Writing Prompt Challenge #2

Prompt:

Tales tell of a blacksmith at the top of the mountain. He knows the future, but says nothing. He only makes you what you need. (Credit for the original prompt goes to those at /r/writingprompts, you can find the original thread here!)

The Mountain's Smith.

“Bring it around!” Havelock whipped his fist in a circular motion above his head as he exited the great cabin and strode to the middle of the ship. Crewmen heaved on various lines, reefing the sails while the blustering wind settled into a sporadic moment of relative calm. This looks like the right area. Images of the maps he’d had sprawled out over his desk flashed through his mind.

The Autumn’s Dawn groaned, listing port side. Havelock’s lungs burned, stabs of ice scraping his throat as he drew breath, ready to bark more orders. The morning air was laced with scents of the pine trees which bristled on the mountainside, wrapped in white powder coats of snow which glittered under sunlight spilling across the horizon from the east.

“Aye Cap’n.” The gruff voice of Havelock’s First Mate answered from the helm of the ship, standing upon a raised dais that jutted forward from the aftcastle out over quarterdeck.

“That’s it.” Havelock nodded, satisfied. He wheeled toward a flight of stairs which curved up past the side of the ship before turning back into the aftcastle. Through his gloves he could feel the smooth wood of the ship’s railing which, despite his fur-lined gloves, radiated a coldness that bit through his flesh and seeped into his bones. The sooner we get back to the Lowlands the better. Havelock glanced over the ships edge, they drifted a few hundred yards above the mountainside which cut a steep decline toward grassy fields a mile or two below. A gust of wind lashed up beside the ship, Havelock recoiled, reflexively clamping a hand down atop his tricorne hat before it was snatched away. He was met with a warm smile from Azar as he bound from the stairs up to the helm.

“Morning Cap’n.” Azar tugged at one of his beards auburn braids. The dwarf a near four feet tall, almost matched by the height of the ship’s wheel. Bound in a fur coat, he looked closer to a bristlebear than a dwarf. Frost had formed along the fringes of his beard, and above the bushy brows which overshadowed sunken hazel eyes. “A lit’l chilly, but nothin’ too bad, eh?” He sniffed, his nose reddened by the cold.

“This is the one day you’ll hear me say I envy your beard my friend.” Havelock smirked for a moment before a lash of wind stung his cheeks and harried his eyes.

“I’d say flight goggles would help.” Azar guided the wheel of the ship slowly right as they followed the curve of the mountain, “but that won’t help here. Fog up in an instant. We’ll have to snag ones better suited for cold weather next tim—”

“No we won’t. Tell the Great Library we’re never going to a region this cold again. Damn the Professori, if they’re so curious about folklore and myth, they can come out here themselves.”

“Ha.”

“Taleferon better be right about the location.” Havelock studied the valley which spread from horizon to horizon ahead of the ship, a beautiful patchwork of cultivated wheat fields, swaying plains of heather, a few grain silos and farmsteads. The hinterlands just past the fields, stretching from the coastline to the west, visible past the mountainside, gave way to marshes and rolling hills that vanished at the horizon. He watched a trio of skyships—likely merchant craft given their bloated hulls—running a course over the coastal bluffs, likely bound for one of the monastic cities that laid somewhere past the hinterlands.
“He’s your elf.” Azar grunted. “Don’t know why you keep him aboard.”

“He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.”

“An’ most arrog’nt. There ain’t a spot on the ship I can’t hear him whine about somethin’ or another.”

“He can come off as a little condescending.” Havelock admitted. He strained his ears for a moment, and even past the clank of ratlines, the snaps of fabric, and the groaning of his ship, somewhere below deck he could here the shrill intonations of Taleferon, likely berating himself over a perplexing book, or disagreeing whole-heartedly with an Professori’s faulty thesis. “Chalk it up to cultural differences. Is that our spot?”

A plume of thick smoke rose from a break in the pines, where the rocky mountainside separated to reveal a clearing nestled in relative obscurity.

