An hour and a half later, under the watchful, impatient eyes of Torin, the guard, and a still-lurking crowd, Jorvan finally lowered his hammer. He barely resisted the urge to let out a long, shuddering sigh of pure relief. The shield was… done.
Though 'repaired' was a strong word for it.
The truth was, Torin's shield was still a wreck. It was just a carefully camouflaged wreck. Jorvan had hammered the twisted steel bindings back into something resembling their original shape, but the metal was fatigued, stressed to the point of crystalline weakness.
They were more for decoration than structural integrity now, barely cinching the wooden planks together. The bolts he'd used to fasten everything were cheap, undersized iron, already working loose from the vibration of his own half-hearted hammering.
A solid punch would likely pop them; the swing of a sword would shear them clean off.
But crucially, it looked fixed. From a few feet away, under the soot and fresh polish Jorvan had hastily applied, it looked like a perfectly serviceable, if well-used, warrior's shield.
A spark of malicious glee ignited in Jorvan's gut. This was even better than actually fixing it properly. Now the arrogant little brat would take this beautiful, deadly failure out into the wilderness.
He'd trust it with his life. And in the middle of a fight with a beast or a bandit, it would shatter.
It would crumple like parchment. The thought of Torin's look of shock turning to terror as the shield disintegrated on his arm, leaving him open to a killing blow… oh, yes. That was a sweeter revenge than any fee.
He quickly schooled his features, hiding the vicious grin behind a mask of professional satisfaction. He gave the shield a final, proud pat that made a hollow, unhealthy sound, and turned to Torin, his smile obsequious.
"Here you are, sir Companion," he said, his voice dripping with false humility as he presented the shield. "Good as new. Please… take your time to inspect my work. I want you to be completely satisfied."
His smile widened as he said this, knowing full well that the two hours Torin had demanded had already bled away.
Half of one had been spent arguing and Jorvan dragging his feet, the other hour and a half a pathetic pantomime of forging where he'd heated metal without properly working it, quenched it poorly, and generally done everything a competent smith would avoid.
Time was up. The trap was set.
Torin looked at the presented shield, his eyebrows raising in what seemed like genuine surprise at its polished appearance. Still, he said nothing. He took the shield from Jorvan's hands, his grip firm, and began a slow, methodical inspection.
He ran his fingers along the bindings, tested the weight, peered at the seams. Halfway through, he paused. A cold, razor-sharp glint flashed in his eyes—a spark of understanding and fury—but it was gone in an instant, hidden behind a mask of bland acceptance.
With a laidback, almost careless smile, Torin nodded. "Seems good to me."
He turned around, shield in hand, and started walking away from the forge.
Jorvan's face, which had been plastered with smug satisfaction, instantly darkened with rage. Was this little savage trying to walk off without paying? Did he think a master smith of Markarth worked for charity?!
"Hold on there, lad!" Jorvan barked, puffing out his chest, preparing to unleash a torrent of indignation about thieves and the price of honest labor. "You can't just—"
But Torin didn't leave. He stopped in front of the off-duty guard who had been observing the whole affair, his expression now one of mild curiosity.
"Can you hold this for me?" Torin asked, his voice polite.
Though confused, the guard shrugged. "Aye, suppose so." He reached out and took the shield, his fingers wrapping around the edge as Torin had held it.
The moment the shield's weight settled in the guard's hand, Torin's entire demeanor changed. The casual slouch vanished. He took a single, smooth step back, lowering his center of gravity, his feet planting firmly on the stone.
The guard's eyes widened in sudden alarm—he immediately understood what Torin was doing.
Instinct took over. The guard didn't question it; he slammed the shield up in front of his chest, gripping it with both hands, bracing for impact.
He was just in time.
Before anyone in the stunned crowd could blink, before Jorvan's brain could even process the shift from a financial dispute to a combat drill, Torin's fist shot forward.
It wasn't a wild haymaker. It was a short, devastatingly powerful punch, driven from his core, his entire body behind it.
CRUNCH-THWANG-SNAP.
The sound was horrific. Torin's knuckles didn't just hit the shield; they tore through it.
The cheap, fatigued steel bindings Jorvan had hammered back into place twisted like wet paper, screeching in protest. The undersized iron bolts holding everything together sheared off with sharp pings, flying in every direction like shrapnel. The wooden planks, already compromised, splintered inward with a sickening crack.
In the span of a single heartbeat, the "repaired" shield disintegrated. What was left in the guard's trembling hands, and scattered at his feet, was nothing more than a pile of scrap metal and kindling.
A dead, ringing silence fell over the smithy, broken only by the relentless rush of the waterfall.
Slowly, deliberately, Torin straightened up. He flexed his hand, the knuckles red but unbroken. Then, even more slowly, he turned his head to look at Jorvan.
