The sun had already risen when Yipachai awoke the following morning after what had perhaps been the best sleep he could remember. And not just because his last few nights had been spent in the cramped cargo hold of a bandit ship. The bed Harato had let him use was softer than the thin cushion he had slept on at the monastery.

  He sat up and stretched, feeling warm from both the blankets and the ray of sun that shone in through the small windows and provided a dim illumination of the house. At the foot of his bed was a bundle of folded clothing tied up with several white pieces of string and a small piece of paper covered in careful handwriting.

  Try these on for size. You might need to use the strings to tie up the sleeves and trouser legs. My apologies, but I only have clothing sized for a Banqilun.

  —H

  Yipachai held up the bundle of soft, grayish clothing. It was a heavier fabric than he was accustomed to, but it felt good on his skin. He eyed his torn red acolyte’s robe he had left folded against the room divider.

  I suppose I won’t be needing that anymore.

  Slipping into the trousers first, he quickly saw the need for Harato’s strings. When he stood up straight, the trouser legs enveloped not only his legs, but the entire length of his feet with even a bit extra to spare. He also had to hold them up to prevent them from falling down.

  After cinching up the waist first—it at least had loops for a belt—he rolled the ends of the trousers back on themselves, then tied strings around the resulting cuffs. As long as he didn’t move too quickly, they ought to stay in place.

  The tunic was a little better, as the sleeves weren’t meant to come down to the wrists in the first place. As they were, he felt comfortable leaving them rolled up but untied.

  Once he was dressed, Yipachai made his way to the kitchen where a bowl of warm rice sat next to two samao fruits. The rice was good—not the bottom of the pot, barely edible stuff the bandits had given him.

  He tucked in to his feast, feeling truly safe and comfortable for the first time in what felt like too long. He had new, clean clothes. Enough food. No immediate danger of being kidnapped or killed or worse. In that moment, he could forego making plans for how to find the bandits, how to hunt down their leader and rid the world of him forever. No, his great mission of vengeance could wait, at least until he had had a decent breakfast.

  From outside came the sharp clanging of a hammer on metal, bright and rhythmic. After taking a few moments to wipe down his bowl, he stuffed the single remaining samao in his pocket and went outside.

  He found Harato standing over the anvil, hammer in hand, pounding on a piece of metal glowing a bright orange. Yipachai moved to watch from a few paces away, but the Banqilun smith didn’t stop. He simply nodded to Yipachai and kept on hammering. After every few dozen blows, once the metal had faded to a dull red, Harato set down his hammer and picked up a small l’anti wand—little more than a simple wooden rod—and sent a bout of green flames into the metal that heated it back up to the same vibrant golden color. Then he went back to pounding.

  As Harato worked, Yipachai saw the metal start to take shape. It looked like a miniature version of one of the swords he had seen in the man’s house. The ones he called his failures. But the blade on the piece he was working on now looked to be only slightly longer than Yipachai’s outstretched hand, and without the curved grace of the swords.

  “What is it?” Yipachai asked when Harato finally stopped for more than a few moments.

  “A knife,” Harato replied. Using his tongs, he turned the metal around and inspected it closely.

  Feeling suddenly foolish, Yipachai tried to see it. It wasn’t the same shape as the knives he had seen in the kitchens at the monastery. And its blade still seemed too thin in comparison to the belt knives he had seen men in the city wear.

  “It looks the same as the swords, only in miniature.”

  At last, Harato regarded Yipachai with a smile. “That’s because swords were modeled after these, only larger. A Banqilun’s fudeshi is an important piece of him. It’s a tool, whereas a sword is merely a weapon.” He paused to clear his throat and set the newly-forged fudeshi blade on his anvil. “I, unfortunately, lost mine a few days ago, and have felt strangely incomplete ever since.”

  Harato hung his tongs up on a peg on one of the smithy’s two walls, then pulled out two wooden stools from where they had been stacked in the corner. He sat down on one, letting out a long sigh and gesturing for Yipachai to take the other.

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  Yipachai obliged, grateful for a chance to sit again. Unfortunately, the stool was so tall that he had to sit closer to the edge so that his feet wouldn’t dangle like a child. Banqilun truly were enormous.

  “But what about you, young master Yipachai?” Harato asked, looking at Yipachai thoughtfully and stroking his beard. “I suppose you’ll be eager to get back to your monastery. I’m sure all the monks are worried to death about you and the other acolytes who were taken.”

  Yipachai paused, envisioning himself walking all the way back first to the border between Amigawa and the Het Kingdom, then all the way to Hanaburi, and finally the last leg to the monastery in Hongshu. Even if he found a bird to bond and flew, it would likely take at least several days to find his way. And if he did make it all the way back? The monastery was in ruins. The monks might be worried for the other acolytes, but with Elder Satsanan gone, he doubted anyone would spare a thought for her protégé.

