The crowd gasped, and Persephone breathed again.
Like everyone else, Raithe stared at the shimmering sword in awe. “How many did they give you?”
“Just this one.” She couldn’t help but smile.
“One?” Raithe looked at her puzzled. “But…just one sword? You can’t outfit an army with a single blade.” She watched his smile fade, his shoulders droop. “Even if they’d given you a thousand, it wouldn’t be enough.”
“Exactly. Which is why I didn’t return with shipments of swords. Tell him, Roan.”
Roan, who was still folding up the blanket after having started over three times, froze at the sound of her name.
“Tell him,” Persephone insisted.
Roan said something, but with her head down and her hair hiding her face, her voice didn’t carry.
“Louder, Roan,” Moya said.
Roan lifted her head. “I…I can make them.”
“You can make them?” Raithe asked.
She nodded far too timidly.
Persephone shouted to the crowd while pointing at her. “This woman knows the secrets to making swords like these!”
Roan jumped at the volume of Persephone’s voice and visibly cowered. She took several steps backward, leaving the open space of the courtyard and joining the crowd.
Persephone handed the sword to Raithe.
He stared at the weapon, then at Roan.
The girl drew up her shoulders as if she were a turtle trying to hide, but somehow she found the courage to say, “I can make better ones.”
Raithe glanced at the post. “This one destroyed Shegon’s sword.”
“I know, but I can do better. I…they…didn’t follow the steps right. But then they didn’t know how to figure out the markings on the stones. Only Brin knows how to do that. In fact, they didn’t even know about the tablet until we brought it out of the mountain. So, they just did what they’ve always done. The Old One’s way is better. More carbon makes it harder, less flexible, and a bit more brittle, but it will hold a sharper edge and be lighter, so much lighter. I could make a sword twice this length and it will weigh half as much. Well maybe not half, a third less perhaps. I don’t know. I have to try some things.”
The other chieftains approached. “Is it magic?” Tegan asked, watching the blade in Raithe’s hands as if he held a dangerous snake.
“No,” Persephone said. “Which means Roan can teach others to make them as well.” Persephone stepped before Raithe. “I didn’t bring back a thousand swords. I brought back a thousand swords a month.”
“More than that…” Roan spoke up again. The girl was a mouse except when it came to talking about how things worked. “Once I get everything figured out, we could work in batches. The real problem is getting the material.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the reddish rock. “This is iron. Well, sorta. I took this from their workshop. They had plenty.”
The chieftains drew closer to look at the silver-speckled rock.
“Will the Dherg let us have it?” Krugen asked.
“For a price, maybe,” Lipit said, his tone disapproving. “The Dherg are vicious traders.”
“Don’t count on that,” Moya told them. “I doubt they would part with an ounce regardless of the price.”
“Then what good is it if we can’t—”
Gifford pushed his way through the crowd, using his crutch like a shepherd’s crook to clear a path. “I’ve seen that be-foe,” he said, elbowing his way in.
“Gifford!” Roan shouted. Dropping her carefully folded blanket, she rushed over, stopping just short of touching him. “You’re all right! You’re better!”
“You can look at me and say that?” He grinned.
“I just thought…I thought…”
“I thought the same about you.”
“Where have you seen it?” Harkon demanded.
Gifford refused to take his eyes off Roan, so when he spoke he appeared to be talking to her. “I dig fo’ stuff to make glazes. Woan and I’ve found all kinds of metals. But I couldn’t do anything with that, so we didn’t use it.”
Roan smiled. “You have to heat it until it’s very hot. You use this huge bag that blows air. It’s called a bellows.”
“How common is this?” Lipit asked.
“Very, I think,” Tegan said. “In Warric we mine for copper in the hill near the Galeannon River. Not much copper, but there’s a lot of this rock.”
“If we get the iron, we can make more than just swords,” Persephone said. “We can fashion armor, too, shirts of metal rings like the Dherg. They will be light but stop the sharpest blades. And we can make shields that won’t shatter. Given time, we can outfit an army with better weapons and armor than the Fhrey.”
Raithe took Persephone by the shoulders. He was biting his lower lip as he grinned, his eyes staring as if he’d never seen her before. “You did it,” Raithe said in awe. “You really did.”
Persephone grabbed hold of his arms and squeezed. “So you’ll accept? You’ll be keenig?”
He stared into her eyes. “No.”
“No! But…do you realize how difficult it was to—”
Raithe turned to the other chieftains and interrupted her. “I never got a chance to name my nomination.”
This brought a look of puzzlement from everyone.
“You didn’t need to,” Tegan said. “Persephone already nominated you.”
“Not me. Her. I nominate Persephone, chieftain of Clan Rhen, to be our keenig.”
Persephone displayed the most shock of anyone. “Raithe. No. I—”
“I agree!” Moya said, a huge grin on her face.
Raithe smiled at her, and then spoke to the chieftains, who looked less than convinced. “For days we’ve sat here arguing and accomplishing nothing. While we talked, while we worried, Persephone risked her life crossing the sea, and she’s returned with the answer to our problems. And did she take an army? Did she wield sword and spear in battle? No. She took the best minds she knew, and that’s how she succeeded, by using her head rather than muscle. Could you have done that, Tegan?”
The Warric chieftain shook his head and looked at Persephone with different eyes—serious eyes.
“What about you, Lipit? You live here at the foot of the sea, right across from the Dherg. You trade with them daily. Why didn’t you manage to obtain the secret of this magic metal?”
Lipit didn’t answer. He, too, stared at Persephone, his eyes shifting from her face to Raithe’s hand and the shimmering sword.
“Truth is, none of you could. I know I couldn’t.” Raithe raised his voice to a shout. “How about you, Udgar? Could you do what this woman has done?”
Persephone turned to see a huge, ugly man standing at the far side of the courtyard. He was missing parts of his nose and was covered in thick red hair.
“Persephone, chieftain of Dahl Rhen”—Raithe motioned to the giant man—“meet Udgar, keenig of the Gula clans.”
“You are a chieftain?” Udgar spoke in a deep, brawny voice.
“Yes,” she said, looking nearly straight up at the hulking brute. “So the Gula-Rhunes got my messages.”