The smith's face had gone from red to a deathly, waxy pale. All the blood had drained from it.
Torin's eyes met his. There was no rage, no shouting. Just a flat, murderous glare, colder than the deepest Reach winter, that promised consequences far more permanent than a broken shield.
Before Jorvan's panicked mind could connect the dots—from the broken shield to his own shoddy work to the trap he'd tried to set—Torin was on him. The young man's hands shot out, wrapping like iron bands around Jorvan's stained leather apron and the tunic beneath, and he was violently shoved backwards.
His heels scraped across the stone until he was teetering on the very edge of the terrace, leaning out over the churning, mist-filled drop to the river below.
Torin's grip on his collar was the only thing keeping him from plummeting.
Echo, who had been sniffing idly at a pile of scrap in the corner, sensed the sudden, violent shift in her person's mood. With a low growl, she lunged forward and sank her teeth into the soft leather of Jorvan's boot, right above his ankle.
She didn't just bite; she jerked her head violently from side to side, worrying the leather and the flesh beneath with a terrifying, primal fury.
Torin's glare was enough to make Jorvan's bowels turn to water, a primal fear colder than the abyss at his back. But his tone, when he spoke, was eerily, horrifyingly calm.
"So, not only did you try to cheat me… you wanted me dead, too."
Everything until now—the frustration, the haggling over time, the time appearances of Ghorza and the miner—had been an act. A damned elaborate one, granted.
Still, Torin had expected incompetence, greed, maybe even a subpar repair. He hadn't expected Jorvan to be so obstinate, so malicious, that he'd send a warrior into danger with a shield he knew would fail.
That wasn't just theft. That was premeditated, cowardly murder-by-proxy.
The realization angered Torin so profoundly that the cold rage began to boil over. He'd even planned to ask the Jarl to be lenient, to perhaps just fine Jorvan heavily rather than strip his license completely.
Taking away a man's livelihood was a harsh sentence. But to think the bastard would go this far to maintain his position...
He was seriously debating whether snapping this pathetic worm's neck and letting the waterfall wash the body away was worth the inevitable hassle with the Markarth guard.
Just before he could come to a decision, he felt a heavy, gauntleted hand land on his shoulder.
The guard's voice, low and tense, came from behind him. "What Jorvan did is unforgivable. No one will dispute that. You're completely within your rights to kill him for it. However, that does not mean you—"
Torin turned his head slightly, the murderous glare shifting from Jorvan to the guard.
The man didn't flinch, but he didn't finish his initial thought either. He took a breath and shifted to a more diplomatic choice of words. "…if you wish to be compensated for this… this treachery, I'd advise against killing him right now."
Torin's murderous gaze shifted back to Jorvan, who was whimpering and trying to pry Echo's jaws from his ankle. Right. Compensation.
He did need that. His shield was now a pile of scrap at the guard's feet, and that was a real loss. More pressingly, he'd had to bribe one of the passing Breton merchants with hundreds of septims to pretend he'd hired Torin for some lucrative, time-sensitive contract.
The whole "I need to leave in two hours" story was the linchpin of his pressure tactic. It would have crumbled instantly if anyone had actually asked him to prove that he had had to leave urgently.
As tempting as it was to snap Jorvan's neck and be done with it, that wasn't worth five hundred septims. Not to mention the damned Breton might get cold feet and spill the beans if things turned bloody.
Being part of a scheme to expose a fraudulent artisan was one thing; being an accomplice to a murder was another.
With a groan of profound annoyance, Torin released his grip on Jorvan's collar. He didn't let him fall; he yanked him forward, away from the deadly drop, and shoved him stumbling toward the guard.
Echo, receiving some unspoken signal, finally released the smith's ankle with a final, contemptuous shake of her head.
Torin's tone was still icy, every word dripping with disdain. "I'll need compensation. A new shield of equivalent quality. And five hundred septims for the contract I now cannot fulfill because of his negligence and deceit."
He paused, letting the financial weight of that settle on Jorvan's slumped shoulders. "In addition, this worthless fool didn't just cheat me. He knowingly sent me to my death. I'll need to be compensated for that, too. For the attempted murder. The steward and the Jarl can decide what that's worth."
The guard, looking relieved that the situation hadn't ended in a messy splat at the bottom of the falls, gave a firm nod. "Aye. I'll relay everything to the steward, and he will present it to the jarl. The evidence speaks for itself," he said, kicking a piece of the shattered shield.
"Justice will be served."
With that, he turned, his grip firm on Jorvan's arm. The smith offered no resistance, his body limp with shock, his face a mask of dawning ruin.
The guard began to walk away, dragging the broken man with him toward Understone Keep, leaving Torin standing amidst the wreckage of his plan and his shield.
...
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