  Besides, Yipachai couldn’t go back to the monastic life now. He had accepted hatred into his heart. He was confident it was the right decision, but that meant there was no longer a place for him as a monk. And if he returned to Hanaburi, he’d be without friends, family, or work. Growing up in Elder Satsanan’s care, he had never learned a trade.

  “Actually,” he said, “I was wondering if I might be able to stay here for a few days while I…figure everything out.”

  Harato nodded, as if that was what he had expected for Yipachai to say all along. “It’s fine by me, as long as you’re willing to help me around the forge a bit.”

  Yipachai straightened, a smile coming to his lips. “Really? You mean I can? I mean—I’m happy to help however you need…Sir.”

  Harato gave him another one of his warm, bearded smiles, then stood and beckoned Yipachai to follow. The older man led him away from the house and the smithy to a coppice of young trees near the stream. A long-handled axe stood propped up against a larger stump.

  “You can start by chopping some of these pines.”

  “Is this part of the forging? I thought you just used Lan Banti to heat up the metal,” Yipachai said while attempting to disguise the way his face fell. He had been hoping to start making a sword or something, hammering the glowing steel out on the anvil like he had just seen Harato do.

  “No, this part is for the smelter. Lan Banti can heat up the sand plenty, and even melt the iron out of that sand, but no invocation can turn iron into steel. We’ll burn this wood in the pits, then use the charcoal we get in the smelter.”

  After a few further instructions, Yipachai set to work, swinging the heavy axe at the base of the trees that had grown large enough for processing. Once he had felled one, he worked at taking off the branches and splitting it into shorter pieces that he could carry over to the burn pits.

  It was hard work.

  Yipachai had done chores at the monastery nearly his whole life, but few of those had been as labor intensive as this. His arms quickly began to burn, but he kept on chopping. Not long after he started, Harato returned with a pair of gloves to help the blisters that were already beginning to form on Yipachai’s hands.

  By mid-morning, he was already exhausted. He sat down for a break on the tree he had just cut down, careful to avoid the sticky sap that had oozed out near the cut. Harato was still at the smithy, so Yipachai was content to just relax for a few minutes and catch his breath.

  A tall gray heron stalked fish or frogs in the water near the far bank of the stream. Its sinuous neck bobbed when it walked, before snapping straight and shooting the bird’s spear-like beak into the water after its prey.

  Curious, Yipachai reached out with his mind.

  Hello, friend heron. My name is Yipachai. What’s yours?

  The heron started visibly, then snapped its head around to look at Yipachai. My name is Pingou, it said, its voice more masculine in Yipachai’s mind.

  How’s the catch today?

  The heron’s gold-green eyes bored into Yipachai’s from across the stream. It is fine.

  The remainder of the morning passed much the same as before, with Yipachai sweating and trying his best not to take a break after every swing of the axe. By the time Harato called him back for lunch, he had a respectable pile of pine logs stacked and ready for drying. At least, it seemed like a lot to Yipachai.

  After their midday meal, Harato had Yipachai carry buckets of the black sand from the beach down to the stream. Using a metal pan, the Banqilun showed him how to wash the sand so that the dirt and other materials washed away while the iron sank to the bottom and stayed there. Thankfully, this was easier work; the cool stream water was refreshing on his hands, and he didn’t have to lift anything too heavy except when he moved buckets full of sand or washed iron back and forth.

  Pingou remained, walking up and down the far bank and sometimes standing stock-still for long periods of time. Yipachai tried to entice the heron into further conversation, but Pingou didn’t seem interested.

  The next day, Harato showed Yipachai how to load up the smelter with the washed iron from the sand and the charcoal from the pine logs. Apparently, he always kept reserve supplies around the smithy so that he never had to wait too long to keep working. That seemed to be Harato’s way: simple, regular. He was always able to make time to gather the materials he needed before they were needed. And since he usually had time to spare while wood was burning down to charcoal, or iron was…doing whatever it did to become steel. Yipachai hadn’t quite understood that process.

  “So, when will we get to start swinging the hammers?” Yipachai asked while they were waiting for the smelter.

  “Patience,” Harato replied. “First we need to have good steel to swing them at.”

  While Yipachai was staring at the smoke rising out of the top of the smelter, Harato suddenly stood.

  “That’ll be Takamoto,” he said, making his way around the front of the house. The sounds of footsteps and creaking wood soon became apparent.

  Yipachai followed. “Who?”

  Harato turned back to him and grinned. “One of my business partners, of course.”

  The Rising Blade!