“It may be.” Azar turned the wheel slightly sharper, angling the ship nearer. “Bring ‘er to a stop!” Azar commanded, shouting out across the deck as well as into the mouth of a communications tube that ran to personnel below deck. The crew moved in a near-immediate response to the orders, tossing weights over the side and stretching counter-sails at just the right angle to catch opposing wind.

The Autumn’s Dawn began to slow.

“Have the hull lift readied. I’ll take it down.”

“What size compliment do you want to accompany you Cap’n?” Azar stepped away from the wheel, “shall I fetch my gear?”

“Stay with the ship. I was reading some of the notes from the library. Man up here’s a hermit, doesn’t speak to more than one person at a time—or, at all. Apparently.”

“If he don’t speak at all, why’s it matter if anyone comes with?”

“I’d rather we not cause more of a stir than we have to. Let’s just see if this guy exists, and we can bring our reports back to the Professori and the Great Library. I’ll be fine.” Havelock tapped his fingers along the four garnet castingstones embedded in the knuckles of his glove and jostled the hilt of his cutlass, “I’ll be fine.” He repeated, a bit of reassurance in answer to Azar’s suspicious gaze. “Tell them I’m coming down.”
​
“Aye.”

---

The square platform rattled and jolted as it separated from the hull of The Autumn’s Dawn, lowered by four heavy chains, thick as some men’s torsos. Havelock held to the railing which lined three of the platform’s four sides, watching the interior of the hull raise away from him and the ruddy face of the crewman at the lift’s controls shrink from just over the lip of the hole. The scent of pine grew more intense, Havelock caught the minty taste of the air. The lift squelched to a halt, rocking in the hands of the wind just a foot from the snowy ground.

He flashed a thumbs up and stepped down from the platform, his boots sinking a half foot into the snow to firm ground below. An eagerness filled him, fueled by mystery and curiosity. The papers the Professori and Great Library had left him outlined a legendary blacksmith who called these craggy peaks home, blessed in craft as well as the ability to see ones future—and give them what they’d need.

“So what do I need?” Havelock muttered as he trudged through the snow, up a slight incline toward a stone structure which sat wide and low to the ground, from wall to wall of the clearing formed by the mountainside, a single black door at its center. The rattle of chains behind him signaled the ascent of the hull’s lift, and the loss of any quick escape should something prove wrong.

As Havelock left the shadow of The Autumn’s Dawn, the door to the blacksmith cracked open, squealing on large hinges as a large figure stepped into the light. Havelock glanced back toward his ship, seeing the squat form of Azar, contrasted with the lanky silhouette of Taleferon back-lighted by the sun. Half a dozen crew manned the railing, rifles in hand.

That won’t really help. Havelock sighed. A bald man had appeared, soot stained high cheeks, and a thick smock clung to his heavily muscled form. As Havelock drew closer, the cold air vanished, replaced by a wall of heat radiating from the entirety of the structure. He looked up at the blacksmith who stood at least a foot taller than he, and realized he had no eyebrows.

“Hello there.” Havelock gave a polite wave, pine mixed with the scent of smoke and oils now, the snow had given way to a patch of reddened earth. “I’m Captain Havelock Stormbound of the—”

The blacksmith held a finger up, quieting Havelock, before extending a closed fist.

Havelock reached a hand out to receive whatever he was being offered. A silver key dropped down into his glove, its shaft faceted with what Havelock recognized as the five known casting stones, each color contrasting with the next. Red, green, white, blue, and black. Havelock looked up at the blacksmith. “What do you expect me to do with this?”

The blacksmith shrugged, turning away and retreating back into the confines of his smithy.

“So?” Azar called from above, his words echoed off the mountainside. Havelock sighed, noting the position of the three skyships further inland since he’d first spotted them, before he looked up toward his first mate.

“It’s a key!”

“For what?” Azar turned toward Taleferon who’d evidently said something the dwarf hadn’t liked.

“Winds know!” Havelock shrugged, starting for the lift being lowered back down.