
"What whispers," Hale muttered, though the tightness in his jaw betrayed that he already knew.
"The Loom remembers voices," Lysera replied, "sometimes it repeats them, not truly, only as echoes, promises, or lies, ignore them, or you will follow until you drown."
Rook gave a low growl, fur bristling, as if something unseen had brushed his flank, Elias laid a hand on his back and the cub settled, though the tremor in the animal's muscles told him the sense was real, the Loom might be memory but it had teeth.
Minutes stretched without measure, the path coiling, dipping, turning, sometimes narrowing until Elias had to angle his shoulders,
Sometimes widening into halls where threads hung loose like roots in an old cave, there he thought he heard Ava's laugh, light and sudden, a burst of color in the hum. His chest clenched, but he bit down and kept walking, Lysera's warning echoing in his mind, do not answer if it whispers.
At last the passage thinned to a strand so narrow it looked like a scar across stone, Lysera pressed her palm to the weave and with a ripple the wall peeled open, cold night air spilling in with the stink of smoke and ash.
The city above them still scarred from fire and battle, Ashvale's skyline broken, towers hunched like blackened teeth against a dim sky, the river's smoke mingling with fog until even the stars seemed smothered.
They emerged into Low Foundry, once the beating heart of Ashvale's craft and industry, now a ruin of soot-choked alleys and sagging warehouses, chimneys clawing at the dark. The air hot with hidden forges that still burned despite Warden edicts, rebels had carved sanctuaries here beneath the noses of hunters.
Feeding the war with steel and fire, Hale's lips pressed thin with memory as he looked across the ruin, "Too many ghosts," he murmured, "but ghosts make good walls."
Lysera led them to a warehouse squatting by the river's edge, its roof half collapsed, its door reinforced with plates of mismatched iron.
Elias could hear hammer blows even before they entered, each strike vibrating the air like a drumbeat, steady, relentless.
The rhythm too eager to be only craft, it was the sound of someone enjoying the violence of creation.
Inside the forge glared like a furnace heart, sparks jumping like fireflies, smoke curling thick and metallic, and there at the anvil stood Thorek. Broad as a bear, his beard blackened with soot, arms corded with muscle and scar, each swing of his hammer landing with a joy that bordered on madness. He didn't look up when they entered, just laughed low and rolling, as if he'd been expecting them all along.
"Captain brings me scraps again," Thorek bellowed, the hammer ringing like a bell, "but this one smells different, this one smells of fire and ruin, let me see the stick that bent a priest."
Hale's mouth tightened, "Thorek, mind your tongue."
"Forge has no tongue, only fire," the dwarf shot back, finally glancing up, his eyes catching the forge light, bright as molten gold, "well, bring it then, boy soldier, show me the weapon that carried you through the Choir."
Elias stepped forward, every rib screaming in protest, but he laid the spear across the anvil without a word. Thorek's grin widened, teeth flashing beneath the soot, he traced the dull black head with scarred fingers, humming like a man reading a favorite song. "Thread steel, yes, but crude, patched, unworthy of the fire it's tasted, oh, we'll make her sing again, we'll carve her a spine of true resonance."
Lysera's eyes narrowed, "You cannot forge Thread steel without shattering half your shop, you've tried before."
"And failed gloriously," Thorek said with delight, "failure is just invention with a sour face. Today will be different, today I have a madman's design to feed me"
Elias arched a brow, "Madman's design."
Thorek leaned close, grin wolfish, "Aye, yours, soldier, you've got the look, the stink of someone who's seen fire the rest of us only dream. Tell me, what madness do you carry from your old world, what contraptions rattle in that skull of yours."
For a moment Elias nearly laughed, the sheer audacity of the dwarf cutting through the ache of his body, he thought of grenades, of rifles, of tanks rolling across sand. None of it belonged here, and yet in Thorek's eyes he saw the glimmer of a man who would try to build them all with fire and Thread if dared. Elias said only, "Something that works, something that breaks them before they break us."
Thorek slapped the anvil, sparks scattering, "By the Forge, I like you already."
