Book 2 Ch 32: Blunt

Michael smiled at the dwarf as he stepped into his workshop. There was something eminently entertaining about those that he’d met so far. Admittedly that amounted to Dugan and a few dwarves he’d healed back in Stad, but he really appreciated how well they took to grumpiness. They seemed to be naturals at scowling, even when gold and good news was in their future. He’d healed one dwarf’s broken tooth and the first thing she’d said was, ‘don’t expect me to smile at you to show it off’.

“Things are only going to get busier for you I’m afraid. My expedition was only the first one to return, and we were the smallest of the groups.”

The dwarf rubbed a blackened hand across his face. “Lords below, I came here to live an easy life of fixing wives’ pots and pans and the occasional guardsman’s spear.”

Michael shrugged. “I guess you’ll just have to suffer busy with pockets weighed down heavily with fat stacks of coin.”

The dwarf snorted. “I guess there’s that.” He held out his hand. “Gurndan.”

Michael took the hand and gave it a firm shake. His own hand wasn’t small, but it felt like a child’s squeezed in the dwarf’s tremendous grip.

“Michael.”

“Alright Michael. Whip it all out and let’s take a look at what yer packing.”

Clara giggled at that and the dwarf sent her a surly wink.

Michael took his pack and started to place each piece of his armor down. The dwarf would take a look at each piece, muttering as he did so before moving onto the next. When he got to the swords he frowned and actually spat on the flame of his forge.

“What in all that comes up from the ground is this?” he asked, holding up the thick sword that had been forged for him by the blacksmith back in that Svict village they’d cleared the yeti rift from. Even with his ministrations the previous evening it was blackened and brittled.

“I have the ability to summon powerful energies into my sword from the divine. I had a blacksmith forge that sword thicker, but it seems like it’s starting to wear down too.”

“It was already ugly, and you shat on the poor thing on top of it.” He shook his head. “Did you ever consider that maybe a sword wasn’t the best thing for you to be doing this with?”

“Uh, well, most of my training was with a blade.”

“Yes, yes, you’re from Stent, that’s written all over this steel even with the many many patch jobs it’s all seen before.” He shook his head. “I’ll never understand humans’ obsession with swords. Based on the chips and bends in the rest of this I’m guessing you’ve got quite the list of Titles and Deeds as well?”

“I do.”

“And you never considered something more durable? I mean, there’s a few metals that can make a durable enough sword to withstand a heavily titled warrior, and even a few titled blades that are unbreakable, but you know what else is hard to break?”

“What?” asked Michael.

“A thick fucking metal rod with an even thicker top end.”

“A mace?”

“Aye, a mace!” said the dwarf practically tossing the heavy sword back onto the counter it had been on. “It may not look as pretty as a someone with long golden locks like yours might prefer, but it won’t break and it can wreck the fuck out of anything if you hit with it hard enough.”

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“Do you… have a mace available?”

“No! But now you’ve got my damned blood up, and that pretty little thing you brought with you is not helping in that regard either. Leave all of your shit and I’ll fix it all up. I’ll use the metal from this abomination,” he held the heavy bladed sword as if it was a diseased thing, “to forge you a mace.”

“And how much is that going to run me?” asked Michael with a raised eyebrow.