The Sword Spirit Chose a Nobody for His New Master novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Lanxi

Lanxi had one road, one well and one smithy, and the smithy was at the end.

They reached it at dusk, two days after the stone, on tired horses.

The forge door stood open, with orange light spilling out into the lane.

A broad woman in a leather apron was beating a plowshare flat on the anvil.

Her sleeves were pushed to the elbows and her grey hair was tied up in a cloth.

She did not look up.

"If you're the Hall's steward," she said, between blows, "the answer's still no."

"Ma," said Chuhe.

The hammer stopped in mid-air.

She turned.

She was sixty-two, with scarred forearms like his own and a face that did not often change expression.

It changed now.

"You," she said, hoarsely. "You skinny little fool."

She dropped the hammer, crossed the forge, and hugged him so hard his ribs creaked.

He hugged her back with his face in her shoulder, smelling coal and iron and the same lye soap.

For a moment he was seventeen again and leaving.

"I heard you pulled a sword out of a stone," she said, muffled.

"I tripped."

"Of course you did. You never could walk and carry at once."

She held him at arm's length, looked him over from his rag-cord knot to his boots, and sniffed.

Then she looked past him at the tall silver-haired man standing in the lane with a sword on his back.

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