Rook sneezed at the sparks, ears twitching, Hale muttered a curse, Elvi just shook her head, and Lysera's lips pressed thin in disapproval. But Elias felt a strange sense of kinship spark across the anvil, a bond struck not of trust but of shared recklessness, the promise of fire and ruin to come.
The forge roared with a heat that pressed sweat out of skin and filled the lungs with iron, smoke, and something sharper.
Thorek rolled the spear across the anvil, humming low, every scarred finger tracing the etched lines as though reading a scripture written in steel, then without warning he set hammer to head and sparks leapt like firebirds.
Each strike ringing out with a joy that belonged as much to destruction as creation, "The spine is weak," he muttered, voice rough but almost tender. "Burned hollow by whatever fool's fire it tasted, but the bones remain, and bones can be reforged," his other hand already reaching for a bar of half forged threadsteel glowing in the coals.
He slid the bar against the shaft, heat blurring the edges, the resonance singing faintly where old and new touched. Elias could feel it in his ribs, a pitch too sharp to ignore, the Loom itself watching, Thorek only grinned wider, hammer falling again and again, folding, binding, caging the hum into order.
"A spear is not just wood and metal, it is a spine that remembers every hand that held it, every strike it gave, you treat it right, soldier, it will outlive you, you treat it wrong, it breaks when you need it most."
Lysera shifted at the edge of the forge, eyes narrowed at the dwarf's reckless joy, but she did not stop him, and Elias leaned closer despite the ache in his body. Watching as the head was reshaped, the edges ground sharper, the etchings deepened until they caught the light like veins beneath skin. The weapon breathing different now, steadier, deadlier, a rhythm that harmonized with his own pulse.
At last Thorek quenched the spearhead in oil, smoke rising in thick coils, the smell sharp as burnt pine. The hum of the Loom around them settling into a note that felt almost satisfied, he hefted the weapon once, nodding, then planted it back into Elias's hands with a weight that felt new.
"There," he said, sweat dripping from his beard, "a spine worthy of the fight to come, she'll sing louder now, and bite deeper." His eyes gleamed as he leaned across the anvil, grin wide enough to split his face.
"And if you've got more madness rattling around in that soldier's skull of yours, I'll make it sing too, tell me, what contraptions does your old world dream of?"
Elias leaned against the anvil, the weight of his wounds heavy but the pull of the fire stronger, Thorek circling him like a hawk eyeing prey and prize together, "So, soldier, tell me what your fire remembers." He said, hammer resting against one shoulder, grin cracked wide, and Elias found himself thinking of deserts and shattered streets.
Of thunder in his ears and shrapnel that hummed faster than thought.
He closed his eyes, memory tugging, and when he opened them he said, "A bomb you can throw, small, fits in your hand, you pull a pin, count your heartbeats, then fire, a blast strong enough to tear men apart, scatter them, break ranks." His voice was steady though his ribs ached with every breath, and Thorek's laugh rolled like thunder under stone.
"By the Forge, you bring me gifts indeed," the dwarf bellowed, eyes alight with a hunger that was half joy half madness, "a stone that sings itself to death, yes, yes, I can make this."
He bustled to the workbench, scattering tongs and chisels, pulling forward shards of crystal, slivers of beast core, powdered ash that glowed faintly in the forge light. Lysera's eyes narrowed from the shadows where she stood, her voice cold, "You'll kill us all if you try, half your toys end in rubble, and this one will end in fire." but Thorek ignored her, his hands already sketching patterns into the soot with thick fingers, runes winding like drunken snakes. "No, no, listen, the resonance can be caged, the crystal hums, the powder sings, fuse them in a shell of steel and it will wait, patient, until the pin releases its voice."
Elias moved closer despite himself, the hum of the forge twining with his Resonance Sense until he could almost hear the jagged notes of what Thorek was weaving, unstable, raw, yet possible. And he found himself murmuring, "You'll need to dampen the hum, otherwise it will sing too early, use layered casing, thick enough to muffle the resonance until it's freed." Thorek's head snapped up, eyes blazing, "Yes, yes, dampen the hum, soldier knows the song, soldier knows the silence before the scream."
