“It was the shaman who was the primary threat, but it seemed, at first, to be just a bunch of orcs,” the trainer said. “Your failure to properly reconnoiter the objective was your undoing. Your enemy will attempt to deceive you. He will attempt to appear less capable than he is. Remember that. Know your enemy and know thyself. All else will become clear if you know both.”
“Herzer, playing wargames?” Dionys’ head had popped into existence over the shoulder of the avatar. The avatar did not seem to notice.
“Just finished,” Herzer replied, finishing the water.
“We’re having a bit of a party over at Sean’s, something fun,” the older man said. “Why don’t you come along.” It was a statement, not a question.
Herzer was mentally drained if not physically, but he didn’t want to lose Dionys’ good grace. “Just let me clean up a bit,” he said. “I’ll be over in a few minutes.”
“Great,” McCanoc said with a toothy smile. “We’ll be waiting.”
“Gotta go,” Herzer said, tossing the cup to the trainer.
“Remember, young Herzer, know thyself,” the avatar said as he left.
Edmund hammered the glowing sword blade and turned it over on the anvil, trying to determine how much more work it would take. He looked up with a nod as Myron Raeburn walked into the forge.
“I need you to beat a couple of those into plowshares,” Myron said with a grin.
“Very funny,” Talbot growled in reply. “What can I do for you, Myron?”
“You don’t seem particularly happy this morning,” the farmer said, cocking his head to the side.
“Even paradise has its thorns,” Edmund replied obliquely. “What sort of plowshares do you need?”
“Dionys still giving you trouble?” Myron pursued, taking a seat on a smaller anvil. The weather computers had allowed a late-season cold front through to the east coast and the warmth of the forge was pleasant after the cold walk from his fields.
“No, Dionys hasn’t tried any tricks since our little discussion,” the smith admitted. “That is part of it. Other things as well. I don’t particularly want to talk about it.”
“Gotcha,” the farmer replied. “Well the reason I came down is that I managed to secure a vintage water-powered threshing machine,” he continued with a grin.
“Going to install it by the mill?” Edmund frowned. “It’s not period; the period Nazis are going to go ape.” He thought about that for a moment then grinned. “Need help?”
“I can get it set up myself,” Raeburn replied with a matching grin. “But the millennia have not been kind to it, for all it was well kept. A couple of the spave arms need serious work…”
“You can replicate those,” Edmund argued shaking his head. “It makes no sense for me to just beat them out.”
“Edmund,” the farmer replied, spreading his hands, “I know that but… I mean I use a horse drawn plow, for Ghu’s sake. I’m willing to replicate the building, there’s no other way short of waiting for Faire and hoping I can get some people to help me erect it. But…”
“I’ll do it,” Edmund sighed then chuckled. “Chisto I’m glad we don’t really live in the thirteenth century.”
“Me too. Indoor plumbing.”
“Medical nannites.”
“Insulation.”
“Dwarves!” said a gravelly, accented voice from the door.
The visitor was short, just below five feet, and nearly as broad as he was tall. He wore furs against the weather over chain mail and leather. He had a broad double-headed axe over his shoulder and a round half helm on his head. And he was wearing a broad, toothy grin surrounded by a beard that hung nearly to the floor.
“Angus!” Talbot said, striding over and grabbing the dwarf around his broad shoulders. “You could have sent a rider ahead!”
“No dwarf will ride a horse if their own legs, or a wagon, will carry them,” the dwarf said, leaning his axe on the wall. “Bloody cold weather to travel, though. Glad I am for the warmth of thy forge.”
Two centuries before Angus Peterka had gotten so enraptured by the traditional image of dwarves that he had Changed and started his own dwarf colony in the Steel Hills of Sylva. The hills had been mined out millennia before, but in the last half a millennia most of the materials had been reimplanted under a long-term ecological rebuilding program or through dumping into the hollowed out mines. He had added materials that were not original to the mountains, streams of silver, various jewels, gold and, deep, deep in the mountain a nanotech-based material that he had decided met the conditions for adamantine. All of the material was put in with a semirandom generator and for the last two centuries he’d been trying to find it all. He referred to it as “proper mining,” his friends referred to it as “the world’s largest scavenger hunt.” Other “dwarves” came and went, but Angus stayed on, propping shafts, finding veins and quaffing beer.
As a hobby, Edmund thought that it ran to obsession. On the other hand, his own obsessions had driven away more lady friends than he cared to count, including the only one he had ever truly loved. He wasn’t one to cast stones.
“I’ve your steel load,” Angus said, walking over to the forge to warm his hands. “And I’ve finally found a vein of bloody adamantine. I’d be happy for your opinion.” He held out a hand-sized bar of a dull gray material.
“Doesn’t look like much,” Edmund replied, tossing it in the air. Strangely, when he threw it it seemed to have almost no weight, but when it smacked into his palm the impact was palpable. “Nannite enhanced?”
“Enhanced, yes, but they aren’t in it, ya see,” Angus said. “It was developed in… hmmm… the twenty-third century or so as a reactive material for powered body armor. So it’s legal for nonpowered unlimited armor tourneys!”
“Ah,” Myron said. “Doesn’t matter, nobody else will like it as ugly as it is.”
“It changes appearance when you final treat it,” Angus said, taking the bar and tossing it in the forge. “You can’t just heat it; no fire you can make in a forge, even a multistage one, will affect it. It’s rated to stay intact in a photosphere; you have to use nannites and electromagnetic fields to form it. But, oh, when you do work it!” He drew his belt knife and flourished the blade. “Behold! Adamantine!”
The knife blade was bright silver with a rainbow shimmer running through it. Edmund took the knife and ran his finger against it, drawing back a cut callus. Then he took up the sword blade he had been working on and scratched the knife blade against it. Instead of leaving a streak or a small cut it sliced deeply into the metal.
“Bloody hell,” Myron said.
“Did I mention it will form a monomolecular edge?” Angus said with another beard-shrouded grin.
“Strange feel,” Talbot said thoughtfully, tossing the knife up and down. After a couple of tosses he threw it to stick in the door. The knife sank up to its hilt. “Nonperiod metals. The Council won’t permit it for tourney.”
“Not regular tourneys, no,” Angus said with a shrug. “But unlimited nonpowered, yes.”
“Yah,” Edmund said. “How did you say you form it?” he asked, plucking the material out of the fire. He tested it with a wetted finger but as he half expected it was not even warm. “Strange stuff.”