Hale muttered a curse and turned away, Elvi rubbed her forehead like she'd seen this dance before, Lysera's arms tightened across her chest. But none of them stopped the dwarf, none of them stopped Elias either.
Not when the memory of grenades already burned behind his eyes, the sound, the smoke, the brutal efficiency of them, and Rook pressed against his leg. Sensing the shift in him, the dangerous pull of creation and destruction bound together.
Hours passed in heat and sparks, Thorek hammering steel shells no bigger than apples, Elias grinding beast-core dust until his hands shook. Lysera finally stepping in only to steady the resonance wards so the workshop didn't collapse, her scowl sharp enough to cut iron, and still Thorek laughed. Sweat soaking his beard, soot painting his face like warpaint, "A marvel, a monster, a miracle," he said as he slotted the final shard into the shell, sealing it with molten threadsteel, the grenade pulsing faintly like a heartbeat in his hand.
"Careful," Elias said, Resonance Sense already flaring, the pitch inside the shell shrill, eager, dangerous. Thorek grinned wider, "Careful is for cowards," and he lobbed the thing gently from hand to hand. Rook snarled low in his throat, Hale barked, "Are you insane," and Elvi had an arrow notched before the dwarf finally barked a laugh and set the grenade down with a reverence that bordered on holy.
"She's sleeping now, waiting, just waiting."
Elias reached out, fingers brushing the warm metal, the hum vibrating into his bones, the song of violence caged inside. His stomach twisted with recognition, this was wrong, this was war, this was Earth's shadow leaking into Elyndor.
Yet part of him whispered it was necessary, the Wardens had armies, Choirs, Prelates who could bend streets into cages, and they had steel, fire, and madness, maybe that was enough if they pushed it far enough.
Lysera's gaze found his, sharp, questioning, accusing, but he only said, "If we use it, we use it sparingly, no stockpiles, no caches for fools to stumble on." Thorek chuckled, "Every forge born dreamer says the same, but dreams grow, soldier, and this one will spread like fire" Hale's jaw tightened but he didn't argue. Elvi exhaled through her nose, bow lowering at last, and Tamsin, who had slipped in at some point, shook her head slowly, voice flat, "Saints preserve us, you've built the world's loudest suicide note."
Elias laughed once, rough, without humor, "Maybe, but it's ours," his hand tightened on the spear that leaned against the anvil, its etchings faintly alive again in the forge glow, and he wondered if this was what the Loom had wanted. Or if he was only tearing at seams that should never be touched, the answer didn't matter, dawn had come and with it the beginning of a new fire. A fire forged by a soldier's memory and a smith's madness, a fire that would one day burn across Elyndor in ways none of them yet understood.
The grenade sat on the anvil like a sleeping animal, faint hum rising and falling.
Too steady to be harmless, too alive to be ignored, Thorek's grin hadn't faded for a breath. His eyes bright with the forge's fire and his own delight, Elias's hand hovered near but did not touch, his Resonance Sense still screaming the pitch of it. Like standing too close to a bell before the strike, every instinct said to leave it buried in iron and ash. Yet Hale was already saying, "If it works, we need to know now, not when the Wardens break down a door."
Lysera's mouth thinned, "If it fails, we'll know now too, in pieces," but Hale's stare was iron. The captain had lost too much to gamble on faith alone, and Elvi, bow slung but eyes sharp, muttered, "Better to bleed in a test than burn in a fight."
Elias exhaled, the breath rattling through bruised ribs, then nodded once. "Outside," he said, and Thorek snatched up the grenade with a delighted grunt, cradling it like a newborn and striding for the ruined door of the forge.
Sparks dancing from his beard, the rest of them trailing behind, Rook weaving between Elias's legs, hackles raised. The cub growling at the hum that pulsed with each of Thorek's steps.
Low Foundry's streets lay empty at this hour, only the fog from the river curling between broken chimneys and soot black alleys. The city above them groaning with wounds still fresh from the Choir's retreat, rebels whispered somewhere deeper in the maze. But here the street was theirs, Elias pointed at a collapsed wall of brick and iron thirty paces ahead, "There, throw it."
Thorek grinned wider, pulled the crude pin with a flourish, and hurled the grenade in a perfect arc. The hum spiked, a note sharp enough to sting the teeth, and then the world broke. The grenade burst in a sphere of light and sound, a shockwave tearing outward with teeth of glass and fire, the wall didn't crumble, it disintegrated.
Bricks spinning through the fog like leaves in a storm, iron warped and shrieked, smoke and dust billowing so thick it swallowed the street.
Rook yelped and leapt back, Elias staggered with the force, his ribs screaming, Hale swore like a soldier caught in an avalanche, Elvi shielded her face with an arm, and even Lysera had to brace. Her veil weaves snapping into place instinctively to hold the worst of the blast back, then the smoke thinned enough to see.
The wall was gone, a crater left in its place, edges glowing faintly where stone had half melted, the silence after rang louder than the blast itself.
Thorek laughed like a mad priest, hammer raised in salute, "By the Forge, she sings," he roared. Beard dripping with sweat and soot, "she sings truer than any choir, you hear that, soldier, this is fire worth feeding."
Elias's stomach turned at the sight, awe and dread twisting together, his Resonance Sense still thrumming with aftershocks. Faint resonance lines snapping in the air where the grenade had ripped them, as if the Loom itself had shuddered, "It works," he said flatly, voice rough, "too well."
Lysera's eyes found his, hard as ice, "This is heresy given teeth," she said, her voice low but sharp enough to cut. "if the Church learns you brought this into the world, they will not stop until every soul here burns."
Hale stared at the crater, jaw locked, the scars on his face catching the faint glow. "And if we don't use it, the Wardens will keep their Choirs, their Prelates, their Domains, while we throw rocks and pray," he said, "I've buried enough men praying, I'll take the heresy."
Elvi didn't speak, but the way her bow trembled in her fingers betrayed unease. Tamsin, who had arrived just in time to see the smoke, pinched the bridge of her nose, muttering, "Saints blind us all, you really built it, you really used it." Then louder, bitter as ash, "Just promise me you won't start stacking them like firewood, or you'll burn the city before the Wardens ever get the chance."
Thorek only chuckled, but Elias's hand tightened on his spear, his scars aching with the echo of the blast. Memory bleeding through, the thunder of grenades, the screams in desert heat, the stink of blood on sand, and Ava's face ghosting through it all. Her laughter like a thread pulled taut across silence, he whispered to himself, "Not too many, not too many," but whether he believed it was another matter.
Rook pressed against his leg, whining, silver eyes still wide with the echo.
Elias scratched behind his ear, grounding himself, Lysera still watching him with that gaze that saw too much, Hale still measuring the crater as though it were a ledger entry. Elvi still weighing the silence, and Thorek already scribbling designs in the soot with a broken brick, muttering about casing strength, delay fuses, and resonance harmonics.
The street smelled of smoke and fire, the Loom still quivering faintly where it had been torn, Elias felt it deep in his bones. A promise and a warning, what they had made here would change battles, maybe wars, maybe the world itself.
And for the first time he wondered if his path of death had already begun again, not in the spear or the song of resonance, but in this moment, in the choice to drag Earth's ruin into Elyndor's Loom.
"Enough," he said at last, voice heavy, "we've seen it, we know it works, hide what's left, no one touches it until I say." Hale opened his mouth but Elias's eyes locked him still, hard and unyielding.
"If this spreads before we're ready, we're all ash, not just us, the city, maybe more, so we keep it close, and we use it only when the Loom gives us no other way."
Lysera gave the faintest nod, approval or resignation he couldn't tell, Tamsin sighed like someone staring down a grave she knew too well. Elvi lowered her bow fully, and Thorek only grinned, soot black teeth showing. "You'll come back," he said, "you'll come back with more madness, I can see it already, and we'll make fire enough to blind the gods."
Elias looked once more at the crater, the glow fading, the silence pressing, then turned back toward the forge.
Rook trotting close, the others falling in behind, and he thought of dawn, of ash, of oaths spoken in dark rooms, of the promise to teach a boy how to stand, of the path to cut Threads that was already being carved whether he wished it or not.
The city whispered above them, the Loom thrummed below, and in between, they took their first true step into legend.